ON SS. LUCY AND GEMINIANUS, MARTYRS AT ROME,
Under Diocletian
A HISTORICO-CRITICAL COLLECTION.
Lucy, widow and martyr at Rome (S.)
Geminianus, martyr at Rome (S.)
BY U. S.
§ I. The most ancient cultus of the Saints: their fabulous Acts: a summary of these from Ado.
[ ] The most constant and most famous memory
of the distinguished martyrs Lucy
and Geminianus in the ecclesiastical
documents clearly shows
their certain and undoubted veneration,
hallowed throughout the whole
Catholic Church, The cultus of our Saints so much so that
it seems useless to bring forward other arguments
for establishing their most ancient cultus.
For although they are not inserted in the older Hieronymian Calendars
published by Florentinius, their names are inscribed
in almost all the other Martyrologies
and Calendars of SS. Lucy and Geminianus.
The abbreviated Hieronymian codices of Rheinau, Reichenau,
and Labbe recall Lucy and Geminianus at Rome;
the Gellone and Augsburg, Fulda,
Ottoboni, Wandelbert, Bede, and Raban
Martyrologies, and the Vatican Calendar 3806,
expressly announce both, but do not assign the arena
ennobled by their shed blood. The lesser Roman Martyrology
published by the care of Rosweyde, and by him
called the old Roman, noted also the place
in which they suffered, in this manner: At Rome,
of Lucy and Geminianus, martyrs: and in the Roman Calendar
illustrated by the work of Fronto, on the present
day is read: The birthday of SS. Lucy and Euphemia; and the aforesaid
Fronto observes there: Not so
in the Sacramentary of Pamelius and Menard: but first
of St. Euphemia. Then on the same day of SS. Lucy
and Geminianus. Baronius says that three churches at Rome were dedicated
in the name of Euphemia, although she suffered at Alexandria (nay rather
at Chalcedon). But Lucy suffered at Rome.
[2] What Fronto observed on his Calendar
from the Martyrologies, has crept in not a little into the aforecited Martyrologies,
since they announce in the same manner, Of Lucy,
Euphemia, and Geminianus: and the Rheinau writes
Of Eugenia; and the Vatican seems to have a continuous
sense, and to ascribe Lucy also to Chalcedon:
but it suffices to have indicated that in a word.
Our holy Martyrs are found also in the Martyrologies of Ado
and Usuard, the last of which adorns them with this brief
eulogy: At Rome, of the holy martyrs
Lucy, a noble matron, and Geminianus,
whom Diocletian, after they had been most grievously afflicted with punishments and long
tortured, at length, after the praiseworthy victory of martyrdom,
ordered to be executed with the sword. Sollerius observes,
in his Usuard, that nothing is contained in this announcement
which can greatly be called
in doubt, provided only the persecution of Diocletian be substituted
in place of the persecutor himself. From Usuard's text
the Roman Martyrology of Baronius scarcely differs,
whose words therefore, as also those of others, I judged
should not here be set out. The memory of the Saints Lucy and
Geminianus is also celebrated in the Sacramentary
of Gregory on the present day. Considering therefore
this number of martyrologists, I cannot but
wonder, with Florentinius in his Annotations on the XVI of September,
how neither in the codex of Florentinius, nor
in the Corbie and the Antwerp, the memory of SS. Lucy and
Geminianus is made, whereas nevertheless other Roman
martyrs, divided into several ranks, are indicated
as passed over by them.
[3] Our Saints also are marked on the following day by the
Menæa of the Greeks, in the Menæa and Menologies of the Greeks, with four little verses added,
which I do not render into Latin, because they include nothing
peculiar which could afford a fuller knowledge of them.
The Greek Menology of the Most Eminent
Sirleto treats of them more fully in this manner: On the same
day (the XVII of September) the birthday of the holy martyr
Lucy, a widow, and of holy Geminianus, her son and a martyr.
She, under the emperors Maximian and Diocletian,
illustrious in the city of Rome for wealth and birth,
being seventy-five years old, passed thirty-six
as a widow: accused before Diocletian
of practicing the Christian faith, she was grievously
beaten, afterwards into a bronze cauldron full of boiling pitch
(some dots are then set, because
one word or another is wanting, perhaps "cast" and thence)
she came forth unharmed, and when she was being led about
the City, Geminianus met her, who following her,
a little after was baptized and was called her son.
At last Lucy, after many torments,
was crowned with martyrdom, but Geminianus, afterwards
beheaded, was taken up into heaven. The same
Greek Menology, formerly published in Greek by the order of the emperor Basil,
now published in Greek and Latin
by the zeal and labor of the Most Eminent Annibale Albani,
which writes Geminianus, adds besides some things
which will be more conveniently discussed below, where we shall treat
of the Acts and the arena of the martyrdom.
[4] All these things plainly suffice, so that no one can deny
that the cultus of these Saints is very ancient
and legitimate. and is shown by other things. It is confirmed by this,
that Domenico Giorgi writes in his Annotations on the Martyrology
of Ado: In the Roman order XII
of Cencius the Chamberlain, number XL, page CXCII, mention is made
of a church of St. Geminianus in the City: nor is it less established
from Baronius, saying in the Annotations on his
Martyrology: There is besides, next to the Tiber, an ancient
memorial of the same Martyrs, where also their
sacred bodies are said to be laid; although the people of Lucca
testify that the same were translated to them: but it must
be thought to have happened, as frequently in other cases, that
a part of them and not entire bodies were translated.
Tillemont observes, in the persecution of Diocletian,
article 15, that Florentinius, although a man of Lucca,
made no mention of that translation. The aforesaid
Baronius adds these things there: Some confound
this Lucy with the one of Syracuse, and thus also the church
erected by Pope Honorius on the Esquiline, called
the Diaconia of St. Lucy at the Seven Leaves, situated
near the basilica of St. Sylvester, is attributed to her. But
that the one must be distinguished from the other is proved by the disparity of the cultus
exhibited by the Church to each. But
these things will be more fitly examined on the XIII day of December,
where it will also have to be weighed whose Lucy's
name is inserted in the Canon of the most holy Mass. See
meanwhile, if you please, Sollerius's observation on the Martyrology
of Usuard on the XIII day of December.
[5] Their deeds As certain and in no way doubtful as is the cultus of SS.
Lucy and Geminianus, so uncertain and
altogether doubtful are their deeds, so that scarcely
anything can I safely and without danger of error assert.
Baronius, in the place mentioned above, says: Mombritius
recites their acts in volume 2. We have
them in an old manuscript codex, whose
beginning is: In the consulship of Diocletian for the eighth time and Maximian
for the seventh, etc. They have however some things which
should be corrected. And this indeed is a sufficiently mild censure
of that Most Eminent man. Ottavio Gaetani, in his Animadversions
on the Lives of the Sicilian Saints,
in the first animadversion on the Contest of the holy
martyrs Lucy and Geminianus, after he had premised
from which manuscript codices, both
Sicilian and Roman, he had composed the history of this contest,
and had besides enumerated several authors
who published in print Acts agreeing with the manuscripts,
speaks thus.
[6] only from fabulous Acts For the rest, I forewarn you that in composing these Acts
I have cut out some things from the Ms. books which no one
would approve, and before me the most learned Baronius
observed that those Acts have things which should be corrected;
although he did not explain what should be castigated.
We recall very few. There are named
in those Acts Gebal, assessor of the emperor
Diocletian, and Pyropogon, vicar of Rome, which
names are barbarous and suspect of falsehood. It is handed down that, Lucy
being thrust into prison, from its foundations, with the river
overflowing, the middle of the city perished: and that the house
of Diocletian was torn up from its foundations. That he who was beating Lucy
with a cudgel was made stone, except for
one hand, which remained of flesh: but that Diocletian,
who had ordered her to be beaten, withered away; but
was healed by Lucy's prayers: that Geminianus had at home
more than three thousand two hundred images: that at Rome
the temple of Jupiter was swallowed by a gaping of the earth; that Diocletian,
after Lucy and Geminianus had been tormented, having departed
from Rome, was drowned at the bridge of Galatium in the river
Thein with one thousand three hundred and forty-six men.
All of which are trifles. Other things I pass over,
lest I seem to have time to waste. But these things I have reviewed, that the Acts
might be known as corrupted in several places, and that no one
might wonder that some things have been cut out by me, and others rightly amended.
[7] So he, and rightly: but whether for the rest the Acts,
even as regards those things both in manuscripts, which the aforesaid Gaetani holds by no means suspect
of falsehood, nay even tries to defend,
can be admitted, will be seen below. We have Acts
very like those of Mombritius written
in two parchment codices, of which the former is marked with the letter
P. Ms. 19, the other Q. Ms. 6. We have also
two manuscript Acts, of which one was extracted
from an ancient manuscript of Father Sirmond, and collated
with a manuscript of Saint-Omer, and sent to us
in the year 1630; the other from a Fulda manuscript,
which was collated with a manuscript of St. Maximin
at Trier. These manuscript Acts by
Mombritius not seldom differ in words, but contain the same
facts, the same prodigies, and the same,
as Gaetani calls them, trifles. Yet I wish the reader
here to be warned that by Mombritius the story
of the drowning of Diocletian is not touched even in a word;
but whether he himself cut it out, as one who could easily
have detected it to be fabulous and merely invented,
or whether the Acts themselves which he transcribed lacked
that little fable, I could not easily divine.
[8] The Acts of SS. Lucy and Geminianus have besides been given to the press
by various men, and in printed copies some of whom I judge it will not be
useless here to review. Vincent of Beauvais published them,
book 12, chapters 39 and following. In some things
his history is more contracted than are the manuscripts
mentioned above: at times he omits some things
which it is superfluous to enumerate: the little fable of the drowning
of Diocletian I find thus softened in him: And when Diocletian,
having dismissed them (our Saints), had departed from Rome, and
was sailing on a certain river, he fell into the stream with one thousand three hundred
and forty-six men, who alone however
escaped. At the beginning he has, From the deeds: and in the margin
he writes: The Life of her (the holy martyr
Lucy) Ado describes, which Surius has on the XVI
of September, but more fully Peter, book VIII, chapter LXXXV.
He designates Peter de Natalibus, who summarily exhibits the Acts of SS. Lucy
and Geminianus conformable to our manuscripts,
but I read there the aforementioned fable about
Diocletian set forth a little differently, in these words: When he (Diocletian)
had come to the bridge of Gallatium, by God's judgment the bridge fell,
and, many being killed in the river, he himself scarcely
escaped with a few. St. Antoninus also, part 1,
title 8, chapter 1, §37, relates a brief history of these Saints
adorned from Vincent of Beauvais, in which
Diocletian is said, on departing from Rome, to have left his own Pyrropogon
as vicar. The Acts vary also
in the number of the images which were kept in the house of Geminianus,
but it is not worth the labor to sift out that
difference.
[9] From those things which at number 6 I adduced from Gaetani,
the prudent reader will easily determine we learn. Ado's what the authority
of those Acts is: to me at least they seem so stuffed with fables
that I hold it for certain that all the rest also,
as drawn from so foul a spring,
must deservedly be doubted. Wherefore these fabulous Acts
I shall not here print out: yet it will not be beside the purpose
to append the sufficiently long summary which Ado composed
from them, so that some specimen of the Acts
may be had: and thus he writes on the XVI day of September:
At Rome, the birthday of the holy Lucy and Geminianus,
under the emperor Diocletian, the judges being Apofrasius
and Megasius. Blessed Lucy had remained in
widowhood thirty-six years, and of her whole life
there were seventy-five years. Who, being accused
by her son Euprepius of being a Christian,
Diocletian ordered to be brought to him, and said to her:
I hear that you confess that guilty Crucified one,
and mock at our gods. Now therefore, if you are prepared
to live, the almighty gods are prepared that you should
offer them incense, that they may be propitious to you and you may live.
Holy Lucy answered: They are propitious neither to themselves,
nor to their worshipers. For my Lord Jesus Christ will be propitious
to me, for whose love I am prepared to suffer fire, chains,
and whatever punishments you will.
[10] A summary of the Acts, which Diocletian, hearing the constancy of her faith,
ordered her to be dragged to prison, where she merited divine
consolation. But being brought back again
before Diocletian sitting on the tribunal,
the glorious Woman was stretched out, and beaten very long
with cudgels. And behold, an earthquake suddenly took place,
and the temple of Jupiter was so undermined that
not a stone of the building remained upon a stone. And Diocletian
caused a bronze pot to be brought, and ordered it
to be filled with pitch and lead, and wood to be gathered round about
and kindled, and holy Lucy
to be plunged beneath (the Acts write: into) the pot,
where the Saint of God lived three days, chanting psalms. And Diocletian,
sending one who should report to him whether she had now been wholly
reduced to ashes, he who had been sent
reported on returning to the emperor that without any injury
she was living unharmed. Then the impious man, in no way stirred
by so great a miracle to believe in Christ,
ordered that, laden with iron and lead, she should be led through
the streets of the city. And she came before the house
of a very powerful man, by name Geminianus, in whose
house were countless images of demons.
[11] in some things differs And while holy Lucy passed by that house,
suddenly a dove white as snow descended
from heaven, and thrice tracing a cross over the head of Geminianus
settled there. Geminianus, looking up, saw
heaven open to him, and at once starting into a run
came to the place where the Saint of God was already being tortured.
And prostrating himself at her feet, he began
to relate what he had seen, and to seek the washing of Baptism.
And there was a certain priest, Protasius by name,
to whom an angel of the Lord, appearing by night, gave warning
that he should go to the prison, and baptize Geminianus, who
was seeking the fount of salvation. And he, when he had
awakened, went in haste, and washed the blessed Man with the water
of salvation. After the third day holy Lucy was set before
Diocletian, and with her Geminianus,
of whom the emperor had already heard. Whom
he, after they had been most grievously afflicted with punishments and long tortured, handed over
to a certain most perverse judge, that he might supply what
was lacking of punishments. Who first ordered
their necks to be bruised with cudgels, and presently, an earthquake
taking place, the vault of the judgment-house fell
and crushed the impious judge. Then the holy
Martyrs were set before Apofrasius, under whom also
seventy-five fulfilled martyrdom, who,
having seen the miracles which the Lord was working
about his Saints, had believed. This most impious judge,
after the slaying of these holy martyrs, the devil
goading his horse, was flung headlong from a stone bridge
into the river. His body was afterwards
found in no place. Then blessed Lucy and holy
Geminianus, being pressed hard by Megasius, a man of consular rank,
after a praiseworthy victory, were executed by the sword
of martyrdom on the sixteenth day before the Kalends
of October. Whose bodies a certain Christian
woman, Maxima by name, carried off, and, as
was fitting, buried the Martyrs.
[12] About all these things which I have now transcribed from Ado,
Tillemont, in the persecution of Diocletian, article 15, briefly
pronounces: from the Acts already reviewed. What Ado says about them
(our Martyrs) is worth absolutely nothing:
yet he adduces no cause for his censure. What
could have displeased him, I suspect to be those unusual
and stupendous prodigies, the earthquake recorded,
by which the temple of Jupiter is said to have been utterly overthrown,
which Gaetani himself banishes to old wives' fables,
and things like these, on which it does not please me to linger, especially
since from what has been said and what is to be said they may easily be gathered.
I observe however that Ado's synopsis differs in
not a few things from the Acts, both manuscript
and printed: for these plainly all write that Lucy
and Geminianus were carried by the help of angels from Rome into Sicily,
but Ado has not even a word about that
conveyance: these Acts relate that Lucy, after
many torments, peacefully gave up her spirit; but that Geminianus
was beheaded by the sword; Ado
expressly writes that both were slain by the sword, etc. But
since it must not be thought that the Acts were transcribed by Ado
either in bad faith or faultily, it follows
that one may be permitted to suspect that the Acts of SS. Lucy
and Geminianus were not, in Ado's time, so interpolated
as they now are.
§ II. The time and arena of the martyrdom.
[ ] The time of the martyrdom uncertain. The Most Eminent Baronius and others reckon SS. Lucy
and Geminianus among those whose
certain year, in which they were crowned with martyrdom, is by no means
expressed. And certainly it is difficult to determine the time
of their contest, since the authority of the Acts is plainly shattered
by so many fables: yet it pleases me
here to weigh whether on a solid foundation the glorious contest
of our Saints can be placed
before the year of Christ 303. It is now altogether agreed
among the learned that the most savage persecution of Diocletian
did not begin before the 19th year of his reign,
Diocletian holding his eighth consulship,
and Maximian Herculius his seventh, and
consequently the beginnings of that most cruel butchery must certainly be referred
to the year of Christ 303, in which falls
the aforementioned consulship of each old man. Since
therefore SS. Lucy and Geminianus are marked in the sacred Calendars
as slain under Diocletian, or at least while his persecution
raged, and this did not blaze out against the Christians
before the year 303, it is more likely that these victims
did not fall for Christ before that year.
[14] Ottavio Gaetani, cited above, in animadversion
2 on the Contest of SS. Lucy and Geminianus, Gaetani's opinion,
according to the writing of certain codices thinks
their martyrdom happened in the 13th year of the reign
of Diocletian, and holds that the eighth consulship of Diocletian
and the seventh of Herculius, as by no means
to be joined with the 13th year of the reign, were wrongly
added by writers to the Acts of those Martyrs,
and says that it is no wonder that false consuls are marked in these Acts,
since certain other things in the same are
corrupted. That he attributes this year to the Saints' martyrdom,
he asserts that he is also induced by this, that Lucy
the widow and Geminianus were put to death under Megasius,
the consular of Sicily; but in the 20th year of the reign
of Diocletian not Megasius, but Paschasius, who
subjected Lucy of Syracuse to martyrdom, was consular
of Sicily: It is therefore more likely, he says,
that SS. Lucy and Geminianus began their contest at Rome
in the 13th year of the reign of Diocletian and Maximian,
which afterwards, about two or three years later,
they completed in Sicily: but of these things more fully below.
[15] our Saints in the 13th year of Diocletian But the objection which could be made
against this opinion of his, the aforesaid writer strives thus
to forestall in the same place: Nor let it move you that the Acts
made mention of an edict issued by Diocletian in the XIX year
of his reign, for I shall presently say what
that edict was: and in animadversion 5 he speaks thus:
Do not take it as that most savage edict which
Diocletian and Maximian … promulgated
at the end of their reign: but understand the first edict,
which was issued by Diocletian in the third year of his reign at Rome
against the Christians who were living at Rome:
for the Acts signify this very edict,
when they hand down, to show the savagery of the persecution,
that there was no city, no village,
in which images were not set up, whereby
they seem to have alluded to Diocletian's orders given at the beginnings of his reign,
that it should be lawful for no one to sell or to buy,
nor to carry on any commerce, unless he had first burned
incense to an image, as is clear from Aretas the bishop
and Bede. Thus he tried to remove every difficulty,
by fixing that decree at the beginnings of the reign
of Diocletian, as do also the Acts of St. Sebastian,
which you have in our Work on the XX day
of January.
[16] as having suffered But it seems to me far more likely that that edict,
by which all were ordered to burn incense to the images of demons publicly set out everywhere,
ought to be referred to the year in which we said
the persecution began: for before this no other,
proceeding from the edicts of Diocletian himself, is to be admitted.
That I so judge is caused by the authority of Eusebius, who in book
8 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 4, the happy state of the Church
in the first eighteen years of Diocletian's reign describing,
testifies that the demon was then oppressed as with a deep sleep,
and that the faithful of Christ were held by all
in the highest veneration. Civil tumults also and
almost continual wars brought upon Diocletian
and Maximian by foreign nations then demanded all their cares
and endeavors so much that they seem by no means
to have thought of so bitter a vexation of the Christian religion,
which at last, freed from the disturbances of war,
and puffed up by the multitude of their victories, they stirred up
in a dreadful manner. To this opinion of mine there agrees
also the most beautiful contrast of Lactantius,
between the reign of Diocletian keeping peace with the Christians
and that of the same persecuting them: and thus
it stands in his book On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter 9: Diocles …
reigned with the highest felicity so long …
as he did not stain his hands with the blood of Christians:
and chapter 17: This crime (of persecution) therefore
being perpetrated, Diocletian, when felicity had already
withdrawn from him, etc.
[17] is impugned, It will be useful here also to transfer the words of Eusebius,
book 8 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 13. Therefore before
war was declared against us; so long as the emperors
were of a placid and benevolent mind toward us,
what abundance of all good things, and what
felicity, the Roman empire enjoyed,
who will suffice to set forth? And after a few words interposed: Thus,
while their principate was increased without any
obstacle, and flourished daily with new increases;
suddenly, their counsel being changed, dissolving the peace which they kept with us,
they brought upon us an inexpiable
war. Not yet had the second year of this warlike commotion
passed, when behold, a new and unlooked-for
mishap almost overthrew the Roman state. That irrefragable
authority of each of these writers, and
the comparison instituted between the felicity of the emperors
favoring the Christians and the unhappiness of the same
persecuting the Christians, does not indeed seem able to be sufficiently
reconciled with so atrocious an edict of Diocletian,
which Gaetani contends was issued in the third year of his reign and remained in force
to the thirteenth and beyond.
[18] But Gaetani's assertion becomes also less probable
from this, and the arguments being answered, that the Acts, in this point by no means corrected
by him, place Diocletian present at Rome at the contest
of SS. Lucy and Geminianus; whereas however
the presence of Diocletian in the City in the 13th year of his reign
seems to rest on no sufficiently solid foundation;
nay, it can be effectively shown that he was then
absent from Rome. There are indeed many things which persuade us that in the said
year Diocletian was in the East, and
subdued Alexandria in the eighth month from the beginning of the siege,
and filled all Egypt with slaughters and proscriptions,
Achilleus, the author of the sedition, being killed, under whose leadership six years before
Alexandria with all Egypt had revolted from the Roman power.
These things, more fully deduced and proved, the curious reader will find
in the Critica of Pagi at the year of Christ 296. There may also be consulted
Tillemont in his History of the emperors, volume
4, articles 14, 15, and 16, where many things are read
which make it evident that Diocletian was absent from Rome in the 12th, 13th, and 14th years
of his reign. Whence it appears
that the Acts are on this side also of no authority,
and that those codices are convicted of error which
bind the martyrdom of our Saints to the 13th year
of Diocletian's reign, and at the same time, but altogether against
the truth of history, note his eighth
consulship.
[19] Of the edict which Gaetani will have to have been issued
at the beginning of Diocletian's reign, the things which can be brought forward for Gaetani's opinion, the Acts
of St. Sebastian indeed make mention, which, cited by Baronius and Hessels,
Bolland inserted into his lucubrations; but them
he did not adopt as plainly authentic; and, that they should not be admitted
as such, there makes, besides other things, what I subjoin.
In volume 2 of January, page 275, number 64, it is thus read
in the Acts: In the reign of Carinus, Diocletian,
and Maximian. But Diocletian was in the City
with Maximian: while Carinus was stationed with his whole
army in the parts of Gaul. Who would believe
that Diocletian was at Rome, so long as Carinus
held supreme power in the West? For it is now undoubted
that Diocletian was at Chalcedon,
and was not taken to the purple before the XVII of September of the year 284,
after the slaying of Numerian.
Carinus, after Julian, who had taken the name of emperor in the West,
had been slain, moved into Illyricum
against Diocletian, and after various battles, victorious,
fell by the blows of his own men in the year 285, as from the Calendars of Idatius
and other documents Pagi learnedly demonstrates
at the said years. While Carinus survived, therefore,
Diocletian was not at Rome; and since the Acts of St. Sebastian
assert this, their authority totters,
and it seems that it may be said with Tillemont, in the Persecution of Diocletian,
article 3, that by the compiler of those Acts there was attributed
to the beginnings of Diocletian's reign what
should have been referred to its end.
[20] But, you will say, it cannot be doubted that
before the 19th year of Diocletian's reign some martyrs, both at Rome is rejected as improbable.
and elsewhere, sealed the faith of Christ with their blood.
This I do not think should be denied;
but there does not on that account seem to be admitted that monstrous
vexation of the Christians which Gaetani places from the third year
of Diocletian to the thirteenth.
For if in the first years after he came to the empire, by Diocletian's
order, St. Sebastian was pierced with arrows, if
some others were killed, he could, either for the sake of winning the goodwill
of the Romans, or for other particular
causes, have punished certain Christians:
yet it must be said that afterwards, having perceived
the fidelity of the Christians and their deserts toward himself, he changed his hatred
into love, especially since it is certain
that several Christians were set by him over provinces, without his in any way compelling
them to sacrifice to idols. If we must acknowledge others
before the persecution begun in the year 303,
I shall say that they were put to death by the private superstition
and cruelty of prefects, stirring up the ancient edicts of the emperors,
although not renewed by Diocletian, to the destruction of the Christians:
and if on that footing anyone should contend that before the year 303 SS. Lucy
and Geminianus could have been crowned with martyrdom, I shall
not gainsay it. But of these things more than enough.
[21] They could have suffered on the 16th of September in the year 303. As about the year, so also about the day on which
these holy Martyrs suffered, nothing certain can be determined; and that
this day is marked by most martyrologists as sacred
to their birthday, has its origin either from their own judgment
or from the Acts, whose credit, as I said
above, is none. Tillemont, in the Persecution of Diocletian,
article 15, says: It is certain that Diocletian,
to whom St. Lucy is reported to have been presented, was not at Rome
in the month of September; but he adds not a single word
by which to establish this certitude of his, nor does he indicate
whence he drew it. Since therefore I can here attain the mind
of this critic only by conjecture,
I judge that Diocletian's absence from the City in the said month seemed
certain to him because he undoubtingly acknowledges the XVII day
of September as the birthday of Diocletian's reign,
and on that very day, if he had been at Rome,
the vicennalia of his reign would have been celebrated: but
how far this opinion about the birthday of Diocletian's reign
is from evident certitude, the reader will be able
to see, if he will weigh the notes of Étienne Baluze on chapter
17 of the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors,
where the arguments of Pagi, fighting for the XVII day of September,
are answered. By the way I here observe
that Tillemont's opinion is more effectively overthrown by Baluze's reasonings
from this, that for fixing the birthday of Diocletian's reign
on the XVII of September he rests chiefly
on the subscription of certain laws,
and on the authority of the Alexandrian Chronicle: but
Tillemont himself more than once acknowledges that from the subscriptions of laws
no very valid argument is drawn,
and sometimes he detects an error in them:
he abandons also the authority of the Alexandrian Chronicle, and of others
who assign the year of Christ 304 to Diocletian's laying down of the purple,
that he may adhere to the better authority,
as he himself calls it, of Lactantius.
See, if you please, volume 4 of the History of the emperors, in the Notes
on Diocletian, 9, 17, 18, and 19.
[22] that our Saints died in Sicily, And so much for the time of the martyrdom; now of
the arena which our glorious Champions empurpled with their
blood, here we must treat. But before I approach this controversy,
I submit to the examination of the fair reader some things from the Acts
in which the whole dispute lies.
After narrating Geminianus's constant profession of the faith, now together with
Lucy, before the tribunal of Diocletian,
and the cudgeling endured by them, there is subjoined
the overthrow of the house in which the impious judgment
was being held; the judge himself and many of the heathen
being crushed, Lucy and Geminianus, dismissed
lifeless, are said to have been carried by divine power into Sicily:
then passing from one place to another,
they tread with their feet, having implored God's help, the impassable waters
of a river swollen by winter rains, no
otherwise than paved stones. Having advanced to the town of Menda,
they drive out the demons infesting the region,
and, the accustomed prodigies being performed, they win many to Christ.
By the judge Apophrasius, about to avenge his gods,
while seventy-five victims offered their necks to the impious sword
for the name of Christ, angels pour out a phial full of perfumes
over the bodies of the slain:
but, divine vengeance following the judge, being thrown
from a horse seized by a demon, his body was found nowhere.
Fearing the rage of Megasius, the other judge, SS. Lucy and Geminianus
are hidden by a sudden gaping of a mountain, and in their thirst
are refreshed by a fountain wonderfully flowing forth from a rock,
and at last, when she had ended her life peacefully and he by the sword,
angels were a help to a pious woman
devoting her labor to burying the holy bodies,
carrying marbles for the building of their tombs.
[23] What I have recounted has been extracted from the Acts published
by Gaetani among the Lives of the Sicilian Saints,
volume 1. with many arguments We saw at number 6 some things which Gaetani
deservedly struck out of the Acts, as smacking
of fable. I, that I may determine nothing hastily about the things which
I related in the preceding number, first of all
gladly profess with Ruinart in his Annotation to the Acta martyrum
sincera of the Paris edition of the year 1689, page
344, that The Acts of martyrs are not to be rejected
on this ground, that sometimes in
them … unusual miracles have been inserted by the faithful;
nay, I contend that great prodigies are to be received
with the highest veneration, and to be held as testimonies
of divine omnipotence, if they be narrated either by
those whose testimony is not suspect,
or be otherwise indubitably confirmed; but if they are related
only by authors of small name, or if it may rightly be doubted
whether they have not been embellished by poetic
wits, I judge that they must be weighed by any prudent man
according to the laws of an exact balance. Let us therefore search out the springs
from which they were drawn, and the weights of the matters on which
the things here controverted rest.
[24] Gaetani, contending that SS. Lucy and Geminianus
consummated in Sicily the contest Gaetani contends, which they had begun at Rome,
says that Galesinius, in writing
that the Roman soil was ennobled by their death, was deceived,
not having examined the manuscript
codices and the printed books, which decide against Galesinius:
for that they were carried by divine power from the city of Rome into the island
of Sicily, he says in animadversion 24,
… the manuscript parchments teach …
Besides, native writers skilled in our affairs,
and in them worthy of credit; and to this, foreigners: Peter,
bishop of Equilio, Vincent of Beauvais,
and St. Antoninus. But he had premised in animadversion
13: That many holy Martyrs were carried into other lands by the ministry
of angels. Read the examples in
their Acts. For my part I neither wish the bounds set
to be set to divine omnipotence, nor do I deny that this could have been done;
but that this prodigious translation took place,
and that unusual miracles followed it, Gaetani ought
to have shown by solid documents by no means suspect
of falsehood. Let us inspect his arguments one by one.
[25] This translation, he says, is asserted by the codices
both Roman and other writers; but and Sicilian. Be it so; but since,
as we have seen, Gaetani acknowledged that the Acts of our Saints
were corrupted by very many fables, and for that very reason
judged that they should be castigated, it concerned him
to prove by more certain testimonies that in the rest, which he did
not correct, the genuine sincerity of the Acts remains,
and that the writer, who imposed upon us in a good many things,
was faithful in others, and by no means a fabler:
for I judge that nothing is immune from the suspicion of fable
which is taken from a history stuffed with trifles and fictions,
and is not proved from elsewhere. He asserts that native writers stand
for this translation:
since he names none, I could not weigh the weights of the reasons
by which they try to establish their opinion:
if they published nothing but the Acts, I judge it lawful for me
to assert that they are of no greater authority
than the Acts themselves: nay, perhaps that falls upon
the Sicilian writers which Noël Alexandre said about the foreigners
mentioned by Gaetani, volume 3 of his Ecclesiastical History,
reprinted at Paris in the year 1714, at century
1, dissertation 17, page 185: I add that the authority of Vincent
of Beauvais and of St. Antoninus in historical matters
is of lighter weight. On which
matter it pleases me to subjoin the censure of that most learned man, Melchior Cano,
bishop of the Canaries; book 2 On
Theological Places, where he treats of the authority of human
history, chapter VI, rule 2: “Of Vincent
of Beauvais, he says, and of St. Antoninus, I judge
more freely; each of whom took pains not so much
to describe true and certain things
as not to pass over anything at all which was found
written in any papers whatsoever. Thus,
for estimating each history, and weighing it
with its own weight, they used neither the balance
of craftsmen, nor even the popular scales.
Wherefore, though good men and by no means deceitful,
yet men who neither diligently examined the authors from whom
they transcribed their books,
nor handed down to memory matters weighed with just
weights, they lack authority among grave and
severe critics”.
[26] their weights of reason being weighed, This censure of Melchior Cano deservedly strikes Peter
de Natalibus also, and makes the more for
my opinion, in that both he and the two writers cited
inserted into the Acts of SS. Lucy and Geminianus published by them
not a few things which Gaetani
cut out as to be approved by no one, and repeatedly called
trifles: which, since it is not necessary to linger
in reviewing them here, let the curious reader consult
their writings. To what Gaetani added about several
Saints translated into other regions by the ministry
of angels, I reply that, if the credit of the Acts be no greater,
nor the foundations for the truth of their history more secure,
these translations must be held no less suspect of falsehood
than the one of which we are treating.
The remaining arguments of Gaetani are drawn from
the ancient tradition of the churches of Sicily, and from the cultus of SS.
Lucy and Geminianus among the people of Noto; besides, from
documents which relate their coming into those places
as carved on stones; from the fountain which flowed miraculously
to quench their thirst, renowned for miracles,
and from the concourse of the people to their cave,
a hiding-place divinely laid open: and finally
from this, that our ancestors called our Lucy
Montana, to distinguish her from the Lucy of Syracuse
of the same name.
[27] the arena of the martyrdom These arguments, and others which can be made for claiming
SS. Lucy and Geminianus for Sicily,
would have their strength, and I would gladly yield my beaten hands
to them, if the origin of this tradition, most received throughout Sicily,
were proved solid: but since it is most evident
to the learned world that often some memorable deed
has been invented by an idle wit for the commendation of its own country,
and then, by the piously credulous eagerly embracing what
pleases them, adopted as true and long retained;
since besides Gaetani himself
is compelled to confess that, contrary to historical credit
and dignity, into various Acts of the Sicilian Saints,
and namely into those of which we here treat, not a few errors
were thrust by pious men (for far be it to suspect anything
harsher) and simple ones, who thought it lawful for themselves even so to increase
the cultus of religion and of the Saints, and the veneration of the faithful
toward the Heavenly ones, I cannot
so far assent to this tradition. For what, does not
Gaetani banish to old wives' fables
the prodigy which the Acts relate, of the executioner turned into
stone, only one hand remaining of flesh?
Yet Piazza writes in his sacred Hemerologium
that the place at Rome now called
the Macellum of the Crows was formerly called At S.
Marco at the Fleshly Hand, and he cites the ancient
Ceremonial; with Piazza agrees Floravante Martinelli
in his Roma sacra, page 43: the former however
derives the origin of this appellation from this, that the lictor about to behead
Lucy, the latter that he who was about to beat her with a cudgel,
was turned into stone. Nothing therefore
can be had by way of support from popular traditions.
[28] But neither do the extant documents to which Gaetani appeals
prove anything, more probably neither the cave, nor the fountain even
now surviving: for whatever can be had from above
seems to flow only from the same corrupted spring: certainly the pious
simplicity of the peoples, resting on depraved Acts, could have fabricated
these inscriptions, could have revered the fountain as miraculously
sprung up, and chosen our Saints as protectors
with God, for whose merits God
has hitherto bestowed on the faithful the benefits recorded by Gaetani,
and will go on bestowing them—God who is wont to reward the confidence
of the faithful, wherever they exist, imploring the help of the Saints,
wherever they suffered. Would that someone
would clear away the rubbish from the simple and sincere Acts
of these holy Martyrs, so that, by distinguishing false from true, an end
may be put to an odious controversy. And while we grieve that this
has not been done up to now, let their own authority remain to the ancient
Martyrologies, which mark Lucy and Geminianus at Rome,
not easily to be abandoned, even as regards
the place and the year of their death and other like things,
so long as it is not established by certain weights of reason
that an error about these things crept into these sacred Calendars.
[29] Against this authority of the Martyrologies there object,
both Gaetani in the place often cited, at Rome and Tommaso
d'Angelo in his Historico-critical Annals of the Sicilian
church, page 89, that they are announced at Rome,
not because they died there, but, says Gaetani,
because they began to suffer there; but to that
answer has already been abundantly made. And Tommaso d'Angelo
speaks thus: Galesinius marks them as having suffered at Rome,
led thereto because in the Martyrology of Notker
their solemn day is held in the City. It would indeed be necessary,
if an argument of this sort were effective,
that Martha and Magdalen died at Jerusalem,
for their memory is established as being celebrated there with solemn rite
from the ecclesiastical Calendars
and Martyrologies, as Noël Alexandre learnedly weighs.
(At century 1, that is, dissertation 17 of the edition
cited above, page 186) Those whom the earth brought forth,
not those whom heaven did, the City solemnly venerates. So he:
but before I weigh the force of his argument, I restore
Galesinius, who has been badly reported: for thus he has it
in his Note on the XVI of September: There are those who write that
they underwent martyrdom in Sicily, but they are plainly
deceived, since that they endured it at Rome is clearly shown
by the documents of the Roman Church, and the Aquileian
tables, and St. Antoninus, and Mombritius,
and the writers of the ancient Martyrology. Is this to be led
by the authority of Notker alone? But whether
Galesinius rightly alleges St. Antoninus for himself, it does not belong here
to dispute. is adjudged, the holy LXXV martyrs, of whom the Acts speak,
[30] Now to the argument of Tommaso d'Angelo,
confirmed by the authority of Noël Alexandre, I reply
that it is altogether true that from the fact that some Saint
is venerated in a certain city, it by no means follows
that he died in that city: but I hold that the conclusion is rightly drawn
in this manner: as often as some Saint
is ascribed by the martyrologists to a certain determinate place,
and it is not otherwise established that there is an error of writing, this place
is held by the learned to be that Saint's place of death:
but by the Roman Martyrology and others the martyrdom of SS. Lucy
and Geminianus is assigned to Rome, nor
can it be shown from elsewhere by any authentic instrument
that an error crept into the Martyrologies; it remains therefore
that we believe that Roman soil alone, and no other region of the world,
was empurpled with their blood. There went before
this reply of mine the aforesaid Noël in the same
dissertation 17, page 180, where, dissolving the objection made to him
about the silence of the ancient martyrologists concerning Magdalen's landing
in Provence, and rendering its causes,
he thus at last concludes: But the Roman Church,
shaking off this scruple, adds to the ancient
Martyrologies the designation (of the place) in which
they departed from this life, in these words: “At Marseilles,
the birthday of St. Mary Magdalen, etc. At Tarascon
in Narbonnese Gaul, of St. Martha, etc. At Marseilles
in Gaul, of Lazarus, etc.”. here deservedly passed over.
[31] We saw at number 22, a little after the middle,
that in the Acts published by Gaetani there are recited LXXV, both men
and women, brought by SS. Lucy and Geminianus
to Christ, and, Apophrasius raging, beheaded.
Of these in the Prætermissi on the XIII day
of September in our Work it is thus read: Martyrs
LXXV are announced by Ottavio Gaetani and Ferrarius
at Menda in Sicily. But since these become known
from the little accurate Acts of SS. Lucy and
Geminianus, all must be treated together on the day
on which Lucy and Geminianus are in the Roman
Martyrology, the XVI of September. Concerning these, in the summary
of the Acts in Ado, the following is read:
Under whom (Apofrasius) also seventy-five fulfilled
martyrdom, who, having seen the miracles which the Lord
was working about his Saints, had believed.
Nevertheless the aforesaid Ado announces them neither with SS. Lucy
and Geminianus, nor in any other place,
as Martyrs venerated anywhere. Wherefore, considering
the slight credit of these Acts, and having weighed the silence
of all the ancient martyrologists concerning those seventy-five
martyrs, by which we are at least compelled to doubt
whether they obtain cultus anywhere, we have judged that they should be passed over in silence in the title.
For since the knowledge of those LXXV
martyrs has flowed only from the Acts of SS. Lucy and Geminianus, infected
with manifold blemish, and since no more ancient martyrologist
has made mention of them, I should not dare to give them a place here, until
it shall have been established, either concerning the mind of the Church, or concerning their legitimate
cultus, from documents by no means suspect.