ON SS. VALERIAN AND MACRINUS AND GORDIAN, MARTYRS,
From the Martyrologies.
PrefaceValerian, M. (S.)
Macrinus, M. (S.)
Gordian, M. (S.)
J. S.
These Martyrs, very well known in the ancient Martyrologies, Three holy Martyrs, known almost from the Martyrologies alone, Baronius commemorates today in the Roman thus: At Noviodunum, of the holy martyrs Valerian, Macrinus, and Gordian. The ancient martyrologists went before him, with the name of the city, however, somewhat changed, which is made the arena of the Saints. For the Hieronymian copies in Florentinius have it thus: At Nevidunum, of the holy Valerian. Magrinus. and Gurdianus. The Epternach copy in the same place has: At Nevedunum, of Valerian, Macrinus, Gordian. The Corbie: At Nevedunum, the birthday of SS. Valerian, Magrinus, Gurdianus. Of the more contracted copies in our possession, the Rheinau and the Reichenau plainly agree. Other more contracted ones, less accurately indeed and without a place, nevertheless exhibit the same Saints, as does also the Gellone copy in d'Achery, and the Most Ancient in Martène, tom. 3 of the Anecdota. Ado in his Martyrology expressed the same thus: At Nividunum, the birthday of the holy Valerian, Macrinus, and Cordianus. Usuard agrees in these words: At Nividunum, of the holy martyrs Valerian, Macrinus, and Gordian. Notker expressed the place in another way, having it thus: At Noviodunum, of Valerian, Macrinus, and Gordian. Thus far the more ancient, who leave very ambiguous the place in which the Saints suffered.
[2] But the more recent have gone off into various opinions. Saussay in the Martyrologium Gallicanum on the following day adorns them with such an elogium: they do not seem able to be assigned with sufficient certainty to any city, At Noviodunum in the Nivernais, of the holy Valerian, Macrinus, and Gordian, slain under Decius for the assertion of Christian piety. Those who made the Roman Martyrology French, namely Philip Labbe, Simon Mothier, and Claude Castellanus, called the place in French Nyon, which is a city of Switzerland in the domain of Bern, sometimes called by the Latins Nevidunum, as I find in some Geographical lexicons. The author of the newest Paris Martyrology cautiously announced those Saints in this manner: At Nivedunum, of the holy Valerian, Macrinus, and Gordian, martyrs. From these things I vehemently suspect that in no city of Gaul are these Saints well known, or honored with any cult. What Saussay says, that they suffered under Decius, would move me if it had been asserted by an author who was wont to weigh his words more than that martyrologist did. And so, although at first sight I judged that these Martyrs suffered in some city of Gaul, or certainly in Switzerland, where most of the more recent French martyrologists have fixed them; since I find nothing certain about them either among French writers or in Henry Murer's Helvetia Sancta, I vehemently doubt whether they pertain in any way to Gaul or Switzerland.
[3] and perhaps they are the same as those commemorated before. Certainly the ancients name only a city, not a province, in which the Saints suffered. Now there was a Noviodunum in Pannonia also, as Cellarius has it in the Geographia antiqua, tom. 1, page 360. The said author on page 371 also assigns another Noviodunum in Lower Mœsia, which was afterwards called Scythia, and is now called Bessarabia. Hence some suspicion arises in me that today's Saints may be the same as those of whom I treated from the Greek and Hieronymian Fasti on the XIII, that is, in tom. IV of September, page 55. For among these there is found a certain Valerian, another Gordian, another Macrobius among the Greeks, whose name is written in many ways in the Hieronymian copies. Nothing certain can be affirmed, for the likeness of names does not suffice for this. I only suggest a suspicion, such as it is, because I see that those whom I mentioned on the XIII were not announced by Ado, Usuard, and Notker, who announce today's; but that today's were passed over by Rabanus, who commemorated those. But these things avail only for inquiring further, if any more solid argument should be added, not for determining anything certain.