ON SS. DIGNA AND MERITA, OR EMERITA, VIRGINS AND MARTYRS,
AT ROME
Under Valerian, as is reported.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Digna, virgin and martyr, at Rome. (S.)
Merita, or Emerita, virgin and martyr, at Rome. (S.)
BHL Number: 2160, 2161
BY C. S.
§ I. The memory of the Saints in the Martyrologies: their Acts, some fabulous, others doubtful, of which these are to be published: the time of the martyrdom: one of them more probably called Merita: their remaining deeds unknown.
These two holy Virgins and martyrs were first inserted into the Roman Martyrology at this day by Cardinal Baronius, saying: "At Rome, The Saints are announced on this day the passion of the holy virgins and martyrs Digna and Eremita, under Valerian and Gallienus; whose relics are preserved in the church of St. Marcellus." In his Annotations he merely praises their twofold Acts, in the longer of which they are said to have been crowned on the tenth of the Kalends of October. I have found nothing about them in the Hieronymian copies, nothing in Bede, Ado, Usuard, and other such ancient classical martyrologists. They are read, however, at this very day in two manuscript supplements to Bede, namely the Vatican and the Barberini, praised in our Work before tome 2 of March among the additions to the Martyrology of the same Bede. The first of these has it there thus: "At Rome, of SS. Digna and Merita"; the other: "At Rome, the birthday of St. Babila and of SS. Digna and Merita." Of these, Babila, otherwise Basilla, does not belong here, and concerning her the catalogue of Those Passed Over on this day may be consulted. The other two are of this day, one of whom, in the Acts to be examined below and elsewhere, is also called Merita instead of Emerita. Finally, on the same day they are announced by Ferrari in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, Castellanus in his Universal Martyrology, Arthur du Monstier in his Gynæceum sacrum, and Carlo Piazza in his Hemerologium sacrum Romanum.
[2] The supplement to the Adonian Martyrology in Rosweyde also commemorates both, but on the following day, and on the following: their twofold Acts where at the twenty-third of September we read thus: "Likewise the passion of the holy virgins Digna and Emerita." Greven agrees, among the Usuardine supplements in our Sollier, saying on the same day: "Of Digna and Emerita, virgins and martyrs." The author of our manuscript Florarium Sanctorum also agrees, who called one of them Morita, saying thus: "Likewise of the holy virgins Digna and Morita." Let us now come to the Acts. The most eminent Baronius, in his Annotations on the Roman Martyrology at the twenty-second of September, has the following about them: "Of these also there are very many old manuscripts. They suffered in the persecution of the emperor Valerian under the judge Gaius, and were buried in the cemetery of Commodilla on the Ostian Way, near SS. Felix and Adauctus, as their Acts testify; of which some manuscripts begin: 'The judge Gaius ordered to be seized,' etc.; while the beginning of the other and longer ones is: 'In the time of Valerian,' etc. Both are extant in our library (the Vallicellian), and we believe that they may also easily be found in other ancient codices adapted to the use of churches." Thus he there.
[3] disapproved by Baronius, of which the shorter But in tome 2 of the Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year of Christ 262, number 57, he sets forth his judgment upon them thus: "Under the same fury of the (Valerian) persecution other virgins also are found to have suffered at Rome, namely Digna and Emerita, whose Acts are read, but they are faulty." Tillemont adopted Baronius's judgment without having seen the Acts, in tome 4 of the Monuments, in the persecution of Valerian, article 6, where, however, he interpreted the word "faulty" too liberally as "full of vices." We have both Acts from the manuscript codices of the Vallicellian library, that is, of the Congregation of the Oratory at Rome, which Baronius praised above, and of St. Mary Major, likewise at Rome. The first, whose beginning is "The judge Gaius ordered to be seized," are divided into three Lessons, namely the seventh, the eighth, and the ninth; whence it is clear that these were arranged for the use of the choir; and therefore it could easily happen that the compiler of the Lessons altered the phrasing somewhat here and there. But from whatever source they were received, nothing occurs in them which certainly shows that the writer was primitive and contemporary with those holy Virgins, or far later, or which convicts him of falsehoods or fables.
[4] are tolerable; but the longer ones Certain prodigies are indeed read in them: namely, that the torturer's hand, raised for the blow, so remained until it was released by the prayers of the holy Martyrs; that the image of Jupiter, melted by their breath, fell down; and finally that they, called by a heavenly voice, gave up their souls with great splendor. But although such prodigies are commonly more frequent in fabulous Acts than in genuine ones, they nevertheless often occur in these also, and therefore the Acts of which we are treating cannot be rejected on this ground alone. I am more in doubt because I do not know whether these were abridged from the longer ones, or the longer ones amplified from these: for that one or the other was done is beyond doubt. The longer Acts, as we have said, we also have from a twofold codex, the Vallicellian and that of St. Mary Major; but in the two they are not equally long. In the Vallicellian they are divided into six Lessons, of which the first begins: "In the times of Valerian and Gallienus a savage persecution was raging"; and the second thus: "But after these things the judge Gaius ordered to be seized two virgin sisters, Digna and Merita." The codex of St. Mary Major, on the contrary, omitting the first Lesson, begins thus from the second: "At the same time the judge Gaius ordered to be seized two sisters, companions of Afra, Digna and Merita."
[5] Now that whole first Lesson of the Vallicellian codex contains nothing openly fabulous, but a summary of the Conversion of St. Afra, martyr of Augsburg, which you have published in our work, tome 2 of August, page 55 and following. In this it is said that St. Narcissus the bishop, coming to Augsburg in the time of the persecution of Diocletian, baptized Afra the harlot together with her mother Hilaria and her three girls or maidservants, Digna, Eumenia, and Euprepia, and with all her kindred and friends. Of these, St. Afra was delivered to the flames for Christ by order of the judge Gaius; while the holy Hilaria, Digna, Eumenia, and Euprepia, praying at her tomb, were likewise destroyed by fire at the command of the same Gaius. Now, to return to our Acts: the writer of these, in order to accommodate to his own purpose the summary of the Conversion of St. Afra and her companions, that is the first Lesson, concluded it with these words: "There was baptized by him (St. Narcissus) Hilaria with her daughter Afra, and with her girls, and also Digna and Merita, two sisters, most noble Roman virgins." So he. But everyone will recognize here a tasteless fabulist, who invented that two Roman Virgins were baptized at Augsburg together with St. Afra and her household under Valerian and Gallienus; whereas it is established from other sources that the baptism and martyrdom of Afra and her companions occurred under Diocletian, and he himself affirms that SS. Digna and Merita suffered at Rome under Valerian and Gallienus.
[6] What then follows in these Acts of both
codex more probably grew out of the shorter, agrees with the shorter ones even in the very words, yet in such a way that they are besides amplified; and in them it is said that the faces of the Saints were bruised with stones; that the torturer, while they prayed for him, saw a man clothed in gilded garments, who freed his hand, or restored it to use; and that at this spectacle many were converted to the faith, and were baptized and crowned with martyrdom — of which not even a word is read in the shorter ones. From what has been said, gather that the longer Acts, as they stand in the codex of St. Mary Major, were taken from the other longer Acts which are read in the Vallicellian codex; for their writer shows this not obscurely, when, having omitted the Conversion of St. Afra, he called SS. Digna and Merita "two sisters, companions of Afra." But while this seems certain, one might in the same way suspect that the shorter Acts also were abridged from one or the other of the longer Passions. The chief ground for doubt is that in the Passion of St. Afra and in all three Acts of SS. Digna and Merita the judge Gaius is named; and that the shorter Acts, with no mention made of the emperor or of the persecution, begin as though excerpted from elsewhere: "The judge Gaius ordered to be seized," etc.; in quite a similar manner to that in which, in the codex of St. Mary Major, the longer ones begin: "But after these things the judge Gaius ordered to be seized."
[7] But both these reasons are weak: for the name Gaius, or Caius, was too common among the Romans for it to seem surprising if one man of this name discharged the office of judge at Rome under Valerian after the middle of the third century, and another at Augsburg under Diocletian at the beginning of the fourth. which a certain fabulist And mention of the emperor or of the persecution at the beginning of the Acts could be passed over even by a contemporary writer, as a matter sufficiently well known, or omitted by a later one on the ground that these Acts were subjoined to others in which the emperor, the author of the persecution, had already been named. Nay rather, it is far more probable that the longer were amplified from the shorter. For let us grant that the writer of the shorter Acts cut away that association of SS. Digna and Merita with St. Afra as openly fabulous; let us grant that the same writer not only passed over, as less probable, the apparition of the man in gilded garments and what soon followed from it — the conversion, baptism, and martyrdom of many — but also lopped off, out of a zeal for brevity, several conversations of the Saints with the judge; let us, I say, grant all these things: yet no sufficiently probable reason appears why that same writer, if he had the longer Acts before his eyes, should have made no mention of the bruised faces of the Saints; which was assuredly a torment customarily used upon the martyrs, and which is expressly narrated in the longer Acts to have been applied to our Virgins.
[8] tastelessly amplified. The shorter ones are to be published. At the end of the longer Acts also it is said that the bodies of the holy Martyrs were buried in the cemetery of Commodilla, near Saint Felix and Adauctus, on the Ostian Way; the shorter Acts indeed agree about the way and the cemetery, but omit the words "near St. Felix and Adauctus"; and more correctly indeed, because even if those martyrs were in fact buried in the same place, this nevertheless happened long after SS. Digna and Merita had been buried in the same cemetery; for these women suffered under Valerian, those men under Diocletian, as may be seen in their Acts in tome VI of August, on the thirtieth day. Wherefore it seems to me altogether probable that those longer Acts were amplified from the shorter and much more genuine ones by some unskilled fabulist, who, having found in the conversion and Acts of St. Afra a judge Gaius and a certain Digna (both of which names he had read in the Passion of SS. Digna and Emerita), did not hesitate tastelessly to attach these Saints to St. Afra — the martyr of Augsburg who had been a harlot — as companions in her conversion, being little concerned whether the circumstances of time and place, and the nobility which he ascribes to them in great measure, agreed with that opinion. We shall therefore publish the shorter Acts, not indeed as primitive or certainly genuine, but as doubtful, omitting the longer ones, which can by no means be admitted.
[9] Other Acts even more fabulous than the aforesaid. I hinted above at number 2 that, besides the aforesaid longer Passion, there is another still more fabulous. This we have from a manuscript of St. Maximin of Trier, collated (as is noted) with a manuscript of Metz. Its beginning is: "It came to pass that the illustrious man Aurelian, at the petition of the consecrated virgin Emerita, should send for Digna, or Celestina, and should demand through matrons to join her to himself." But not to detain the reader long to no purpose, let it suffice to have said here that this Passion agrees with the rest in no particular, and that the whole of it is stitched together from head to heel out of mere fables. Their martyrdom too is placed in it not under Valerian but under Decius, and not on the twenty-second but on the twenty-third of September; whence there is a suspicion that this or a similar text guided the martyrologists who, at number 2, assigned their memory to the said twenty-third day. I do not know whether the Acts which our Papebroch noted to exist in Vatican codex 6076 were even more fabulous than this; but he judged them unworthy of being transcribed. He nevertheless transcribed their opening, which I subjoin here. "To all his dearest fellow priests of the title of St. Marcellus, martyr and Pontiff, which is set on the Via Lata, and to all the servants of the same church, whether religious, lay, or women devoted to God, Benedict, a lowly priest, greeting in the Lord. You wish to know from my littleness what concerns the holy virgins Digna and Merita, how they were born or ended their life; and whatever I could find in the writings of the holy fathers, and in the Latin and Greek Chronicles, I have endeavored to lay open to you all. For under Decius and Valerian the persecutors, as Jerome says." But enough of these already.
[10] As regards the time of the martyrdom, this became known to me from no other source [The time of the martyrdom not sufficiently certain: the name of the other more probably Merita.] than from the longer Acts, in which these two holy Virgins are said to have suffered in the times of Valerian and Gallienus, and from which Cardinal Baronius also learned it and inserted it into his Martyrology and Annals, as we said above. Nor does he seem to have drawn from any other source the twenty-second of September as the day of their death, on which he had perhaps understood that they were venerated at Rome in former times, or in his own time as well. That the most fabulous of all the Acts guided the other martyrologists, who referred them to the twenty-third day of the same month, I have already noted above. I have retained, after our custom, the day marked in the Roman Martyrology, and have doubtfully assigned the persecution of Valerian in the margin. Concerning the name of St. Digna all agree; concerning the other's, not so, some calling her Merita and others Emerita, as is clear from what has been said above. The stronger authority stands for Merita: for by this name she is called not only in all the Acts mentioned above, if you except those of Metz, but also in the cited supplements to Bede and in our manuscript Florarium, and in the Translation to be recited below; and all these are favored by the inscription with an image found in the cemetery on the Ostian Way, which we shall show below can scarcely be doubted to be that of the holy Virgin martyr herself. On the other hand, besides the Martyrologies cited at numbers 1 and 2, the author of an ancient Itinerary calls her Emerita, as does another anonymous writer of the Findings of the Sacred Bodies which Theodoric I, bishop of Metz, translated to Metz, concerning whom consult below at number 27. Yet the former prevail over these, and therefore I have called her Merita, adding nevertheless in the title the name Emerita, by which she is better known among more recent writers.
[11] I have nothing further to say here about the deeds and martyrdom of these Virgins; Several other things asserted about them are of doubtful credit. for the statement in Carlo Piazza's Hemerologium sacrum Romanum at this day, that they were the daughters or disciples of St. Eugenia, virgin and martyr, ought not to detain us, since it seems to have proceeded only from the fabulous Acts of the same St. Eugenia. Paolo Aringhi, in tome 1 of Roma subterranea, page 432, writes that they hid before their martyrdom in a certain cave on the Ostian Way, citing their Acts, in which he affirms this is read: "Likewise the two most noble sisters Digna and Emerita hid in a cave on the Ostian Way at the second milestone, near Blessed Paul." But of these hiding places of the Saints no mention is made in any of our copies, nor do I know from elsewhere whether those Acts praised by Aringhi are of better quality, or the same as those which, written by Benedict the priest, our Papebroch judged unworthy of transcription. Antonio Gallonio published their Passion in Italian at Rome, at the close of the sixteenth century, in his book on the Roman Virgins; but since he too teaches nothing beyond what is read in the longer Acts, he can be of no use to us.
§ II. The cemetery of the Saints most probably discovered: the tomb and bodies preserved untouched by the Tiber: some portion of them translated to Metz: what is to be thought of the relics of St. Emerita at Valladolid and at Caen?
[ ] A cemetery near the Ostian Way, A little more remains concerning their posthumous glory. That their bodies were cast out on the Hostian, or Ostian, Way by the tyrant's order, and were carried off by night by the faithful, and honorably buried in the cemetery of Commodilla on the same way, the longer Acts agree with the shorter; but these longer ones besides add, by prolepsis, "near Saint Felix and Adauctus," as I noted above. Mabillon, in tome 4 of the Analecta vetera, published from a manuscript codex of the library of Einsiedeln of the ninth century, as he asserts, a certain Collection of Roman inscriptions after the manner of an Itinerary, in which, at number 72, mention is made of the said cemetery in these words: "From (the church) of Menna as far as St. Paul the apostle; thence to saint Felix and Adauctus and Emerita." Marco Antonio Boldetti treats of the same at greater length in book 2 of his Observations on the Roman Cemeteries, chapter 18, from which some things must be brought over here for our purpose, since they make for the credit of the Acts and for the ancient cult of St. Merita. In the first place he thinks that that cemetery was excavated by Commodilla, a Roman matron, in her own field, and was thence called Commodilla's, until, after SS. Felix and Adauctus had been buried in the same place in the time of the persecution of Diocletian, it began to be named from them. He adds that it was discovered at the close of the seventeenth century, after it had long lain hidden, and was believed to be a part of the cemetery of St. Lucina; as Boldetti himself also had believed in book 1, chapter 1, where he exhibited a ground plan of it.
[13] in which a subterranean chapel But when in the year 1720 another entrance of it had been detected, and Boldetti himself with others had surveyed it, he changed his opinion and judged that this very one was the cemetery of Commodilla, or of SS. Felix and Adauctus and Emerita. For in the first place the Ostian Way agrees entirely, and the distance of two milestones from the city of Rome, and the site of the cemetery, which Anastasius the librarian, in his life of Pope Leo III, also placed near saint Paul the apostle.
In the second place he asserts that he found in it an ancient image of a certain holy Virgin with the name of St. Merita inscribed, and two others which probably exhibited SS. Felix and Adauctus. But it will be useful to have set these things out in his own words, rendered from the Italian into Latin. "On the twentieth day of January (of the year 1720)," he says, "when I had heard … that some sacred paintings had been found in it, I betook myself thither in order to consider them attentively … But in an adjoining chapel (within the aforesaid cemetery), which was full of rubble, there could be seen various ancient paintings, exhibiting different sacred images, but so worn away by the injury of time that it could never be discerned what they represented. Only in the right wall of the said chapel, to which the same rubble reached, there was seen a tomb, cut into the top of the wall, already emptied in antiquity and without any relics."
[14] with the image and inscription of St. Merita "Below it was painted the Savior with a diadem, and with outstretched arms placing two crowns upon the heads of two Saints without an aureole. Between these, in the middle, there was seen depicted a certain holy Virgin, adorned with a mantle, a necklace on her neck, and earrings, whose crowned head was painted upon the breast of the Savior. Beside the neck of the same (Virgin) there were read on one side these words: SCA M., and on the other: ERITA; which most clearly indicated that that image was of St. Merita. Now it was manifest that these images had been painted there long after the others of the same chapel; since behind them (through the somewhat worn-away lime, or crust of the wall, on which they were drawn) others of an older coloring were visible. But those, as I have said, were very well preserved, because the outer air had not penetrated there, being wholly shut out by the various rubble and by the ruin of the upper vault, and by the earth, which had almost filled the said chapel and had blocked up the entrances by which access to it lay."
[15] "Moreover I observed that those images could have been painted there when the body of that Saint was carried out of the cemetery and two empty tombs were found, (as that it really was carried out from thence we shall say afterwards); and from their lineaments, which were somewhat better than in the images that are seen in the cemetery of Pontianus on the Portuensian Way, I am persuaded that they may have been made some century after Constantine. Besides, there was read here the title 'Saint,' which in the first times (of the Church) was not customarily attached to the martyrs and other Saints." Further, as to how the said chapel appeared after the rubble and earth had been dug out and light let in from above, Boldetti, after some other matters, sets it out thus: "This chapel," he says, "was twelve palms wide and twenty-five long, ending in a semicircle toward the West. In it only two tombs were seen, and those empty; and its vault had formerly been adorned with mosaic work, of which few remains appeared, and it could not be discerned what they had represented. Further, on the left, northern side there were seen the aforesaid paintings, both of the Savior and of St. Merita and of other Blessed ones." Thus far he concerning the said chapel; in which, since the tomb of St. Merita was found, as is clear from what has been said, it is altogether probable that the other, which was besides the only one in that same place, was St. Digna's, whose image perhaps was also formerly painted there, but was effaced by the fall of the rubble or by some other accident.
[16] This conjecture is confirmed by what Boldetti relates in the same place about other images found in the same cemetery. it seems to be the very one in which the Saints were first laid. For he says that not far from the aforesaid chapel there was found a painted icon of the most holy Mother of God with the child Jesus in her lap, at whose right hand a certain Saint was displayed in priestly dress, and above his head was read: "St. Felis"; and at her left a certain other Saint, with a youthful face but without priestly dress, above whose head was likewise written: "St. Adjutus." Now it is probable that these, with their names somewhat corrupted, are the same as SS. Felix and Adauctus, from whose Acts, given at the thirtieth day of August, we have it that one of them, namely Felix, was a priest, and that he suffered together with Adauctus and was buried on the Ostian Way. Since therefore their Acts teach that SS. Digna and Merita were buried together on the Ostian Way, at the second milestone from the City, and, as the longer ones add, near St. Felix and Adauctus; and since Anastasius the librarian placed the cemetery of SS. Felix and Adauctus near St. Paul the apostle, and the same is also called by the writer of the ancient Itinerary "near St. Felix and Adauctus and Emerita": I can scarcely doubt that the cemetery of which we have treated out of Boldetti is the very one in which our holy Virgins were laid soon after their martyrdom.
[17] After the middle of the eighth century their sacred bodies were translated within the City by St. Paul I, the Roman Pontiff, Their sacred bodies by St. Paul I, Pope and were deposited in the church of St. Marcellus, Pontiff and martyr. The history of this translation I have in manuscript from Vatican codex number 6076, whose author our Papebroch suspected to have been Benedict the priest, of whom I made mention at number 9, and whom Aringhi, in tome 1 of Roma subterranea, page 432, altogether affirmed to be such from a manuscript codex of St. Cecilia at Rome. About the age of that Benedict this one thing seems certain, that he wrote after the kingdom of the Lombards in Italy had been destroyed by Charlemagne in the year of Christ 774; for this is sufficiently gathered from his opening, which is as follows: "In the time when all Italy was being oppressed by the Lombards, and most of all by Austulf (that is, Aistulf), a most abominable king." But at whatever later time he wrote, he performed the task with little accuracy, and spent almost as much discourse upon a tasteless preface and an epilogue to the Saints as upon the narrating of the history of the translation itself; wherefore I, cutting these away, subjoin here only the translation.
[18] carried away from thence, within the City "By that tyrant Austulf (rather Aistulf, while he was besieging Rome under Stephen II) many cemeteries of the Saints which were in the city were destroyed and neglected, and left without due honor and veneration; and although they were then unknown to men, all are known to God, since he himself says: 'The hairs of your head are all numbered'; and: 'The Lord keeps all their bones'; and: 'The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of malice shall not touch them.' But let us return to what we began. Pope Stephen, being set in affliction over the cemeteries of the Saints, which were without the worship of God, began to build within this City, in the house of his father, a monastery in honor of SS. Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius, in which he might lay up the bodies of the Saints; but while he was laying the foundations of that church he was taken from this light. Then the Roman people with one consent chose and ordained his brother, a venerable man, Paul. And when he was ordained, he finished and completed the monastery which his brother Stephen had begun; in which monastery he placed many bodies of the Saints, which were found through the various cemeteries. Then he began to distribute them among the various titular churches and deaconries."
[19] were deposited in the church of St. Marcellus. "Now it came to pass that, while he was searching for the bodies of the holy virgins and martyrs Digna and Merita, he found them in the cemetery of Commodilla on the Ostensian [] Way, near SS. Felix and Adauctus. And while they were being carried to Rome [], he bringing them with the greatest veneration and honor, with hymns and praises, with candles and lamps, as they came before the doors of the church which [] is in the portico of the title of St. Marcellus, martyr and Pontiff, there they fixed themselves [], and from that place they could not be moved at all. 'Wonderful indeed is God,' as the prophet says, 'wonderful in his Saints!' Behold, here too God has worked another new miracle; for of St. Lucy it is read that, when they wished to drag her to a brothel, the Holy Spirit fixed her with so great a weight that the Lord's virgin remained immovable; but this is unlike it, because this was for honor. Then in that very place the aforesaid Pope, building [*] an altar, and laying up in it the bodies of the holy virgins Digna and Merita, and Mass having been celebrated, each one returned with joy to his own. Which was not done without the providence of God, who provides and knows all things before they come to pass. In which place God works many benefits daily unto the end of the world. Finally the sick, and those oppressed with various infirmities, and those who are bound by sorcery, and whoever shall come thither, depart safe from every infirmity. Holy virgins and martyrs Digna and Merita, succor all the wretched and the sick, whoever shall invoke your name; and let those who devoutly celebrate your birthday feel the help of soul and body."
[20] Let us now see what in this narrative seems to be admitted Some things are observed and what, on the contrary, to be rejected. That the city of Rome was besieged in the time of the Pontificate of Stephen II by the faithless Aistulf in the year 753 and again in 755, and grievously harassed, may be seen in Baronius in his Annals and in Pagi in his Critica. That the sacred suburban cemeteries were also foully profaned by the same impious king, who was laying waste everything around Rome, Stephen himself teaches in a letter given to Pippin, king of the Franks, and to his sons, in the said Baronius at the year 755, in which, at number 9 of the same place, he says among other things: "Devastating with sword and fire and demolishing to the foundations, he consumed all that was set outside the city, the same pestilent Aistulf pressing on more violently, that he might take this Roman city. For, digging up many bodies of the Saints, he carried off their sacred cemeteries, to the great harm of his own soul." But although Aistulf besieged Rome twice, he nevertheless did not take it; nor were the Roman cemeteries within but outside the City; and therefore the author of the Translation says either falsely or with too little accuracy that many cemeteries of the Saints "which were in the city" were destroyed by him.
[21] Concerning the monastery of St. Dionysius, begun by Stephen II in his own house and completed by St. Paul, concerning this translation, his own brother and successor in the Pontificate, Hilduin the abbot also writes in his Areopagitica, in Baronius at the year 754, where it is also said that the same Pontiff brought to Rome the relics of St. Dionysius, by whose aid he had suddenly recovered from illness in the monastery of the same near Paris. On the other hand Anastasius the Librarian makes no mention of the said monastery in the Life of Stephen II, but in that of St. Paul I expressly asserts that he built in his own house a monastery from the foundations in honor of St. Stephen, namely the martyr and Pontiff, and also of Blessed Silvester, likewise Pontiff and confessor of Christ. But that this monastery is the same as that of which Hilduin speaks is manifest from the fact that both writers hand down that it was given over by him to Greek monks. So that
it is, a suspicion arises in me from this that Hilduin's Areopagitica guided the writer of the Translation in this part; and I suspect it the more because, since Hilduin in his Letter to the Emperor Louis had said that he had gathered whatever he found (about St. Dionysius) as much in Greek as in Latin codices, as he had been commanded by that same emperor, the author of the Translation likewise writes that he had, as he had been asked, compiled whatever he could find in the writings of the holy Fathers, and in the Latin and Greek chronicles, about SS. Digna and Merita.
[22] But whereas the deeds of St. Dionysius, whom they believed to be the Athenian Areopagite, were rightly sought in Greek documents, as it was written by Benedict, it was inept to search for the Acts of SS. Digna and Merita, who were Roman Virgins and had suffered at Rome, in Greek Chronicles. Further, Hilduin wrote his Areopagitica about the year 836, that is, about 80 years later than we shall say the translation of the holy Martyrs took place; and therefore, if my suspicion be true, our Benedict must be removed from it by at least as many years, nay, most probably by very many more. Nor does he show himself better informed about the election of St. Paul I, whom he asserts to have been elected and ordained by the Romans with one consent after the death of Stephen; whereas Anastasius on the contrary affirms that the Romans were divided in his election, and that one part of them indeed stood for Theophylact the archdeacon and the other for Paul; and that, since the latter was the greater and stronger, Paul was ordained, the rest who favored Theophylact being scattered. Consult the Acts of this holy Pontiff in our Work at the twenty-seventh day of June, where they are given. But although the things said thus far teach that that Benedict cannot here be of great authority, we do not on that account call the translation itself into doubt.
[23] which as to its substance is probable also from other sources, For all the rest is not incredible, and agrees well enough with the praised Acts of St. Paul. Certainly Anastasius in these writes thus, to our purpose: "This most blessed Pontiff also, along with all his spiritual pursuits, bore unceasingly a great care of solicitude toward the holy cemeteries: whence, seeing very many places of those same holy cemeteries neglected, and by the sloth of antiquity in the greatest state of demolition and already set close to ruin, he forthwith removed those bodies of the Saints from the ruined cemeteries themselves, and, bringing them with hymns and spiritual songs within this Roman city, took pains that some of them should be laid up with fitting honor throughout the titular churches and deaconries and monasteries and the remaining churches." Therefore, just as many others, so also the bodies of SS. Digna and Merita could have been dug out of their cemetery by St. Paul the Pope and deposited in the church of St. Marcellus; but whether this last was done on account of the miracle of excessive weight, let the credit rest with the author — which, from what has been said, is small.
[24] and it must have happened between the years 757 and 767. As regards the time of the translation, this must have taken place between the year of Christ 757 and 767, within which the Pontificate of St. Paul is enclosed. Aringhi, in tome 1 of Roma subterranea, page 433, believed that Anastasius the librarian had attached the above-mentioned translations of the bodies of the saints from the ruined cemeteries to the first year of St. Paul's Pontificate, and therefore was of the opinion that this one also, of which we are treating, was probably made in the same year. But the Librarian neither asserts the first, nor can the second stand with Aringhi's own statements. For he himself, from the Rubric placed at the beginning of the same Acts (of our Saints in the codex of St. Cecilia, so far as I gather), assigns this translation to the twelfth day of May, and from the same Acts reports that it was made after the monastery of St. Dionysius had been built by Paul. But now St. Paul was not ordained Pontiff before the twenty-second day of May of that same year, as it seemed to Papebroch, or before the twenty-eighth, as Baronius believed, or finally not before the twenty-ninth of the same year and month, as Pagi preferred in his Critica. How then could he, on the twelfth day of May of the said year 757, the monastery having already been completed after the death of Stephen, which had occurred in the month of April of that same year, have carried out the said translation? Boldetti likewise retains the twelfth day, but adds the year "about 757." I for my part can determine nothing certain further about these matters.
[25] The sacred bodies, and their tombs, in the year 1598 That these sacred bodies of the Virgin martyrs thereafter remained in the said church of St. Marcellus, Pontiff and martyr, which was handed over as early as the fourteenth century to the fathers Servants of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, is the common assertion of writers. The author of Roma antica e moderna, published in the year 1750, tome 2, page 264, says that they rest there under the altar in a chapel dedicated to them. Filippo Ferrari, in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, in the Annotation at the twenty-second of September, asserts besides that they were preserved by divine power from the waters of the overflowing Tiber at the end of the sixteenth century. Take his words: "The bodies are now laid in the basilica of St. Marcellus in a marble sarcophagus; and when the Tiber, in the year of the Lord 1598, Clement VIII being Supreme Pontiff, overflowed on the night of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and washed over the church with the monastery (which is of the Servite Friars) above that sarcophagus covered by the waters, they were preserved by divine power unharmed and untouched by the waters." Thus Ferrari, who, since he published this Catalogue at Milan in the year 1613, lived contemporary with the miracle. He does not, however, sufficiently explain what miracle then occurred; for if, as his words suggest, the waters merely did not penetrate within the marble urn to the sacred bones, this indeed could naturally have happened on account of the joints of the urn being well sealed with lime or the like material. But he himself indicates something else, saying in the margin: "The sarcophagus of the holy Virgins preserved untouched by the overflowing Tiber."
[26] At about the same time at which the miracle had occurred, remained prodigiously untouched by the overflowing Tiber; Paolo Aringhi could have been living, who wrote at Rome and published in the year 1651 tome 1 of Roma subterranea, in which at page 433 he sets it out more openly in these words: "Further, the same bodies of the blessed Virgins are to this very day most honorably preserved at the said church of St. Marcellus in a certain porphyry chest beneath an altar erected in their honor, where a certain remarkable portent, to be celebrated in eternal memory and wrought altogether by divine power, became known to the Christian world. Namely, in the year of the Lord's salvation 1598, when the Tiber, monstrously overflowing, covered the church and almost the whole City in a pitiable manner with an immense abundance of converging waters, it, paying honor to the blessed Virgins, left their tomb unharmed by the waters and altogether inviolate. And that this portent might become known more clearly than the light itself, rich witnesses were the dust and the spiders' webs which, after the overflowing waters of the Tiber had ceased, appeared there about the sacred tomb, to be marveled at by those who looked."
[27] Yet those sacred bodies did not so remain in the aforesaid church at Rome some portion of them translated to Metz; that some portion of them was not translated to Metz in Gaul as the tenth century drew to its close. So we learn from an anonymous contemporary writer of the Finding of the Saints translated to his own city by Deodoric, or Theodoric I, bishop of Metz, which you have in Achery's Spicilegium, tome 5, page 139 and following. This anonymous writer, having said in chapter 1 that Theodoric set out for Italy with the emperor Otto I, where he stayed almost three years, and in the year 970 sent many sacred relics to his bishopric, has these words in chapter 3 to our purpose: "But while we were then at Rome, by the gift of the lord Pope John (the thirteenth of this name) he received pledges of the holy Digna and Emerita, whose bodies are laid up in the portico of the church of Blessed Marcellus the martyr, which is before the Holy Apostles; and at the same time also other relics of various Saints, laid up singly with their own labels, among which was also the sandal of St. Stephen. All these were sent by Willard, a monk of the monastery of Maurus."
[28] Gil González Dávila, in tome 3 of the Ecclesiastical Theater of Spain, but more probably neither at Valladolid nor at Caen. page 369, mentions that the body of some St. Emerita, martyr, was given as a gift by Pedro Carrillo de Acuña, bishop of Salamanca, to the cathedral church of Valladolid. But François Pommeraye the Benedictine also writes, in a letter given at Rouen in the year 1672 to our Henschen, that at Caen in Lower Normandy, in the maidens' monastery of the Holy Trinity, the body likewise of some St. Emerita is honored, which was thought to be that of the Virgin martyr of this day. On what grounds that opinion rests I do not know; but until they are produced, I shall believe that this, as well as what we said is preserved at Valladolid, is the body of some other Saint, either of the same name or nameless, upon whom that name was afterwards imposed. Now receive the Passion, such as it is.
Annotations* Ostiensi.
* Romam.
* quæ.
* defixerunt.
* construxit, etc.
PASSION,
By an anonymous author.
From the manuscripts of the Vallicellian library and of St. Mary Major at Rome.
Digna, virgin and martyr, at Rome. (S.)
Merita, or Emerita, virgin and martyr, at Rome. (S.)
BHL Number: 2162
By an anonymous author.
Ordered in vain to be scourged, they are shut up in prison, Gaius a the judge ordered two sisters, Digna and Merita, to be seized, and with great terror began to compel them to sacrifice to the idols; but when he could not bend them to his pleasure, he ordered them to be beaten with scourges. And when the examiner had raised his hand to strike them, his hand remained lifted upward; and he began to cry out, saying: "I am hung up with torment by my hand." Gaius the judge said: "Lay aside your magic arts, Digna and Merita, and either sacrifice to the gods, or I shall exercise various punishments upon you." Meanwhile the examiner was crying out, saying: "Most blessed Digna and Merita, pray for me, that my hand may be released, for I am wholly tormented." Then Digna and Merita, with eyes full of tears and raising their hands to heaven, said: "Lord Jesus Christ, pardon this thy servant, for he was attempting to do what he was commanded: but do thou, God, pardon this thy servant, that he may know thee, the living God and true Creator." In that same hour his hand was restored, and he began to praise the name of the Lord. And when the judge had heard this, he ordered him to be shut up in prison b.
[2] whence, being led out and beaten, Gaius c the judge, full of fury, said to them: "Sacrilegious women, either sacrifice to the gods, or you shall see an example made of your limbs." The blessed Virgins, smiling, said: "We sinners have always desired this." Gaius the judge said to the torturers: "Stretch them out and chastise them fully with cudgels." In that same hour he ordered them not to be chastised, but that a tripod and an image of Jupiter be brought to them as they lay stretched out, that they might adore it. And he said to them: "Turn about and sacrifice to the gods, and live, and enjoy riches and honors, and take husbands according to your birth." The blessed Virgins, their eyes
lifted up, and they blew [*] into the face of the image, and at once it was left over like mud. Then the judge, seeing this deed, said: "Chastise them with cudgels and afflict them until they die." And when they had long been beaten, they cried out, saying: "Behold the glory which we have always desired!"
[3] and, hung upon the rack, they die, and are buried by the Christians. Gaius the judge said: "As I see, your magic arts overcome us." The most blessed virgins of Christ, Digna and Merita, said: "It is not we who overcome you, but our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God." Gaius the judge, filled with fury, said to his servants: "Lift them from the ground, and let them be hung upon the rack by the hairs of their heads." And when this had been done, he ordered flaming wounds to be applied about their sides d. Then the most blessed Virgins cried out, saying: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, for whose love we have rejected all things, help us thy handmaids." And there came a voice from heaven, saying: "Come to me, you who are humble of heart." At once a splendor flashed forth like lightning, and together with that very light they gave up the spirit e. Gaius ordered them to be taken down from the rack, and their bodies to be cast out on the Hostian Way at the second milestone. By night there came priests and religious men, taking up the bodies of the holy virgins and martyrs Digna and Merita, and, embalming [*] them with spices and wrapping them in linen cloths, they buried them with the greatest honor in the cemetery of Commodilla f on the same way. To the praise of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
* Perhaps to be read "ex sufflaverunt."
* condientes.