ON SS. AURELIA AND NEOMISIA, VIRGINS,
AT ANAGNI IN ITALY.
Perhaps at the beginning of the eleventh century.
HISTORICAL-CRITICAL COMMENTARY.
Aurelia, virgin, at Anagni in Italy. (S.)
Neomisia, virgin, at Anagni in Italy. (S.)
BY C. S.
§ I. Their memory in the Martyrologies and their ecclesiastical cult at Anagni: their Life not to be published: the time of their death and the manner of their death.
[ ] These two holy Virgins the first, so far at least as I know, to inscribe in the Roman Martyrology at this day was Cardinal Baronius, in these words: Today they are announced in Baronius's Roman Martyrology, "At Anagni, of the holy virgins Aurelia and Neomisia." Now Anagnia, commonly Anagni, once the head of the Hernici, is a city of the Pontifical dominion in Latium or Roman Campania, and made illustrious by an ancient bishopric subject to the Apostolic See alone. But whence he learned their sacred memory the praised Baronius indicates in the Annotations there thus: "Their affairs
as they were done, but somewhat corrupted, we have received from the church of Anagni." The manuscripts of the same church Philip Ferrari also praises in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, in which at the same day he reviews them with the following elogium. "Aurelia and Neomesia, virgin sisters, born in Asia of no obscure station, when their parents were dead, vowing their virginity to Christ against the will of their kinsfolk, sold their substance and bestowed the price upon the poor. But when their fatherland had been taken by enemies, and the citizens carried off into slavery, they, preserved by heaven, gave their labor to assiduous prayers, vigils, and macerations of the flesh, clothed in haircloth; they frequented the churches and venerated the relics of the Saints.
[2] in Ferrari's Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, "Setting out into Syria and Palestine, they visit the holy places with great devotion and tears. Thence, sailing to Italy by angelic admonition, and having traversed Apulia and Lucania, they come to Rome, to the thresholds of the holy Apostles, many sick and possessed being freed on the way: for so great was their sanctity that they cured the sick by the mere touch of their garments. Having stayed a while at Rome, and shown many signs of virtues, and received the blessing of the supreme Pontiff, they return by the Latin Way. But when the Agarenes, having laid waste Calabria and Lucania, entered Campania and were besieging Capua and overrunning the neighboring regions, the sacred Virgins fall into the enemies' hands, and are tempted to renounce Christ. And they, constant in the confession of the faith, after dire beatings and floggings are snatched away by heaven: for so great a crashing and din of storms and thunders suddenly arose that, leaving the Virgins, all took to flight. But they, coming into the borders of Anagni, in a place distant two miles from the city which is called Macerata, being received in hospitality by a pious man, while they gave their labor in an oratory at the hours of the night, are called by an angel to the heavenly reward.
[3] "Wherefore, glad at that message, giving thanks to God in prayer, they rendered up their souls on the VII of the Kalends of October, a mighty brightness being seen over them, heavenly voices being heard, and the bells of Anagni sounding of themselves. Wherefore the city of Anagni, moved by so great a novelty of the thing, flocks to the place, and in Brautius's metrical one; and they are venerated with an Office at Anagni perceiving from it a wondrous sweetness of odor, and their bodies were honorably laid within the city walls on account of the incursions of the Saracens." Thus Ferrari, on what authority these things rest we shall presently examine. Nicholas Brautius, bishop of Sarsina, in his poetical Martyrology, likewise at this day sang thus of them:
Concordant Sisters wedded one Spouse alone, whom the Spouse's virginal love had joined together.
Further, that they are venerated on this day, the XXV of September, also with an ecclesiastical Office at Anagni in the cathedral church itself, I have learned from the Sanctuary of Anagni of Philip Ciammaricone of the Order of Minors Conventual, who also on page 242 reviewed the following antiphon and prayer from the same, as I suspect.
[4] Antiphon. "Prudent Virgins, trim your lamps; behold, the Bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him. in the cathedral church. Antiphons, etc. ℣. Virgins shall be brought to the King after her. ℞. Her neighbors shall be brought unto thee."
Prayer. "Grant, O Lord, that we may be cherished by the supplications of thy holy virgins Aurelia and Neomisia, that we may be commended by the intercessions and merits of those whose venerable festival we frequent with votive service. Through Christ our Lord. Amen." In our copy of the Life to be mentioned below, a hymn and antiphons at the Magnificat with the same Prayer are subjoined. The hymn, composed with little elegance from the Life, runs thus:
There came forth from Asia two consecrated Virgins, The blessed Neomisia and Aurelia, noble, Of the stock of great men, of a family truly illustrious; They dedicate themselves from infancy to Christ with constancy; For love of whom they sold * both lands and movables: The prices of them are given for the relief of the poor. They visit the divine places, and appoint themselves to labor, That they may gain for Christ all that they had possessed. Then the sanctuaries of the region, the thresholds of the Apostles, They traverse most diligently.
5 Amid these things, while they bear stripes from a barbarous nation, concerning them are exhibited: their bodies, in the same place, Which laid Italy waste and smote the Church. Whom a terror brought from heaven divinely frees Upon the savage barbarous nation, while they stood free in mind. So may we, O blessed Trinity and undivided Unity, By the prayers of these Holy Ones be saved from our sins. Amen.
Antiphon at the Magnificat. "Golden gifts and heavenly goods the Virgin merited by an excellent triumph, Aurelia by name, together with her companion the blessed Neomisia, by whose splendor their merits flourish in the everlasting kingdom." Then after the aforesaid Prayer there follows: "At second Vespers, antiphon. Sound the trumpet, city of Anagni, so adorned with prelates; having the great and bounteous Magnus and Peter the confessor, Aurelia and Neomisia and Secundina the virgin, divinely joined together in one coffer." These things, as is clear, are taken from their ancient Office. Of St. Magnus, Peter and Secundina the virgin discourse will return below, where we shall treat of the translation of the bodies of SS. Aurelia and Neomisia; meanwhile on this occasion it will be helpful to have briefly observed here that they are kept even today at Anagni in the cathedral church, where they were honorably deposited by St. Peter, bishop of that same city, after the middle of the 11th century.
[6] The Life, by an anonymous author of uncertain time, Cardinal Baronius, reported in no. 1, testifies that he received their deeds, somewhat corrupted, from the church of Anagni; nor does he add more. We too have their Life, received from the manuscripts of Gaetani at Rome, and collated by our Henschen with the volume of the Most Reverend Father Gallonio in the Vallicellian library of the Fathers of the Congregation of the Oratory at Rome. To this copy of ours this title is prefixed: "Of the holy virgins Aurelia and Neomisia (in Gaetani's manuscript she is always called Neomesia), from a manuscript codex of the church of Anagina (that is, of Anagni), where their bodies are, and their feast is kept under the rite of a proper Office with solemnity." At the end also of one or the other manuscript, or at least of one of the two, there was added: "From a faulty and very ancient manuscript codex of the church of Anagni, on the XXVI day of May and Monday after Pentecost, in the year MDXCVII." Hence it is clear about the age of that Roman manuscript; but how much older than this that very ancient codex of Anagni was, is not established for me. That it is not older than the 12th century well advanced, nay rather younger, is proved by the Life of the above-praised St. Peter copied from the same codex and given by us at the day III of August, where consult it, if you please, chapter 3, and the Annotations there at the letter g.
[7] seems to have been written chiefly The same, or very little different, Life of SS. Aurelia and Neomisia Philip Ciammaricone of the Order of Minors Conventual had, and published it, adorned with an Italian paraphrase, in the Sanctuary of Anagni, printed at Velletri in the year 1704. A like one likewise, if not the same, Philip Ferrari used for weaving their elogium, which we recited in no. 1 and the two following. The anonymous biographer, who nowhere discloses who he was, certainly did not write earlier than about the end of the 11th century, since he narrates the translation of the Saints' bodies made at that time by the above-praised bishop St. Peter. Further, we shall show below that their death, from the circumstances of the Life, must be referred to the beginning of the 11th century; and therefore, if we believe the biographer in these things, about one century would have intervened between it and the said translation. But because it is uncertain how long after that translation he wrote, the age of the writer also remains unascertained.
[8] from common tradition, embellished too liberally, However that be, at so great a distance of times he doubtless had need of older documents in order to write the Saints' Acts in a truthful discourse; and that he had some he professes not obscurely in the epilogue, saying thus: "Let the devotion of faith be spread abroad, which, while it weaves anew their deeds in detail from ancient sheets consonant with the Annals," etc. But I nevertheless scarcely doubt that by far the greatest part of the Life was composed rather from the tradition of the common people and from the writer's own conjectures than from sincere and ancient documents. Assuredly there are many things in it which could not easily have been known except from the holy Virgins themselves, whom it is equally difficult to believe to have been the praisers of their own affairs. Nor can it be doubted that the biographer, who plays the orator, amplified the Saints' deeds by his words more liberally than was fitting. He also shows himself a teller of tales, when he ridiculously brings them in praying to God thus before their death.
[9] and partly openly fabulous, partly suspect of fables, "The Virgins, with eyes fixed on heaven and hands joined, prayed thus to the Lord … Give the help of salvation to those who shall cherish our memory in blessing … And thou who hast always preserved us in sisterly charity, grant perpetually an undivided coffer for the venerable relics of our bodies." Hence learn how much credit that fable-teller deserves. It is also altogether likely that he borrowed miracles from the Life of the often-praised St. Peter, bishop of Anagni, to make illustrious his Saints' death. For he writes that at their death an unwonted brightness was seen above them; that a heavenly melody was heard, and that the bronze bells of the city of Anagni of their own accord gave forth sonorous ringings; that their bodies were found fragrant with a wondrous odor and as if sweetly lulled in sleep; and finally that many laboring under various ills, who had come together thither with a most numerous throng of men, were divinely healed. But all these things are read of St. Peter of Anagni in his Life, chapter 3, which may have as its author St. Bruno, bishop of Segni, his contemporary, published by us as interpolated at the day III of August, and from which I judge our biographer transferred these things to SS. Aurelia and Neomisia and amplified them.
[10] Besides, in narrating the circumstances of matters too he commits in more than one place other historical errors, and therefore not to be published. According to the same Life some specimen of which we shall see below. And so, not to be too long, that Life appears to me so fabulous for the greatest part that I cannot admit the rest either as true on the biographer's credit, which with me is none. For which reason I have judged that it should by no means be published, especially since I have already given a compendium of it from Ferrari, which, although it presents a greater appearance of truth — because some of the more fabulous circumstances have been passed over in it — cannot nevertheless have greater authority than the Life from which it was put together. Let us see, however, whether we can elicit from it the time at which the Saints lived and died. According to the biographer the Saracens were besieging or had besieged Capua when those two holy Virgins fell into their hands, and, being most ill treated by them, and then divinely freed, came into the territory of the city of Anagni and died. Consult the compendium above in no. 2.
[11] After their death and burial he presently subjoins: The Saints must be said to have died "About the same time a mighty famine invaded Italy, and for the space of fifteen days an earthquake shook and shattered very many places of Italy." I scarcely doubt that he here had before his eyes the Chronicle which was published under the name of Alberic, monk of Monte Cassino, by Muratori, volume 5 of the Italian Affairs, page 139, and from the year
1000 to 1154 was carried on, and afterward enlarged by others. For in this one may read these things: "MII. In this year the Saracens came upon Capua. MIIII. A huge earthquake shook this mountain for fifteen days and more, so that in some places it split the church." The same Chronicle perhaps Carlo Sigonio used, in book 8 on the Kingdom of Italy in Muratori's edition, volume 2, column 474, where at the year 1004 he says: "In Campania an earthquake raged for fifteen days so that, besides other things, it shook down in many places the building of Monte Cassino." The seizure of Capua, however, he had referred to the year 1000 in these words: "The Saracens burst with a great force into Campania, and took Capua, the head of that province."
[12] But the praised Muratori, in volume 5 of the Annals of Italy at the year of Christ 1000 just cited, denies at the beginning of the eleventh century; that mention is made in any ancient writer of Capua's being then occupied by the Saracens, and rightly rejects that narration of Sigonio. That the Saracens in the year 1002 besieged the city of Bari in Apulia, and were thence driven off by Peter (namely Orseolo), doge of the Venetians, Lupus Protospatharius writes in his Chronicle, and others; but of Capua taken or besieged I find nothing among these. Nor does the Alberic just praised say this either: since the Saracens could have come upon Capua, that is, made an incursion against it, though they neither took nor besieged it. Now incursions of this kind by the Saracens of Africa and Sicily were frequent enough, and some one of them could easily have been made into the Capuan territory, as Alberic has it, even if it was neglected by other chroniclers, perhaps because it was of less moment.
[13] which is perhaps true: they were more probably carried off by a natural death Further, of the famine which the biographer says raged about the same time, Conrad of Ursperg and Sigonio at the year 1004, Hermann Contractus at 1005, Sigebert and the Annals of Hildesheim at 1006 have made mention. From all these it is plainly established that the death of SS. Aurelia and Neomisia must be bound to the beginning of the 11th century, if sure credit could be had for the biographer, which for what has been and is to be said he will not find with me. Yet because nothing stands in the way of those two holy Virgins having been able to die at that time, I have noted their time of death at the beginning of that century with a doubt. About the manner of their death there is no agreement among writers. Ughelli, in volume 1 of the enlarged Italia Sacra, under the bishops of Anagni, column 306, makes them martyrs in these words: "This city (Anagni) came forth far more illustrious after receiving the light of the Gospel from the very times of the Apostles, on account of the most illustrious and most famous martyrs who in it, that the faith of Christ once received might be confirmed, bore through most savage torments the never-failing palm of martyrdom, among whom shone Secundina, virgin and martyr, Aurelia, and Neomistia (in the margin is added, others, Neomisia), and very many others, whose unconquered crowns are extant in the Roman Martyrology."
[14] and not by martyrdom, With Ughelli agrees Francesco Orlendi, part 2 of the Sacred and Profane World, volume 1, page 617, where he has this about Anagni: "There likewise merited the crown of martyrdom Secundina the virgin, Aurelia, Neomesia, also called Neomisia, and other martyrs, whose memory is celebrated in the ecclesiastical tables." But on the contrary the anonymous author in the Life, Philip Ciammaricone in the Sanctuary of Anagni, and Philip Ferrari, following the manuscripts of Anagni, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, write that they died a natural death. With these Baronius in the Roman Martyrology, Brautius in the poetical one, and the hymn and Prayer reported in no. 4 plainly agree, in which, no mention of martyrdom being made, they are celebrated only as virgins. The biographer of St. Peter, bishop of Anagni, also agrees, who in the words to be reported below in no. 22, in one and the same passage attributes to St. Secundina virginity together with martyrdom, but to the holy Aurelia and Neomisia the palm of virginity alone.
[15] as some have believed. I believe therefore that Ughelli, and Orlendi who followed him, said they were martyrs for no other cause than that they believed both to have suffered together, whom they had read to be venerated together. Assuredly neither in the Roman Martyrology, nor in the Office and manuscripts of the church of Anagni, seen by Baronius, Ciammaricone and Ferrari and praised by me, is the palm of martyrdom ascribed to them; nor do I know what ecclesiastical tables Orlendi means, praised besides. Yet they would have to be held for martyrs if it were established that they died of the stripes with which the biographer says they were punished by the Saracens. But since the people of Anagni venerate them not as martyrs but only as virgins, this is not likely enough. Further, although I do not believe those holy Virgins were carried off by martyrdom, I do not for that reason hold it for certain that they died together on the same day and at the same time, as the biographer says; nay rather I suspect that the same day of their cult — which was perhaps that of the translation — gave him occasion to make the same the day of death for both as well. Nor should I dare, on the same biographer's authority, to assert with any more certainty that they died in the village of the Anagni estate which is called Macerata, and which he himself says is distant from Anagni forty miles, but Ferrari from his own copy only two thousand paces, and which Ciammaricone praised above declares to have been utterly destroyed already in his own time. Of it discourse will recur below. I proceed to the translation of the sacred bodies.
Annotata*. "vendiderunt"
§ II. The translations of the sacred bodies at Anagni, where they rest today; Tamayo's inventions rejected.
[ ] Their bodies to Anagni, not to Rome, The anonymous writer of the Life deserves more credit in reporting the Translations, because about these he could be better informed; nor yet is he in these free from all error, as we shall observe in this §. He therefore, after he had said that the sacred bodies of the Virgins were suddenly buried, for fear of the Saracens, in the same oratory in which they had sent forth their blessed souls, in the village or hamlet of Macerata in the territory of Anagni, subjoined: "When these (the Saracens) had after a time been dispersed from the aforesaid region, the bodies of the holy Virgins, worthy of revelation on account of the frequency of miracles, are gloriously removed by Catholic and faithful men from the ruin and depopulation of the aforesaid oratory of the place, when they had been buried * beneath, and, being translated with honor, are set at the walls of the city of Anagni in the monastery of nuns of the holy virgin Reparata at Bastenna, and there the sacred bodies of the Virgins shone forth manifoldly with miracles of virtues down to the times of Pope Leo the ninth." Different things from these Ciammaricone narrates in the Sanctuary of Anagni, in which, in chapter 19 of the Life of SS. Aurelia and Neomisia, he writes that their bodies were secretly translated from the aforesaid oratory of the hamlet of Macerata to Rome, and there hidden in the church of St. Reparatus, situated near the walls of that City, but, being revealed by God through the frequency of miracles, at last in the time of St. Leo IX were carried thence to Anagni.
[17] But lest you believe that he says these things without a witness, he praises their History, as someone has written, and from it recites the following in Latin: "Where (at Rome) also they were made illustrious by God with many miracles." I do not know what this History is; but in our manuscript Life nothing of these things, nay quite the opposite, as I have said, is to be read. Nothing either did Ferrari find in his manuscripts of the church of Anagni, who in the words given in no. 3 says the Saints' bodies were carried from the hamlet of Macerata within the city of Anagni, nor does he mention a Roman translation. A church of St. Reparatus situated near the walls of Rome I find none in Panciroli or the others who have written of the churches of that City, nor is any St. Reparatus inscribed in the Roman Martyrology. On the contrary, in the same at the day VIII of October is announced St. Reparata, virgin and martyr, crowned at Cæsarea in Palestine under Decius; but whether some sacred monastery of maidens under her name was at Anagni and in the place called Bastenna is equally unexplored by me, from the scarcity of writers who have treated of the city of Anagni, once flourishing, but now for some centuries very unlike itself.
[18] Finally, whatever be the case about that church or monastery, it appears to me much more likely they seem more likely to have been translated. that the Virgins' sacred bodies were translated from the place of their first burial to Anagni for the sake of greater veneration, than that they were secretly carried off by the Romans and hidden in some suburban church. For although we know thefts of this kind to have been often made by the inhabitants of other cities, yet this is less to be believed of the Romans, since they possess such abundant treasures of sacred bodies that it is not likely they so far envied the people of Anagni this one that they secretly carried it off and hid it at Rome. I return to the biographer, who presently subjoins a second translation of them, which he says was made, with St. Pope Leo IX present and consenting, from the aforesaid monastery of nuns to the cathedral church of Anagni. Receive his words, to be discussed.
[19] In the same 11th century, with the consent of St. Pope Leo IX "But when," he says, "the aforesaid Pontiff (St. Leo IX, as he had set down before), being attacked by the Romans, betook himself to the city of Anagni for the defense of the rights of the duchy of Apulia, and, having received with honor due satisfactions for their excesses from those same Romans, and concord being restored, while the lord Apostolic was residing there, the virtues of the blessed virgins Aurelia and Neomisia are brought to his notice by a solemn representation through Grimald, prelate of the venerated see of Anagni, and by sanction of Apostolic authority the relics of the Virgins are taken from the aforesaid monastery, and, translated by holy bishops into the episcopal church of the city, are honorably laid up with hymns and praises of canticles. Where the aforenoted Apostolic granted from himself, by a pious consideration, the aforesaid whole estate of Macerata with its woods, possessions and very many ornaments; but the aforesaid Grimald too offered there precious gifts of his own goods." Thus far our anonymous author.
[20] they are translated by bishop Grimald Of St. Pope Leo IX, who from the year of Christ 1049 to 1054 held the Roman Chair of St. Peter, you have the Acts illustrated in our Work by Henschen at the day XIX of April, on which he is venerated. But he was neither attacked by the Romans, nor had, nor could have had, controversy with them about the duchy of Apulia, as the anonymous author fables. He had it, however, with the Normans of Apulia, whose tyranny he attempted even by arms to check in the year 1053, when, his army being cut down, he himself was led by them to Benevento and well treated. Besides this, two other pilgrimages of the same holy Pontiff into Apulia are read of, one in the year 1050, the other in 1051, in one or the other or both of which he was perhaps at Anagni. At the same time Grimald could have presided over the church of Anagni as bishop, who in Ughelli in the Italia Sacra, volume 1, column 308, is said to have sat there in the year 1048, but was little known to him. For besides his name, which is there written Grimandus or Rimaldus, and the epitaph, which runs thus: "Rinaldus, unworthy bishop," he records nothing further about him.
[21] to the cathedral church of Anagni, Ciammaricone, already often praised, also says the aforesaid translation was made under the same bishop, whom he calls Grimanus, with the consent of the same Pontiff St. Leo IX, then present at Anagni; but of his presence he alleges no cause, nor does he mention any attack or controversy of the Romans. But since, from what was said above, he had said that the bodies of SS. Aurelia and Neomisia had earlier been carried to Rome, he consequently writes that St. Leo, being asked by the clergy and people of Anagni with many prayers and tears, at last consented that they should be translated to Anagni; which to us, on account of what was said above, appears less likely. The donation also of the hamlet of Macerata, made by the same Pontiff on that occasion, Ciammaricone asserts with the biographer, about which I find nothing in others. In the same century again another translation was set on foot by St. Peter, whom Ughelli makes the successor of Grimandus or Grimald in the bishopric of Anagni, and writes to have been inaugurated in the year 1062.
[22] and there afterward by St. Peter the bishop Of this translation the biographer speaks thus: "But in the course of time the man of religious profession Peter, of conspicuous sanctity, successor in the prelacy of Anagni, when the fabric of the episcopal church of the holy Mother of God had been raised with the greatest labor, most zealously placed the bodies of the aforesaid blessed Virgins in the catacombs of the blessed Magnus, beside the body of the blessed Secundina, virgin and martyr, in a marble coffer, and built above it a marble altar in honor of the blessed Secundina and of all the virgins of Christ, where prayers and praises flourish together, and benefits are exhibited from heaven to those who devoutly ask them." The Life of this St. Peter our Cuper illustrated at the day III of August, from which I report a few things here for the knowledge of the present argument. Born of the princes of Salerno, he professed the monastic Life in the monastery of St. Benedict at Salerno, where, when he shone with sanctity and knowledge, he was brought by Cardinal Hildebrand — who afterward was called the Roman Pontiff Gregory VII — to Alexander II, and was for a while set over affairs in the Roman curia, and at last inaugurated bishop of the church of Anagni.
[23] Then, when, discharging an Apostolic legation to the Greek emperor Michael Ducas, in the new cathedral church he had divinely healed him as he labored under a grave disease, he received from him a great sum of money for building a new cathedral church at Anagni (for the old one had fallen, or threatened ruin); which, returning to Anagni, he splendidly carried out. And that among the sacred relics which he then honorably deposited in that same church were also the bodies of SS. Aurelia and Neomisia, virgins, that same St. Peter's biographer teaches in no. 17 of the Life published at the day just cited, in these words: "Meanwhile, with the entombed (perhaps it must be read: to be entombed) bodies of the blessed Magnus and of Secundina, virgin and martyr, and of Aurelia and Neomisia, virgins, together with the venerable relics of very many Saints, and having appointed them beforehand as patrons of the church, he founded and raised a church in the catacombs (that is, a crypt or subterranean chapel), as had been designated to him (by St. Magnus, bishop and martyr, in a vision), and as the evidence of the work makes manifest."
[24] Again in no. 18, after some things, he goes on thus: "But the body of the blessed Secundina the virgin, in the same century are honorably deposited, [and] the bones, splendid with a milky brightness, of the virgins Aurelia and Neomisia, he placed in a coffer beside her under the altar of the same blessed Secundina and of all the virgins of Christ, on the right." Of St. Magnus, bishop and martyr, of whom the discourse here is, the Acts have been given by us on the day XIX of August; but of the holy Secundina, virgin and martyr, only briefly at the XV of January, because her fuller Acts, which we now have in manuscript, Bolland had not then yet received, and which accordingly will come to be examined in the Supplement of the Work. The year of the founding of the basilica of Anagni and of the translation carried out in it by St. Peter I have nowhere found; but since Baronius in the Annals and Antonio Pagi in the Critique refer that same St. Peter's legation to Constantinople to the year of Christ 1071 or the one next following, both must be bound to the 11th century almost decrepit.
[25] Further, in the same place those sacred bodies were also resting at the beginning of this 18th century, where today they are religiously venerated. when Philip Ciammaricone published the Sanctuary of Anagni, in which in chapter 19 of their Life he expressly asserts this, and adds that they are honored there with a great concourse of people, and venerated by the clergy with an annual solemnity, and that the Saints repay these offices of piety with their wonted graces and benefits. Nor do I know that they were afterward translated to another place, nor is this likely. Certainly Orlendi, who wrote in this same century well advanced, in the Sacred and Profane World, part 2, volume 1, page 617, reckons them in the same church, saying: "The cathedral church is consecrated to the Virgin Mother of God at her Annunciation, where the sacred remains of St. Magnus and of SS. Secundina, Aurelia, Neomisia, and Oliva are laid up."
[26] Before I put an end to this Commentary, something must be added about John Tamayo Salazar, who in the Spanish Martyrology, forging from the counterfeit Adversaria of Julian a fable far different from our manuscript Life, Tamayo in the Spanish Martyrology makes St. Aurelia, venerated at Anagni, to have been born in Galicia and to have suffered in Latium. Receive his words at this day, the XXV of September. "At Anagni in Italy, of St. Aurelia, virgin and martyr, who, having been born in Galicia in Spain, her father being St. Agathopus, a freedman of Augustus, and having been there converted to the faith by St. James the apostle of the Spains, came to Italy, and, withdrawing into Latium, gave a glorious specimen of her virtues, until, crowned with martyrdom, she passed away." Of Agathopus he had treated at the XXV of April, on which day St. Agathopodes the deacon is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, whom he makes the same as that one, and reviews his fictitious Acts.
[27] narrates other fables about them Nor did Tamayo hesitate, from inventions of this kind, to charge Baronius and Ferrari with ascribing to St. Aurelia in the Martyrologies only the laurel of virginity without martyrdom. Besides this, he attributes two daughters to Agathopus, both called Aurelia, of whom one suffered at Anagni, as we have said, the other at Strasbourg, of whom he treats in the same place at the day XV of October, on which is read in the Roman Martyrology: "At Strasbourg, of holy Aurelia, virgin." But he denies that holy Neomisia can be called St. Aurelia's sister on any other ground than that of faith, manner of life, and companionship. To prove this he adduces an old sepulchral inscription, brought forward by his Julian to that end, which I subjoin from him.
AGATHOPUS, FREEDMAN OF THE AUGUSTI, INVITATOR,
AND JUNIA EPICTESIS,
TO AURELIA EPICTESIS
AND AURELIA IRENE,
THEIR SWEETEST DAUGHTERS,
THEIR PARENTS, WHILE LIVING,
MADE THIS.
[28] from the counterfeit Adversaria of Julian, The same inscription Jan Gruter exhibits on page 598, no. 6, as Tamayo himself also observes, and it is there said to have stood at Rome by the theatre of Marcellus. But the reader will doubtless wonder that Tamayo believed his Julian that that epitaph pertained to the Aurelias, one of whom was crowned with martyrdom at Anagni in Latium, the other at Strasbourg in Germany; whereas it rather indicates that they departed this life with their parents in the same city. You will wonder likewise that Tamayo, on the credit of that same Julian, made Agathopus, freedman of the Augusti — that is, of the Emperors — a contemporary of St. James the apostle, when it is established that only one Augustus at a time presided over the Roman empire until Marcus Aurelius, who in the year 161 of the common era was the first of all to make Lucius Ælius Aurelius Commodus his colleague in the empire as Augustus. That Agathopus, freedman of the Augusti, belongs therefore to more recent times than that he, together with his daughters, could have been baptized by St. James the apostle in Spain.
[29] worthy of no credit. These inventions of Tamayo from the fictitious Julian our Henschen noticed, and judged them unworthy of refutation, at the day XIX of April under SS. Philo and Agathopodes, deacons. The same were noticed also by Nicolás Antonio of Seville, doctor of laws, known by his Old Library of Spain published in print, whose posthumous manuscript animadversions against them I have, communicated in the year 1721 to my elders by the very reverend and most eminent D. Adrian Coninck, his kinsman, which I would subjoin here, did I not believe the learned world thoroughly persuaded about the fictitious Adversaria of Julian. On more things therefore I here forbear.
Annotata*. perhaps "depressa"