Privatus

ON ST. PRIVATUS, SOLDIER AND MARTYR,

AT ROME

From the Martyrologies and the Acts of St. Callistus, Pope and martyr.

IN THE YEAR 222 OR THE FOLLOWING.

Privatus, soldier, Mart., at Rome. (S.)

BY C. S.

Cardinal Baronius entered this Martyr in the Roman Martyrology at the present day of September in these words: At Rome, St. Privatus the martyr, In the Roman Martyrology today; in the Rosweydian, on 14 October who, being full of sores, was healed by Blessed Callistus the Pope, and thereafter, under the emperor Alexander, was beaten with leaded scourges unto death for the faith of Christ. Then, in the Annotations, he indicated whence he had drawn it: His martyrdom is treated of in the Acts of St. Callistus the Pope, which are set down in Surius, tom. VII, October XIV. So far he, and no more; from which it may be gathered that St. Privatus was known to him only from the Acts he praises, and that no Martyrology went before him to warrant the recording of his memory today. I for my part certainly do not find St. Privatus announced on this day in the Martyrologies older than Baronius. I said, on this day; for in the old or Little Roman, brought to light by our Rosweyde, a certain St. Privatus, a soldier, is commemorated on the fourteenth day of October as a companion of St. Callistus the Pope and martyr, in this manner: On the II Ides, at Rome, of Callistus the Pope and martyr, and of Privatus the soldier.

[2] Wandelbert, in his metrical Martyrology, joined to the same holy Pontiff a companion, with St. Callistus, to whom Wandelbert likewise adds an unnamed companion, but an unnamed one, singing thus on the aforesaid day of October:

Callistus, bishop and martyr, on the day before, pre-eminent by his great trophy, shines forth accompanied by a martyr.

Francesco Florentini, in his Annotations on the ancient Hieronymian Martyrology of Lucca, at the same fourteenth day of October, made the following observation upon this matter: Wandelbert sang that St. Callistus had some companion in the contest, yet he does not express him by name. Molanus adds Privatus in the margin of the book; but Saturus is joined to Callistus both on this day and on the IV Ides (of October) in our books and in the Corbie Martyrology, and he is likewise commemorated in the Antwerp (or Echternach) one, though not in the Fasti of today. Since Privatus, who is noted in almost all the Martyrologies of the Latins (namely in the elogia of St. Callistus), does not appear here, I have suspected that he bore two names, and that he is venerated here under the name of Saturus. But I have no light from elsewhere. Thus Florentini, who seems not to have adverted to the announcement of the Old Roman of Rosweyde.

[3] But whatever be the case as to the Martyr's twofold name, I in no way doubt he is announced; but in Greven on 17 October that the soldier Privatus, announced in the Rosweydian together with St. Callistus the Pope on the fourteenth day of October, is the same as the one Baronius gives today. The reason is plain: namely, that Privatus in the aforesaid Acts, from which the said Cardinal took him, is likewise said to have been a soldier and to have suffered with Callistus, though by another kind of death, as we shall presently see. Greven, reported by our Sollerius among the Usuardine supplements, plainly marked the same Martyr on the seventeenth day of October with an elogium drawn from the same Acts. Of Privatus, he says, the martyr, who, being a soldier and full of sores, was cured and baptized by Blessed Calixtus the Pope, and was slain with leaded scourges for Christ until he expired. I do not see what could have moved Greven to refer the memory of this holy Martyr to the said day; but of Baronius there will be talk again below, where I shall inquire into the day of the martyrdom.

[4] It became known from the Acts of the same St. Callistus the Pope; Of the deeds of St. Privatus nothing has become known, apart from the few things that are read in the Acts of the aforesaid St. Callistus. These we have in various manuscript codices, and they stand printed in the collection of Bonino Mombrizio, tom. 1, and, with the wording altered, in Surius at the fourteenth day of October. They seemed better to our Henschen than they deserve, when, on the tenth day of May, excerpting from them the deeds of SS. Calepodius the presbyter, Palmatius and their other companions, Martyrs, he judged that they had been composed by the Roman notaries. Cardinal Baronius thought less honourably of them in tom. 2 of the Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year of Christ 226, num. 2, where he passed this censure: There are extant the Acts of his (St. Callistus the Pope's) passion, yet not in all things trustworthy: for what they contain about edicts promulgated by Alexander (the emperor) against the Christians, and a persecution declared by him against them, is not approved. For against these stand not only the things we have recited above out of Lampridius, but also what has been written by the ancient writers of Christian affairs, who all alike affirm that no persecution was stirred up in the Church under Alexander. Sollerius adopted Baronius's judgment in his Observations on Usuard at the aforesaid tenth day of May and at the fourteenth of October, on which latter day St. Callistus is honoured, and those Acts will come to be examined more fully.

[5] from which we here give his conversion Now receive the few things which are contained in the same Acts concerning St. Privatus, from the edition of Surius. After the anonymous author had said that St. Callistus the Pope had been consigned to prison by the emperor Alexander and wasted with hunger, daily beating, and squalor, he continued thus. There was there a certain soldier, by name Privatus, who, being full of sores and pains, was most grievously tormented day and night; he, falling at the feet of the bishop (St. Callistus, held in prison), begged that help be given him, saying: Save me, father, from my sores; for I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the living and true God, who delivered Blanda from her infirmity (as he had related before) and can save me also; for I am long since consumed in the affliction of my burning. Blessed Calixtus the bishop answered: If thou shalt believe with thy whole heart, and shalt be baptized in the name of the holy Trinity, thou shalt be made clean. Privatus answered: I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ will save me in baptism by thy hand, and will cleanse all the wounds and diseases by which I am held.

[6] and his martyrdom, And he, being cleansed by the power of God through baptism, magnified the Lord with a loud voice, saying: True and holy is the Lord Jesus Christ, whom Calixtus the bishop preaches: all idols indeed are vain and dumb and shall be consumed; but God is the Lord Jesus Christ. On hearing this, Alexander, filled with rage, sent officers to beat the soldier Privatus with leaded scourges until he should expire. Calixtus the bishop he ordered to be cast headlong through the window of the house, and, with a stone tied to his neck, to be plunged into a well, and rubble to be heaped upon him. But when seventeen days had passed, a certain one of his presbyters, by name Asterius, coming by night with the clergy, raised the body of the blessed bishop and buried it in the cemetery of Calepodius on the Aurelian Way, on the day before the Ides of October. Bede and Ado have very similar things in their Martyrologies at the fourteenth day of October, where they set out an elogium of St. Callistus put together from the same Acts. And from this gather that those Acts, though not free from faults, are nevertheless ancient, since they were already held in esteem in the age of the venerable Bede, who died in the year 735.

[7] It is also to be observed that those who are said to have suffered under Alexander and for the vindication of that Martyr are not on that account to be struck from the number of the martyrs, because he is not read to have persecuted the Church of God; since to an emperor there could be attributed, as often elsewhere, what had been done by his ministers, and since some fabulous additions are found sprinkled here and there even in Acts that are good in other respects. Thus Tillemont himself, tom. 3 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, Note 3 on St. Callistus, where he attacks the great number of martyrs under Alexander, nevertheless admits the martyrdom of St. Callistus under the same emperor, and affirms that the manner in which he is said in the Acts to have been killed is probable enough. He even observes that the same holy Pontiff is read as inscribed in the most ancient Bucherian Calendar, and that in the ancient Catalogue of the Roman Pontiffs, which is prefixed to tom. 1 of April in our Work, he is expressly said to have been crowned with martyrdom. There makes further for the vindication of St. Privatus as martyr the fact that the author of the ancient Roman Martyrology of Rosweyde, who wrote at Rome, out of the great number of martyrs who are commemorated in the aforesaid Acts announced only two, at least by name, namely St. Calepodius the presbyter on the tenth day of May, and St. Privatus the soldier on the fourteenth of October, as having suffered together with Callistus, as was said above, and as the Acts affirm.

[8] But what cause shall we say there was that these two rather we make some observations. He suffered at the same time as St. Callistus, than Palmatius the consul with his 42 companions, than Simplicius the senator with 68 others, than Felix and Blanda, husband and wife, of whom those Acts equally make mention — what cause, I say, shall we assign, that the author of the Martyrology in question recorded those two above the rest that are mentioned, unless it be that he had known something more certain about the martyrdom or cult of both? Yet I said, at least by name; because on the 2nd day of March he commemorated a certain band of martyrs at Rome thus: And of very many martyrs condemned to capital sentence under Alexander. But these, who were treated of in our Work at the aforesaid day, seem to be other than those whom the writer of the Passion of St. Callistus praised. The time of St. Privatus's martyrdom hangs upon the year and day of the martyrdom of St. Callistus, with whom we have said that he himself suffered. Baronius, tom. 2 of the Annals, tied the death of this holy Pontiff to the fourteenth day of October in the year 226, which year was the 224th of the common Christian era, which Baronius anticipates by two years.

[9] Henschen, in his Diatribe on the ancient Catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs, fixed it in the year 222, he suffered, and therefore in the year 222 or the following. and consequently placed also the martyrdom of SS. Calepodius, Palmatius and the rest praised in the Acts of the same Callistus in the same year. Papebroch agrees, and moreover assigns the twenty-eighth day of September for the day of St. Callistus's martyrdom in his chronological-historical Essay on the Catalogue of Pontiffs, whom Pagi too followed in his Criticism of Baronius at the year of Christ 222, num. 4, and 224, num. 2. But Tillemont, in Note 4 on St. Callistus, preferred to mark the year 223, on account of the duration of the Pontificate of St. Zephyrinus, whom Callistus succeeded, and whom he holds to have lived almost to the end of the year 218; whereas those named above judged that he died in the year 217. The difficulty may be read in our Work at the twenty-sixth day of August, in St. Zephyrinus, §3, where our Pinius on that account placed the death of the same Pontiff about the year 218. The matter will come to be examined afresh in the Acts of St. Callistus, to whom it properly belongs; I meanwhile have fixed the martyrdom of St. Privatus in the year 222 or 223, in one or other of which it must have befallen.

[10] Some disagree about the day of the martyrdom; There remains a question about the other point, the day. I said just now that St. Callistus, in the opinion of Papebroch and Pagi, was crowned with martyrdom on the twenty-eighth day of September. They fetch their reason from the Acts, in which it is said that his body, after seventeen days had passed — or, as the manuscript Acts have it, after ten and seven days — from the martyrdom, was raised from the well by Asterius the presbyter and buried in the cemetery of Calepodius on the day before the Ides of October. They therefore counted backwards seventeen days from the day of the burial, and so arrived at the twenty-eighth of September, both termini, namely the fourteenth day of October and the twenty-eighth of September, being reckoned within the number seventeen. Cardinal Baronius, tom. 2 of the Annals, at the year of Christ 226, num. 1, assigned the day before the Ides, that is the fourteenth of October, not to the burial but to the martyrdom of St. Callistus, and nevertheless entered St. Privatus in the Roman Martyrology at the twenty-eighth of September; for no other cause, I suppose, than that he counted the seventeen days mentioned in the Acts not from the death of St. Callistus but from that of Privatus, and then proceeded in his reckoning in the same manner as Papebroch and Pagi.

[11] but it is more probable that St. Privatus But against Baronius stand not only all the copies of the Acts, and those who followed them, Bede and Ado, but also the Catalogue of the Roman Pontiffs published in the second place by Henschen, and likewise Anastasius the Librarian, in all of which it is said that Callistus was given to burial on the day before the Ides of October in the cemetery of Calepodius. The very same seems also to be indicated in the most ancient Calendar of Martyrs of Bucherius, which has it thus: On the day before the Ides, of Callistus, on the Aurelian Way, at the third milestone. The ancient Hieronymian Martyrology of Lucca, printed and illustrated by Francesco Florentini, makes mention of Callistus twice: first at the 12th and again at the 14th of October; and Florentini observes in the same place that the same is done in the Antwerp, or Echternach, and the Corbie Martyrologies. And hence he suspects that the first is perhaps the day of his martyrdom, and the second of his burial; and he endeavours to strengthen this suspicion of his out of the Acts of St. Callistus. In these it is read that St. Asterius the presbyter, after six days, at Alexander's command, was cast headlong from the bridge, and that his body was found at Ostia and there buried by the Christians on the fourteenth of the Kalends of November.

[12] suffered on the 28th day of September. These six days he himself thought were to be reckoned from the death of St. Callistus, that is from the 12th of October, on which, as I said, the same holy Pontiff is announced in the Martyrologies he cites. But this argument is overturned out of the same Acts: for since in them seventeen days are expressly counted between St. Callistus's martyrdom and the burial procured by Asterius, on what ground shall that same Asterius be said to have survived the said holy Pontiff by only six days? Assuredly whoever will consult those Acts will clearly perceive that those six days are to be computed not from the death but from the burial of St. Callistus. Hence Bede, praising these very Acts, celebrated St. Asterius on the twenty-first day of October in his Martyrology in these words: On the same day, the birthday of St. Asterius, presbyter of Calixtus, who, when he had buried his body raised out of the well, after six days, the emperor Alexander hearing of this, ordered him to be cast headlong from the bridge, etc. Ado, after his manner, agrees with Bede in the same place. More probable, then, is the opinion of Papebroch and Pagi than the conjecture of Florentini; and therefore I too judge that St. Privatus, who from the oft-cited Acts seems to have suffered on the same day as St. Callistus, is rather to be referred with Baronius to the twenty-eighth of September, until perhaps something more certain be discovered in the deeds of the same St. Callistus, to be illustrated on the fourteenth day of October. Meanwhile it ought not to stand in the way here that St. Privatus is announced by the author of the ancient Rosweydian Martyrology on the fourteenth day of October; for that seems to have been done because he had no proper day of cult, and St. Callistus, whose companion he had been in the passion, was honoured on that day of October on account of the burial of his body in the cemetery of Calepodius.

[13] Thus far I have treated of Privatus out of the Acts of St. Callistus, which alone gave light to the others Another elogium is recited from Peter de Natalibus, who have made mention of him. The same alone are cited also by Peter de Natalibus, bishop of Equilio, in his Catalogue of the Saints, book 9, chap. 78, where he recounts an elogium of St. Privatus partly different from theirs. He has it thus, then: Privatus the martyr suffered at Rome under the emperor Alexander; who, being a soldier full of sores, and seeing how St. Calepodius, presbyter and martyr, appeared by night with an immense light to Blessed Callistus the Pope, held in custody, and comforted him with kindly exhortations, fell at the feet of Callistus and prayed the more urgently for his own health. And Callistus, while he poured over him the sacred font, cured him of all his wounds, as was said above in the passion of Blessed Callistus the Pope on the day before the Ides of October. Hearing which, the emperor Alexander, after the passion of Callistus, caused Privatus to be seized, and, since he remained in the confession of Christ, to be beaten with leaded scourges until he expired. Whose body Asterius the presbyter buried beside the body of Blessed Callistus on the XVI of the Kalends of November.

[14] partly different from the aforesaid Acts. The apparition of St. Calepodius is mentioned also by the Acts published by others and by those in manuscript, but in all of these it is not said that Privatus saw it, or was led by it to ask to be healed by St. Callistus. Rather they suggest that the healing of Blanda, who is there related to have been suddenly cured of a palsy by the invocation of Christ, gave occasion to this petition; since Privatus above, at num. 5, says of Christ: Who delivered Blanda from her infirmity, and can save me also. More manifestly does the said bishop depart from the same Acts when he says that St. Privatus was arrested and killed only after the martyrdom of St. Callistus; nor have I read in any other writer what he affirms about the burial of the same holy Martyr near the body of St. Callistus, carried out by St. Asterius on the XVI of the Kalends of November; and therefore these things, asserted as it were without a witness, are of no weight with me.