ON SAINT VENUSTIANUS THE PROCONSUL, WITH HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN, MARTYRS, AT TODI IN UMBRIA.
YEAR 311.
CommentaryVenustianus the Proconsul, his wife and children, Martyrs, at Todi in Umbria (Saints)
By D. P.
The city of Todi, ancient among the Umbrians and Episcopal, Venustianus made Proconsul of Tuscany, on August 13 venerates Saint Cassian, its Prelate and eminent Martyr: from his Life, to be given on the said day, we have that his brother was Venustianus, whom his grandfather Chromatius, in place of his deceased father Ablavius, Proconsul of Tuscany, took care to substitute, that wherever he found Christians, he might punish them. Therefore Venustianus came from Milan to Rome (as is said there), and having received the Proconsulship of Tuscany was brought into the city of Todi, at Todi he tortures his brother Cassian with his disciples, and there sitting before the tribunal, he ordered his brother Cassian to be presented to him, and commanded him bound to wood, and had him beaten by four soldiers; but also his disciples Marcus, Cletus, and Tudinus... he raised up on the rack. While they were being long stretched, a messenger came from Rome to Venustianus, saying that he should go to the city of Assisi: because it was reported there was there a sacrilegious man and seducer, named Sabinus. At the same hour he had the said scholars taken down from the rack, and handed them bound to the Prefect, while he himself after a few days going to Assisi ordered his brother to perish of hunger in prison.
[2] At Assisi he slays Saints Marcellinus and Exuperantius, Thus far those Acts of Saint Cassian, which, as will be shown below, are so to be understood that between the promotion of Venustianus (if indeed it is made with Chromatius as author) and the martyrdom of Saint Cassian about twenty-four years intervened. The rest concerning the same Venustianus from the Acts of Saint Sabinus to be given on December 7 or 30, consequently we learn, namely that being brought to Assisi, after the constancy of the holy Prelate and of his Deacons Marcellus and Exuperantius had been variously tested, their bodies, dead from torments, he ordered cast into the river; but Sabinus the Bishop with mutilated hands he sent back into prison... After thirty-two days the eyes of Venustianus Governor of Tuscany grew sore, he mutilates Bishop Sabinus: and from excessive pain he could neither take food nor sleep, so that none of the physicians could mitigate his pain. At the same time it was announced to Venustianus Governor of Tuscany that Saint Sabinus had illumined a blind man. He therefore sent his wife and his two sons to beg Saint Sabinus the Bishop with honor. When this was said to Saint Sabinus the Bishop in prison, he said: "Glory to you, Lord Jesus Christ, who deign to call me among your servants," and immediately set out for the house of Venustianus.
[3] but struck with blindness, Then they lifted him up in their hands, and cast him before the feet of Saint Sabinus the Bishop, whom when he saw he wept and with clear voice said: "May Christ illumine you, who illumined the man born blind." Answering, Venustianus with his wife and sons, with weeping said: "We have sinned in this world." Saint Sabinus answered and said: "If you believe and do penance, all things will be supplied to you." Venustianus answered: "I believe with my whole heart; but the sin which I committed against you, it itself shows me as torment." Saint Sabinus answered and said: "My demerits have done this, but you shall be shown innocent by me; but I admonish you this, that you repent, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and receive baptism, and you shall be saved." Venustianus answered: "Baptize me in the name of Jesus Christ, and I shall receive your promises." and by Saint Sabinus instructed in the faith Then Saint Sabinus, with knees bent, prayed, and with hands cut off catechized him with his wife and sons; and blessing the water, baptized him saying: "Do you believe in God the Father almighty?" He answered, "I believe." "And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord?" He answered, "I believe." "And in the Holy Spirit?" He answered, "I believe." Saint Sabinus said: "And I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, baptized, and of the Holy Spirit, who illumines you unto eternal life; and through him who is to come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire, unto the remission of sins and the resurrection of the flesh." Venustianus answered: "I believe Christ the Son of God, who illumines me."
[4] and illumined, At that same hour he was lifted from the basin, and his eyes were opened, so that he felt no pain after baptism. And Venustianus holding the feet of Saint Sabinus the Bishop, bathed them with tears saying: "Pray to the Lord Jesus Christ, to forgive me what I committed against you." Saint Sabinus the Bishop answered: "I, son, on account of the infidelity of my sins endured all things, but you have not sinned." And they dwelt together. This deed was announced to Maxentius the text has Maximian, corrected to Maxentius Augustus, that Venustianus had been baptized; and filled with fury he sent his Tribune, he is slain by the sword with his family: and by indictment together condemned Sabinus the Bishop, and Venustianus, and ordered them to be beheaded. Binding however Lucius the Tribune, without a hearing, Venustianus himself, with his wife and sons, he beheaded in the city of Assisi: whose bodies were hidden, and could never be found.
[5] He is venerated at Todi on April 18 The Church of Todi venerates Saint Venustianus on April 18 under the rite of a double Office with new proper lessons, approved by the Congregation of Rites in 1625, according to Jacobillus, on this day in the Lives of the Saints of Umbria. In the Roman Martyrology the memory of Saint Venustianus is found noted on December 30 in this way: "At Spoleto of the holy Martyrs Sabinus the Bishop, Exuperantius and Marcellus the Deacons, and Venustianus the Governor, with wife and sons"; then it is explained how each were consummated at different times, by others referred to December 30. according to the Acts which Cardinal Baronius had in Manuscript. It is wonderful that in the same Acts he did not also observe that alone of all Sabinus suffered at Spoleto; but the example had been set by Usuard and Ado, whose Martyrologies had been read joined together, joining even the names, and noting the place of Martyrdom at Spoleto. They also had other older writers whom they would follow; for Ado, after he had contracted the acts of Saint Sabinus into a quite prolix epitome, and said that he was buried on the 7th day before the Ides of September, adds: "Yet his festivity and that of the Martyrs named above is kept on the third day before the Kalends of January"; and we also found thus in the Dijon supplement to Bede, also in the Manuscript Martyrology of the Cologne church of Saint Mary ad Gradus.
[6] What shall we say of the time? Saint Tiburtius the Martyr, of whom most fully in the Acts of Saint Sebastian on January 20, a man, as is said in n. 77, most Scholastic, but as in n. 62 most wise young man, had not yet taken up the business of the forum, but promises to renounce only the will of undertaking it; so that it is much if he attained the 30th year of his age, when his Father Chromatius, a widower indeed, but for the sake of receiving Baptism, abdicated the Prefecture of the city, about the year 287, appointed to the rule by Diocletian, together with two concubines received after the death of his wife. But if the daughter of Chromatius, married to Ablavius the Proconsul of Tuscany, then already had sons fit for administering the Proconsular dignity in place of the dead father, Cassian and Venustianus, one of whom, because he was a Christian, refusing, the other by the recommendation of his still-Gentile grandfather was made Proconsular, as is said in the Acts of Saint Cassian, it is altogether necessary that they, if not greater in age, at least were equal to Tiburtius; and thus, if he underwent martyrdom about the year 287, about the year 260 Venustianus was born: so that it is not wonderful if he had a wife and grown sons, when illumined by Saint Sabinus he received the faith of Christ. For he did not receive it until after the year of the Christian Era 309; when with Maxentius II and Romulus II consuls, and in the year 310, stimulated by new mandates from Maxentius, on the 3rd day before the Kalends of November, Aurelius Hermogenes was declared Prefect of the City, as is read in the old Catalog of Prefects of the City, with Bucherius extending to the year 354, called Hermogenianus in the Acts of Saint Sabinus.
[7] Now with Hermogenianus bearing the Prefecture of the City, and reporting the twelve times repeated shouts of the people in the circus, that Christians be removed, on the 15th day before the Kalends of May; the Emperor Maxentius (the Acts of Saint Sabinus wrongly write Maximian, because the persecution decreed by him and Diocletian this son-in-law of Maximian continued at Rome) publicly beginning to rage against Christians, did not die until the following year, on the 10th day before the Kalends of May announced that faculty was granted by him to the Prefect, wherever Christians were found, they should be held. Then on the day before the Kalends of May, the same man by letter commanded Venustianus the Augustal of Tuscany, honoring him with the title of Parent. Therefore the year was 310, and the month of May of that year, when his brother Cassian, with his disciples, having been arrested, Venustianus was torturing at Todi; and having received the mandates of Maxentius and information about Saint Sabinus, leaving his brother in prison, he went to Assisi, where he held and mutilated Sabinus; then he was converted by him to the faith, perhaps at the very time when his brother was being killed at Todi, so that this might be understood to have been obtained by his prayers.
[8] From then there was some peace for the Christians through Umbria and Picenum, with Venustianus staying with Sabinus, until the matter having been reported to the Tyrant, a certain Lucius was substituted for him, under whom if on April 18 Venustianus underwent martyrdom, he underwent it in the year 311: in which year also, under the 7th day of December, Sabinus was killed. And the punishment of Maxentius's exercised and commanded cruelty was not long delayed, since in the following year he was conquered by Constantine and lost his life and empire.
[9] Prefect of Tuscany and Umbria at the same time, Another difficulty is raised in this place by Ferrarius in the Annotations, how Venustianus, whom it is agreed rendered judgment at Todi and Assisi, is called Proconsul and Augustal of Tuscany, when these cities are counted to Umbria. But the answer is easy from the ancient Notitia of the Roman Empire, written under the Emperor Honorius and often printed and reprinted; namely that all Italy was divided among eight Prefects, who in Honorius's time were called Consulars: the first of Venetia and Histria, II of Aemilia, III of Liguria, and Vicar of Italy. IV of Flaminia and Picenum the Annonarii, V of Tuscany and Umbria, VI of Picenum the Suburbicarii, VII of Campania, VIII of Sicily: nor is there reason to suspect another division of Prefectures was under the Gentile Emperors, although their Governors were only called Proconsulars then; so that there was always one Prefecture of Tuscany and Umbria, from the nobler part commonly called that of Tuscany. The same Venustianus in the aforesaid Acts of Saint Sabinus is also called Vicar: such as when Italy had only one, it would follow that under this title he excelled and presided over the other Italian Proconsulars.
AnnotationNote: read Maxentius