ON SAINT FELICULA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR AT ROME.
UNDER DOMITIAN.
Historical Commentary. On the Acts from the Passion of S. Domitilla; ancient cult, on the several bodies of many, under the veneration of the same name.
Felicula, Virgin & Martyr at Rome (S.)
BY THE AUTHORS G. H. & D. P.
[1] On the day XII May SS. Nereus & Achilleus, Eunuchs; & S. Flavia Domitilla, Roman Virgin; Martyrs at Terracina in Latium, near the end of the first century, are venerated: whose Acts from many very ancient Mss. of the best faith we have illustrated. Into these are inserted in chapter IV the life & death of S. Petronilla, and the martyrdom of S. Felicula & Nicomedes the Presbyter, from the response of Marcellus the Roman Christian, sent to the said Martyrs Nereus & Achilleus, at Terracina: & indeed in number 15 are narrated the Acts of S. Petronilla: Companion of S. Petronilla, who when she was sought in marriage by Flaccus the Count, it came about that for a space of three days received the Virgin occupied herself with holy fasts & prayers, having with her the holy Virgin Felicula, her foster-sister, perfect in the fear of God: where some Mss., instead of Foster-sister (which I rather approve) have Companion: which is not alien from the delicate nature of girls, naturally dreading nocturnal solitude, and thus not altogether to be rejected. Then the same Petronilla on the third day, when she received the Sacrament of Christ, reclining herself on the bed, sent forth her spirit. This was done on the day XXXI May, on which we have set forth the rest of the Acts of S. Petronilla. But soon in number 16 the martyrdom of S. Felicula the Virgin in the already-said response of Marcellus to SS. Nereus & Achilleus, is thus explained.
[2] she dead, refuses to marry Flaccus: Flaccus moreover, changing his mind, said to Felicula: Choose one of two for thyself; either be my wife, or sacrifice to the gods. To whom S. Felicula replied: Neither shall I be thy wife, because I am consecrated to Christ: nor shall I sacrifice to idols, because I am a Christian. Then Flaccus handed her over to the Vicar, & made her be shut up in a dark chamber, without food for seven days, wherefore afflicted by hunger in which the wives of the guards said to her; Why dost thou wish to die a bad death? Take a noble husband, rich, young, elegant, a Count, & friend of the Emperor. Hearing these things Felicula, offered no answer at all to their speech, except this; I am a Virgin of Christ, & besides Him, I accept none whatsoever. But being thrown out after seven days she was led to the virgins of Vesta, tortured on the rack; & there for another seven days without food she remained: for by no reasoning could they bring her to this, that she should take food from their hands. After these things being raised on the rack, she cried saying: Now I have begun to see my lover Christ, in whom my soul is fixed. But all said to her, even those who were torturing her: killed she is cast down into the sewer: Deny that thou art a Christian , & thou shalt be released. But Felicula cried out: I do not deny my lover, who for my sake was fed with gall, given vinegar to drink, crowned with thorns, & fixed to the cross. After these things she was taken down & cast into the sewer.
[3] & is buried on the Via Ardeatina. But Saint Nicomedes the Presbyter, placed on the lookout, secretly lifted up the body, & through the night in a two-wheeled cart brought it to his little cottage, on the seventh milestone from the City Rome on the Via Ardeatina, & there buried her: in which place his prayers bear fruit unto this present day. But it came to Flaccus that Nicomedes the Martyr had done this, & he caused him to be held. Then his martyrdom & burial having been narrated, thus that chapter is concluded. Here end the writings of Marcellus, sent to Nereus & Achilleus. Here begin the rescripts about their passion. Which there are set forth, & we have said the Birotum to be a vehicle of two wheels. The birthday of S. Nicomedes is XV September, & S. Felicula is believed to have suffered, on the day XIV after the death of S. Petronilla, this XIII June, & indeed under Domitian the Emperor; as Usuard and others with the Roman Breviary have concerning Nicomedes.
[4] There is outside, but near, the walls of the city of Meaux in Gaul, the monastery of S. Faro, where the body of S. Fiacrius, to be remembered on the XXX August day, these Acts drawn out at Meaux in a lengthier discourse, rests, most celebrated by miracles. Hither I judge that pertained a notable parchment Legendary, written about four hundred years ago, a fragment of which we found at Dijon in Burgundy in the year MDCLXII at the Councillor le Mare's. For it contained, not only the Life & Miracles of S. Fiacrius, but also in the margin in an ancient hand, yet flowing, was written a Responsory proper for S. Fiacrius with a Collect. There in the same larger character was found a Sermon on the birthday of S. Felicula, of which, distributed into nine Lections, we have taken for ourselves a copy with this beginning; The most impious one seeing, that he had effected nothing against Petronilla's handmaid; renewing other arms with viperous poisons, began to think about the destruction of Felicula. where perhaps a Relic. These words, since they are not fit to begin a Sermon, but rather show themselves to be part of a lengthier sermon, in which either the whole Acts of S. Domitilla, or Marcellus's narration about SS. Petronilla and Felicula had been rhetorically extended; I have not judged that great favor with posterity could be earned by working out that composition, which would neither have the whole work, nor anything new pertaining to history to be taught from it. Meanwhile I could not but think, that in that or another monastery, where S. Fiacrius is so peculiarly venerated, the cult of S. Felicula had flourished specially, on account of some notable Relics, once brought thither under that name, in the manner we shall say below.
[5] The most ancient memory of the same S. Felicula, as suffering at Rome, Name inscribed in the ancient Fasti: is in the copy of the Hieronymian Martyrology of Epternach, instead of which in other copies through the error of scribes is read Feliculi. The genuine Bedan Martyrology, At Rome, of S. Felicula. Usuard indeed from this Saint thus opens this day: On the Ides of June, at Rome on the Via Ardeatina, the Birthday of S. Felicula the Virgin & Martyr: who unwilling to marry, nor to sacrifice to idols, was handed over to a certain Vicar: who caused her, persevering in the confession of Christ, after dark custody, & the want of hunger, to be raised on the rack, & so finally to be taken down & cast into the sewer. Ado finally produces almost everything from the Acts related above; & all later ones agree with them, with the present-day Roman Martyrology, from Peter de Natalibus, book 5, chap. 12.
[6] The Via Ardeatina, drawn from the Via Appia immediately from the city, The body of some S. Felicula in the church of S. Praxedis; proceeded to Ardea, in which we have said above that the body of S. Felicula was buried; which it is agreed was thence translated; but whither it was carried, & where now it is kept, the authors do not agree. Carolus Bartholomaeus Piazza in the Roman Sanctuary, at this XIII June asserts it to be in the Church of S. Praxedis, & there the feast to be celebrated. On the contrary Octavius Pancirolius, in the Hidden Treasure of the City of Rome, region 2 church 42, says another Felicula to be venerated there, but it is not known which: for neither is it she, of whom we here treat; or another, who by Ado is referred to the V day of June; when also we referred her, from the most ancient Martyrologies, as having suffered at Rome with twenty-four others there named. But this Pancirolius notes is not called a Virgin: but region 5, it is thought to be of this one in the church of S. Lawrence in Lucina. church 5 he affirms, the body of S. Felicula the Virgin , by a certain Canon formerly of the Collegiate Church of S. Lawrence in Lucina, named Benedict, was found on the Via Ardeatina, & translated to this church, in the time of Pope Paschal II, in the year of his Pontificate XII, of Christ MCX. This Pompeius Ugonius confirms in the History of the Stations of Rome to be celebrated through Lent, at Station 24, which on the day Friday after the third Sunday of Lent in the said Church of S. Lawrence in Lucina is held; asserting under the high altar to be preserved the bodies of S. Felicula the Virgin & Martyr, & of other Saints. Antonius Gaonius, in the History of the Holy Roman Virgins, after the related Life of S. Felicula, Virgin & Martyr, adds; her body is preserved in the church of S. Lawrence in Lucina.
[7] Also there is some at Parma, Ranuccius Picus, in the Theater of the Saints of the city & territory of Parma, among those reckons S. Felicula, Virgin & Martyr on XIII June; judging, her sacred body to have been translated thither in the year MCCCCXXVII, on the day III June, to the Parochial church of S. Paul, & deposited in a marble ark, & upon the mausoleum, this epitaph composed by Nicolaus Barcius the Rector.
Under this small marble lies here Felicula the Virgin, Long ago born of the blood of a Roman father. Her death under Flaccus, she shone in contest for ages, Life eternal in the Elysian fields belongs to her. Why now her body is translated in the church of Paul, The Annals record: learn, traveler: depart.
These things there: to which Ranuccius adds, the Annals of this History ought to be accurately examined, & weighed on the balance of truth. It is moreover said that body by two men of Parma received from pilgrims to Rome, when one of them oppressed by grave infirmity, having implored this S. Felicula through the other, had been freed. But it is wrongly added that the body had been raised from the tomb on the Via Ardeatina: because that body at the time of the Pontificate of Paschal II had been translated from the said place to the church of S. Lawrence in Lucina: and so by the said two pilgrims that body or some part should have been translated from the said church. & at Pavia & Fulda. Meanwhile Ferrarius wrote in the Catalog of the Saints of Italy, in the Annotation to this Life, that this one is venerated at Pisa & Parma; at Parma the body also is preserved in the church of S. Paul, the ecclesiastical Records attesting. He could so also have added the name of the city of Pavia: for among the Saints, whose bodies the Emperor Otto II in the church erected by him there, now called S. Felix, placed in a subterranean Oratory in three arks; S. Felicula is also reckoned, resting in the same ark with S. Marina . Also at Fulda in Germany are said to be held, several notable Relics of S. Felicula, Virgin & Martyr; and on that account a feast is there held under the rite of a Double of the 2nd class. What then is to be determined here, if the body of S. Felicula Virgin & Martyr is still preserved in the church of S. Lawrence in Lucina, as the Minim Clerics pretend, who now hold the said church? Certainly we shall say, that, just as the name Felix taken up for men, was so common, that sometimes in one class of many Martyrs three or four are found, called Felices; so the name Felicula given to women, could have been common to many Martyrs of the same sex; but by now common use, let me call it use or abuse, recourse is had by all, having found such, to some chief one of that name; & thence arises a confusion, so often troublesome to us. Much more advisedly it would have been done by the Parmensians, Whence that confusion? if for the day of the cult of the said Felicula, III June had been taken up, on which day above it is affirmed her said body to have been translated. This Jacobus Gualla seems to persuade the Pavians, in the Sanctuary of that city book 5 chap. 18, when he says; The kind of martyrdom I ought not relate, since from the ancient Chronicles, which testify her to have been crowned with it, this I have not learned; he could have added, neither the place, nor the day. We have thus far given three Felicula Martyrs of Rome, namely XIV February, V June & this XIII. Why might not many other Martyrs of this name, as we have said, have been, Relics at Bologna, & in Belgium; but of different ones. whose notice little by little is drawn out from Martyrologies, or even with the sacred bodies themselves found, or also at the will of the elicitor adapted to them newly. Thus at Masinus, in Bologna surveyed is proposed on this day, S. Felicula Virgin & Martyr, on account of her Relics preserved with the Fathers of S. Mary of Graces in the square of S. Mamulus, & of S. Catharine called of Saragossa. So also the body of S. Felicula the Virgin to be in the Premonstratensian monastery of Bonne-Espérance near Binche, Rayssius asserts, in the Belgic Hierogazophylacium page 119. But here he adds it to be from the eleven thousand of Cologne. Why also might not by a similar occasion the same name have been given elsewhere & to others?