ON ST. PETRONILLA ROMAN VIRGIN.
UNDER DOMITIAN
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
On her death, on her spiritual Father St. Peter, on her cult, on her Relics, of which various belong to other women of the same name.
Petronilla, Roman Virgin (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. H.
The Acts of the martyrdom of SS. Nereus and Achilleus the Eunuchs, and of S. Flavia Domitilla the Virgin, Marcellus, asked by SS. Nereus and Achilleus, we illustrated from very many very ancient MS. codices on the XII day of this month of May. In them Marcellus, son of Marcus the Prefect of the City, asked by letters of SS. Nereus and Achilleus, written from the island of Pontia, replies with this exordium: Marcellus, the servant of Christ, to the holy Confessors Nereus and Achilleus. Having read your letters, with joy I am filled. For I have come to know that you are constant both in faith and in body, and zealously fighting for the truth. And since you have made mention that this has been objected to you, that Simon (Magus is meant) was innocent, I shall recount in some part his life, that from a few things all may be known. Which relation having been made, he subjoins these things: But in what order SS. Peter and Paul the Apostles saw themselves, and after seven months had a conflict with Simon, since you were here and saw with your own eyes, I deemed it superfluous to teach you what you know … But concerning Petronilla, daughter of my Lord Peter the Apostle, he sets forth the Life of S. Petronilla. what her end was, since you have anxiously inquired, I will briefly intimate: and then thus he sets forth her life.
[2] Petronilla, then, you well know, by the will of Peter the Apostle was made bedridden. For I recall, that you were present, She is healed when bedridden by S. Peter: when at his house very many of his disciples were refreshing ourselves, it happened that Titus said to the Apostle: Since all the sick are saved by you, why do you permit Petronilla to lie a paralytic? The Apostle said: So it is expedient for her. But lest the impossibility of her recovery seem to be excused by my words, he said to her: Arise, Petronilla, and minister to us. And straightway she arose well. The ministration being completed, he ordered her to return to her pallet. But when now by the fear of God she had begun to be perfect, not only was she herself saved, she is sought as bride by Count Flaccus, but also for many she recovered better health by her prayers. And since she was very beautiful, Count Flaccus came to her with soldiers, that he might take her as his bride. To whom Petronilla said: To an unarmed maiden you have come with armed soldiers. If you wish to have me as a wife, cause honorable virgin matrons to come to me after three days, that I may go with them to your house. It happened that the space of three days received the Virgin employed in holy fastings and prayers, after receiving the Eucharist having with her the holy Virgin Felicula, her foster-sister, perfect in the fear of God. On the third day therefore S. Nicomedes the Presbyter came to her, and celebrated the mysteries of Christ. The most sacred Virgin, as soon as she received the Sacrament of Christ, reclining on the bed, gave up the spirit. And it happened, that the whole crowd of matrons and virgins, who had been brought by Flaccus, celebrated the obsequies of the funeral of the holy Virgin.
[3] the time is asked: These are the Acts of S. Petronilla the Virgin, written by Marcellus to SS. Nereus and Achilleus the Eunuchs of S. Flavia Domitilla the Virgin, when these were dwelling as exiles on the island of Pontia, indeed they had been crowned with martyrdom, before the answer with these Acts was brought to them. They had been sent away into exile with S. Flavia Domitilla, sent into the said island in the fifteenth year of the reign of Domitian, of the Christian era ninety-fifth or the following, thirty years having passed after the martyrdom of S. Peter. They seem to have inquired what the end of S. Petronilla had been, whom they had previously known at Rome to have been freed from paralysis by S. Peter at the petition of S. Titus, whose Acts we gave on the fourth of January; and we said from the Acts both Greek and Latin that this man was at Rome, when S. Paul, indeed also S. Peter, were killed by Nero. In the Passion of S. Paul, which is circulated under the name of Linus, they are said to have come to Rome, Luke from Galatia, and Titus from Dalmatia, and to have awaited Paul in the City. But at what time S. Petronilla died is not indicated in the Acts already related, nor in the martyrdom of S. Felicula her foster-sister or of S. Nicomedes the Presbyter; of whom she is said to have suffered on the XIII of June, he on the XV of September, in the same year in which S. Petronilla had died. Usuard asserts that Nicomedes the Presbyter passed to the Lord under the Emperor Domitian, who succeeded his brother Titus, who died on the XIII of September of the year LXXXI, sixteen years having elapsed after the martyrdom of S. Peter. The same is held by other later writers with the Roman Breviary.
[4] she is called daughter of S. Peter, Another and more intricate controversy has arisen from this, that S. Petronilla is called by Marcellus daughter of the Lord Peter the Apostle, and the same words are reported in the Martyrologies of Rabanus, Usuard, Ado, Notker, and the present-day Roman one for this XXXI of May, and again in the aforesaid Acts it is said at no. 16 SS. Nereus and Achilleus were buried next to the sepulchre, in which Petronilla had been buried, the daughter of the Apostle Peter. Hence some with the common people believe, that she was begotten by him, before he was called by Christ to the Apostolate: whether begotten by him so it seems also Wandelbert of Prum thought in the ninth century of Christ, when he published these verses in his Martyrology:
Then on the day before, Petronilla, of the holy seed of Peter, shines forth a radiant Virgin, robed in the beauty of Christ.
Another argument is taken from the Chronicle of Sigebert of Gembloux, extending up to the year MCXII, in which under the year DCCLVIII these things are read: The body of S. Petronilla, daughter of the Apostle Peter, was transposed by Pope Paul, on whose marble sarcophagus, sculpted by the hand of the Apostle Peter himself, was read: To golden Petronilla, most beloved daughter. The same things have Platina and Ciacconius in the Life of the said Pope Paul, and from this is cited Baronius for the year 758, who there says, there had been an old cemetery, called of S. Petronilla, from which the same Pontiff transferred the sacred body of the same Saint to the Vatican basilica, and then in the words of Anastasius the Librarian he reports these things: Within the church of B. Peter the Apostle, outside the walls of this city of Rome (namely in the Vatican) he newly built an oratory in honor of the holy Mother of God, next to the oratory of S. Pope Leo, beside the doors of the entrance of S. Petronilla, without any mention of the above-mentioned inscription: of which neither did Liutprand make mention, nor he who under his name published the Lives of the Pontiffs, nor he who carried down their Acts in MS. to Martin V. But that inscription neither expresses the father's name, nor perhaps savors of the simplicity of the Christians of that time, but rather of the ancient elegance of the Romans.
[5] or rather daughter by spiritual adoption, Others therefore, considering the circumstances of times and nobility, do not acknowledge S. Petronilla as begotten by S. Peter the Apostle; but as instructed by him in the Christian faith, baptized, or rather received from the baptismal font, and so by spiritual adoption to have been called his daughter. Florentinius adds that from particular devotion to Peter the Prince of the Apostles, and from some continual veneration paid at his sepulchre or oratory, she was called the daughter of Peter. As to the reckoning of time, that S. Peter lived after Christ the Saviour's ascension into heaven a full thirty-seven years, we showed in the treatise on the Ancient Roman Pontiffs before the first volume of April: to which if three years be added, in which S. Peter taken into the Apostolate lived with Christ, the years are forty, so that even then she would already have been long since adult. But if it is said with Usuard and the Roman Breviary that S. Nicomedes, and consequently SS. Petronilla and Felicula under Domitian departed from this life, and perhaps when SS. Nereus, Achilleus and Domitilla were dwelling as exiles on the island of Pontia, then already SS. Petronilla and Felicula ought to have been reckoned decrepit matrons. Then the name Petronilla, as Baronius notes, at the year 69 no. 32 might more properly seem derived from Petronius than from Peter: for from Peter Petrilla, as from Priscus Priscilla, from Drusus Drusilla, would seem rather to be said. He adds besides that S. Peter when he had begotten her, did not yet have the name of Peter, but only of Simon, afterwards called by Christ Cephas or Peter. Then Felicula, her foster-sister, sought as bride by Count Flaccus in place of the deceased one, would have been of the same age, and both born in Palestine; while meanwhile both names are of Latin origin, and the Petronii at Rome at that time were most celebrated, among whom Petronius Arbiter, not so much by Nero's friendship and the Consulship he held, as by the intolerable obscenity of his writings, was famous: from the Petronii moreover proceeded the Mamertini, Septimiani, Turpiliani, Volusiani, all most noble families among the Romans; and under Caligula a certain Petronius held the Prefecture of Syria. Finally how would Count Flaccus have loved Galilean women, unknown and hateful to the Romans, with such ardor, and not rather will it be thought that he had known their most noble stock at Rome? Therefore, just as S. Peter called his disciple Mark in his first epistle ch. 5 his son, and the Apostles often called the faithful brethren; so S. Petronilla was surnamed daughter of S. Peter.
[6] Paulus Aringhus in book 3 of Subterranean Rome ch. 18, describes the cemetery of S. Petronilla, and of the holy Martyrs Nereus, Achilleus and Flavia Domitilla: The cemetery of S. Petronilla and lays the foundation from the Acts of the said Martyrs Nereus and Achilleus, whose bodies their disciple Auspicius snatched away, and in the estate of Domitilla in a sandy crypt he buried by the Ardeatine Way, one mile and a half from the wall of the City, next to the sepulchre, in which had been buried Petronilla daughter of the Apostle Peter. Aringhus adds, that a church had been built above this cemetery in honor of the same Virgin Petronilla; and a church and in Franciscus Albertinus, who flourished under the Pontificate of Julius II, in the book on the Marvelous Things of the City of Rome, these words are read: The Cemetery of Domitilla on the Ardeatine Way, near the church of S. Petronilla. But S. Pope Gregory III, in Anastasius the Librarian in his Life, with an annual station: in the cemetery of S. Petronilla instituted to give an annual station: where he offered a golden crown, a silver chalice and paten, or other various things pertaining to the ornament of the church.
[7] After S. Gregory III, with Zachary and Stephen II intervening, succeeded Paul I, by whom commonly is said, as we touched upon above, the body of S. Petronilla to have been translated to the Vatican basilica; The Vatican Church, body and altar honored by Leo III with various gifts, and after him with again Stephen and Hadrian I intervening succeeded Leo III, who is known to have had great veneration for S. Petronilla. For as the same Anastasius testifies, on the altar of S. Petronilla he placed a vestment of stauracin, having a periclysis of purple-cloth or chrysoclavum. Likewise on the altar of B. Petronilla he made a white robe of solid silk, with panels of chrysoclavum and a cross; and there a presbytery he decorated with sculpted marbles: he made also six silver columns, and two cross-pieces, weighing together eighty pounds: .. and likewise above the altar of B. Petronilla, where above he made a golden crown with most precious gems, weighing two pounds and three ounces. Likewise the venerable and renowned Pontiff made above the altar of B. Petronilla a ciborium, decorated with porphyry columns of purest gold, of marvelous magnitude, weighing three hundred forty-eight pounds; and a silver image beneath the arch of that ciborium, weighing ten and a half pounds. Furthermore he covered the altar of B. Petronilla with purest gilded silver, ornamented with various paintings on every side, weighing one hundred sixty and two pounds, and eight ounces … And in the Mausoleum of B. Petronilla, which is set near B. Peter the Apostle, he made a crown of silver weighing twenty pounds … And also in the Mausoleum of B. Petronilla, which is set near B. Peter the Apostle, he made three larger white veils, eight smaller, ornamented all over with embroidered work. Finally in the basilica of B. Peter the Apostle … below where the most sacred body of the Prince of the Apostles himself rests, he renewed the golden image, having the countenance of the saviour our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the holy Mother of God Mary our Lady, and of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and Andrew, and also of B. Petronilla the Martyr, where he also added of refined gold twenty-one pounds and three ounces. All these things did Leo III provide, who died in the year DCCCXVI. After Leo sat Stephen IV not seven full months, then S. Paschal I, in whose Life on the XIV of May edited from the same Anastasius, mention is made of S. Petronilla, but neither ever in the relation of these and of Gregory III is she called daughter of S. Peter the Apostle, nor in the genuine Martyrology of Bede, in two MSS. Vatican of S. Peter, two of Cassino, the Altempsian, the Reichenau, one of the Queen of Sweden much esteemed by Holstenius, and various others, with the apograph of the Hieronymian Martyrology executed in art nearly a thousand years ago. In the MS. fasti of the monastery of S. Cyriacus these are read: II Kalends of June. At Rome of S. Petronilla the Virgin, whom when a certain one of the Romans wished to take into marriage, she having received a respite of three days, by praying rendered her unsullied spirit to the Lord.
[8] That her sacred body has hitherto been preserved in the most sacred basilica of the Vatican, The body at Rome, is the constant tradition there: and therefore her feast there is celebrated with Ecclesiastical Office under the rite of double, and the Gloria and Credo are prescribed in the Mass. A witness of that tradition presents himself, the Roman Canon, who under Eugene III described the Vatican Basilica, in these words: Within the Palace of Nero is the temple of Apollo, which is now called of S. Petronilla, in which is laid up the body of the same Virgin; before which is the basilica of S. Angelo, which is called Vaticanum, because the soothsayers (Vates) there used to chant their offices before the temple of Apollo. Meanwhile Saussajus, another of S. Petronilla Virgin and Martyr in Gaul, in his Gallican Martyrology, on this XXXI of May writes these things: The Birthday of S. Petronilla Virgin and Martyr, whose sacred body crowned at Rome today was carried into Gaul by Joanna Queen of the Franks, wife of Philip surnamed the Handsome, in the sanctuary of the virginal cloister of S. Mary of Barra, near Theodoric's-castle of the diocese of Soissons, with fitting honor placed. The body indeed enclosed in a gilded case: but the venerable head laid in a small coffin of silver, overlaid with gold, and adorned with the effigy of the most holy bride and athlete of Christ. This was done in the previous century by Focaldus Bishop of Soissons on the XVIII of March, as we said among the Praetermissi of that day. The aforementioned Philip the Handsome or Fair reigned from the year MCCLXXXV to the year MCCCXIV; to whom Joanna daughter of Henry I King of Navarre was married in the year MCCLXXXIV, died in the year MCCCIV, when she had borne him Louis Hutin, Philip the Tall, and Charles the Fair successively Kings. But since S. Petronilla, whose sacred body the said Joanna had had, is called Virgin and Martyr, she could have been other than S. Petronilla, of whom we treat here, although she also above is once said to be Martyr; and to her veneration this day was elected, celebrated by the veneration of S. Petronilla. As was done also at Soissons, where likewise is venerated S. Petronilla, daughter of S. Peter the Apostle, of whose body a great part belongs to the church of S. Peter-the-living, as has the index of Relics of Soissons described to us. But also at Senlis, as Arturus writes in the sacred Gynaeceum on the XVIII of March, in the church of S. Regulus is held a silver casket of S. Petronilla the Virgin, by whose touch and intercession are cured those suffering fever, as Jaulnaeus testifies in the Life and miracles of the same S. Regulus Bishop of Senlis on pag. 169 and 170, which book would that we had had for the day XXX of March, when we treated of that Saint! would that we may yet receive it! I understand also that at Paris there is held outside the walls of the city to the North an Abbey of Canonesses Regular under the name of S. Petronilla, commonly sainte Perrine; perhaps on the occasion of some similar Relic; which Abbey further away on the same side from the City, was not long ago translated to this nearer place. But within the city itself on the way of S. Honoratus, the same holy Virgin is venerated in the chapel of S. Remigius of the Fifteen-twenties, or Fifteen times twenty, that is of the three hundred blind, founded there by S. Louis, commonly les Quinzevingts, as is noted in the Spiritual Calendar of Paris of the year 1686.
[9] Among the Ursuline Virgins and Martyrs are indicated by Hermann Crumbach pag. 754 three called Petronillas, whose Relics, which are indeed in lower Germany, Three Petronillas among the Ursulines: might seem to be attributed to the older Petronilla: as when it is said by Gelenius, that at Cologne in the church of the Fathers Preachers a great part of the head is preserved; and among the Relics of our College of Münster in Westphalia, four different particles are named in various reliquaries preserved. Also the Cathedral church of the city of Namur holds in veneration the head of S. Petronilla the Virgin, except the lower jaw, intact, with a silver head made with skill adorned, and this is believed to be of her who is held to be daughter of the Prince of the Apostles, on which Consult Rayssius's Hierogazophylacium. Relics in various places. Furthermore Philip Sconville, missionary of the Society of Jesus in the Luxemburg territory, indicated to us in the year MDCLXX, part of the head of S. Petronilla, which is the cranium, wrapped in a red silken veil, preserved in a casket of the church of S. Maximinus at Urenkingen, now called Bettingen. Again at Cologne in the collegiate Church of S. Gereon, the tenth shrine contains only relics of S. Petronilla, of which there particles of relics are in the fifteenth shrine; and a good part of the head in the twenty-third shrine. I omit to enumerate her relics at Bologna in three churches, likewise at Naples, also at Oviedo in Spain, and elsewhere preserved.
[10] Some scruple is raised about the aforesaid history, from this that S. Augustine, The aforesaid is not opposed by S. Augustine. in the book against Adimantus the disciple of Manichaeus ch. 17, asserts, that in the apocrypha they read that Peter's own daughter was made well by the prayers of her father, and that the gardener's daughter at the prayer of the same Peter died; and he replied, that this was expedient for them, that both that one might be loosed from paralysis, and this one might die. So there. But the context of this history is plainly diverse, since in the aforesaid Acts nothing is found about the daughter of the gardener dying; rather thence it seems to be gathered that this Petronilla was not the daughter begotten by S. Peter, if any daughter has been begotten by him: because this seems to be that, which S. Augustine reckons among the apocrypha: such also must be said to be that Epitaph, which is said to have been found in the sepulchre as if by S. Peter, placed by him at least as spiritual father; To golden Petronilla, sweetest daughter.