ON SS. LUCY AND GEMINIANUS, MARTYRS AT ROME,
Under Diocletian
A HISTORICO-CRITICAL COLLECTION.
Lucy, widow and martyr at Rome (S.)
Geminianus, martyr at Rome (S.)
BY U. S.
§ I. The most ancient cultus of the Saints: their fabulous Acts: a summary of these from Ado.
[ ] The most constant and most famous memory of the distinguished martyrs Lucy and Geminianus in the ecclesiastical documents clearly shows their certain and undoubted veneration, hallowed throughout the whole Catholic Church, The cultus of our Saints so much so that it seems useless to bring forward other arguments for establishing their most ancient cultus. For although they are not inserted in the older Hieronymian Calendars published by Florentinius, their names are inscribed in almost all the other Martyrologies and Calendars of SS. Lucy and Geminianus. The abbreviated Hieronymian codices of Rheinau, Reichenau, and Labbe recall Lucy and Geminianus at Rome; the Gellone and Augsburg, Fulda, Ottoboni, Wandelbert, Bede, and Raban Martyrologies, and the Vatican Calendar 3806, expressly announce both, but do not assign the arena ennobled by their shed blood. The lesser Roman Martyrology published by the care of Rosweyde, and by him called the old Roman, noted also the place in which they suffered, in this manner: At Rome, of Lucy and Geminianus, martyrs: and in the Roman Calendar illustrated by the work of Fronto, on the present day is read: The birthday of SS. Lucy and Euphemia; and the aforesaid Fronto observes there: Not so in the Sacramentary of Pamelius and Menard: but first of St. Euphemia. Then on the same day of SS. Lucy and Geminianus. Baronius says that three churches at Rome were dedicated in the name of Euphemia, although she suffered at Alexandria (nay rather at Chalcedon). But Lucy suffered at Rome.
[2] What Fronto observed on his Calendar from the Martyrologies, has crept in not a little into the aforecited Martyrologies, since they announce in the same manner, Of Lucy, Euphemia, and Geminianus: and the Rheinau writes Of Eugenia; and the Vatican seems to have a continuous sense, and to ascribe Lucy also to Chalcedon: but it suffices to have indicated that in a word. Our holy Martyrs are found also in the Martyrologies of Ado and Usuard, the last of which adorns them with this brief eulogy: At Rome, of the holy martyrs Lucy, a noble matron, and Geminianus, whom Diocletian, after they had been most grievously afflicted with punishments and long tortured, at length, after the praiseworthy victory of martyrdom, ordered to be executed with the sword. Sollerius observes, in his Usuard, that nothing is contained in this announcement which can greatly be called in doubt, provided only the persecution of Diocletian be substituted in place of the persecutor himself. From Usuard's text the Roman Martyrology of Baronius scarcely differs, whose words therefore, as also those of others, I judged should not here be set out. The memory of the Saints Lucy and Geminianus is also celebrated in the Sacramentary of Gregory on the present day. Considering therefore this number of martyrologists, I cannot but wonder, with Florentinius in his Annotations on the XVI of September, how neither in the codex of Florentinius, nor in the Corbie and the Antwerp, the memory of SS. Lucy and Geminianus is made, whereas nevertheless other Roman martyrs, divided into several ranks, are indicated as passed over by them.
[3] Our Saints also are marked on the following day by the Menæa of the Greeks, in the Menæa and Menologies of the Greeks, with four little verses added, which I do not render into Latin, because they include nothing peculiar which could afford a fuller knowledge of them. The Greek Menology of the Most Eminent Sirleto treats of them more fully in this manner: On the same day (the XVII of September) the birthday of the holy martyr Lucy, a widow, and of holy Geminianus, her son and a martyr. She, under the emperors Maximian and Diocletian, illustrious in the city of Rome for wealth and birth, being seventy-five years old, passed thirty-six as a widow: accused before Diocletian of practicing the Christian faith, she was grievously beaten, afterwards into a bronze cauldron full of boiling pitch (some dots are then set, because one word or another is wanting, perhaps "cast" and thence) she came forth unharmed, and when she was being led about the City, Geminianus met her, who following her, a little after was baptized and was called her son. At last Lucy, after many torments, was crowned with martyrdom, but Geminianus, afterwards beheaded, was taken up into heaven. The same Greek Menology, formerly published in Greek by the order of the emperor Basil, now published in Greek and Latin by the zeal and labor of the Most Eminent Annibale Albani, which writes Geminianus, adds besides some things which will be more conveniently discussed below, where we shall treat of the Acts and the arena of the martyrdom.
[4] All these things plainly suffice, so that no one can deny that the cultus of these Saints is very ancient and legitimate. and is shown by other things. It is confirmed by this, that Domenico Giorgi writes in his Annotations on the Martyrology of Ado: In the Roman order XII of Cencius the Chamberlain, number XL, page CXCII, mention is made of a church of St. Geminianus in the City: nor is it less established from Baronius, saying in the Annotations on his Martyrology: There is besides, next to the Tiber, an ancient memorial of the same Martyrs, where also their sacred bodies are said to be laid; although the people of Lucca testify that the same were translated to them: but it must be thought to have happened, as frequently in other cases, that a part of them and not entire bodies were translated. Tillemont observes, in the persecution of Diocletian, article 15, that Florentinius, although a man of Lucca, made no mention of that translation. The aforesaid Baronius adds these things there: Some confound this Lucy with the one of Syracuse, and thus also the church erected by Pope Honorius on the Esquiline, called the Diaconia of St. Lucy at the Seven Leaves, situated near the basilica of St. Sylvester, is attributed to her. But that the one must be distinguished from the other is proved by the disparity of the cultus exhibited by the Church to each. But these things will be more fitly examined on the XIII day of December, where it will also have to be weighed whose Lucy's name is inserted in the Canon of the most holy Mass. See meanwhile, if you please, Sollerius's observation on the Martyrology of Usuard on the XIII day of December.
[5] Their deeds As certain and in no way doubtful as is the cultus of SS. Lucy and Geminianus, so uncertain and altogether doubtful are their deeds, so that scarcely anything can I safely and without danger of error assert. Baronius, in the place mentioned above, says: Mombritius recites their acts in volume 2. We have them in an old manuscript codex, whose beginning is: In the consulship of Diocletian for the eighth time and Maximian for the seventh, etc. They have however some things which should be corrected. And this indeed is a sufficiently mild censure of that Most Eminent man. Ottavio Gaetani, in his Animadversions on the Lives of the Sicilian Saints, in the first animadversion on the Contest of the holy martyrs Lucy and Geminianus, after he had premised from which manuscript codices, both Sicilian and Roman, he had composed the history of this contest, and had besides enumerated several authors who published in print Acts agreeing with the manuscripts, speaks thus.
[6] only from fabulous Acts For the rest, I forewarn you that in composing these Acts I have cut out some things from the Ms. books which no one would approve, and before me the most learned Baronius observed that those Acts have things which should be corrected; although he did not explain what should be castigated. We recall very few. There are named in those Acts Gebal, assessor of the emperor Diocletian, and Pyropogon, vicar of Rome, which names are barbarous and suspect of falsehood. It is handed down that, Lucy being thrust into prison, from its foundations, with the river overflowing, the middle of the city perished: and that the house of Diocletian was torn up from its foundations. That he who was beating Lucy with a cudgel was made stone, except for one hand, which remained of flesh: but that Diocletian, who had ordered her to be beaten, withered away; but was healed by Lucy's prayers: that Geminianus had at home more than three thousand two hundred images: that at Rome the temple of Jupiter was swallowed by a gaping of the earth; that Diocletian, after Lucy and Geminianus had been tormented, having departed from Rome, was drowned at the bridge of Galatium in the river Thein with one thousand three hundred and forty-six men. All of which are trifles. Other things I pass over, lest I seem to have time to waste. But these things I have reviewed, that the Acts might be known as corrupted in several places, and that no one might wonder that some things have been cut out by me, and others rightly amended.
[7] So he, and rightly: but whether for the rest the Acts, even as regards those things both in manuscripts, which the aforesaid Gaetani holds by no means suspect of falsehood, nay even tries to defend, can be admitted, will be seen below. We have Acts very like those of Mombritius written in two parchment codices, of which the former is marked with the letter P. Ms. 19, the other Q. Ms. 6. We have also two manuscript Acts, of which one was extracted from an ancient manuscript of Father Sirmond, and collated with a manuscript of Saint-Omer, and sent to us in the year 1630; the other from a Fulda manuscript, which was collated with a manuscript of St. Maximin at Trier. These manuscript Acts by Mombritius not seldom differ in words, but contain the same facts, the same prodigies, and the same, as Gaetani calls them, trifles. Yet I wish the reader here to be warned that by Mombritius the story of the drowning of Diocletian is not touched even in a word; but whether he himself cut it out, as one who could easily have detected it to be fabulous and merely invented, or whether the Acts themselves which he transcribed lacked that little fable, I could not easily divine.
[8] The Acts of SS. Lucy and Geminianus have besides been given to the press by various men, and in printed copies some of whom I judge it will not be useless here to review. Vincent of Beauvais published them, book 12, chapters 39 and following. In some things his history is more contracted than are the manuscripts mentioned above: at times he omits some things which it is superfluous to enumerate: the little fable of the drowning of Diocletian I find thus softened in him: And when Diocletian, having dismissed them (our Saints), had departed from Rome, and was sailing on a certain river, he fell into the stream with one thousand three hundred and forty-six men, who alone however escaped. At the beginning he has, From the deeds: and in the margin he writes: The Life of her (the holy martyr Lucy) Ado describes, which Surius has on the XVI of September, but more fully Peter, book VIII, chapter LXXXV. He designates Peter de Natalibus, who summarily exhibits the Acts of SS. Lucy and Geminianus conformable to our manuscripts, but I read there the aforementioned fable about Diocletian set forth a little differently, in these words: When he (Diocletian) had come to the bridge of Gallatium, by God's judgment the bridge fell, and, many being killed in the river, he himself scarcely escaped with a few. St. Antoninus also, part 1, title 8, chapter 1, §37, relates a brief history of these Saints adorned from Vincent of Beauvais, in which Diocletian is said, on departing from Rome, to have left his own Pyrropogon as vicar. The Acts vary also in the number of the images which were kept in the house of Geminianus, but it is not worth the labor to sift out that difference.
[9] From those things which at number 6 I adduced from Gaetani, the prudent reader will easily determine we learn. Ado's what the authority of those Acts is: to me at least they seem so stuffed with fables that I hold it for certain that all the rest also, as drawn from so foul a spring, must deservedly be doubted. Wherefore these fabulous Acts I shall not here print out: yet it will not be beside the purpose to append the sufficiently long summary which Ado composed from them, so that some specimen of the Acts may be had: and thus he writes on the XVI day of September: At Rome, the birthday of the holy Lucy and Geminianus, under the emperor Diocletian, the judges being Apofrasius and Megasius. Blessed Lucy had remained in widowhood thirty-six years, and of her whole life there were seventy-five years. Who, being accused by her son Euprepius of being a Christian, Diocletian ordered to be brought to him, and said to her: I hear that you confess that guilty Crucified one, and mock at our gods. Now therefore, if you are prepared to live, the almighty gods are prepared that you should offer them incense, that they may be propitious to you and you may live. Holy Lucy answered: They are propitious neither to themselves, nor to their worshipers. For my Lord Jesus Christ will be propitious to me, for whose love I am prepared to suffer fire, chains, and whatever punishments you will.
[10] A summary of the Acts, which Diocletian, hearing the constancy of her faith, ordered her to be dragged to prison, where she merited divine consolation. But being brought back again before Diocletian sitting on the tribunal, the glorious Woman was stretched out, and beaten very long with cudgels. And behold, an earthquake suddenly took place, and the temple of Jupiter was so undermined that not a stone of the building remained upon a stone. And Diocletian caused a bronze pot to be brought, and ordered it to be filled with pitch and lead, and wood to be gathered round about and kindled, and holy Lucy to be plunged beneath (the Acts write: into) the pot, where the Saint of God lived three days, chanting psalms. And Diocletian, sending one who should report to him whether she had now been wholly reduced to ashes, he who had been sent reported on returning to the emperor that without any injury she was living unharmed. Then the impious man, in no way stirred by so great a miracle to believe in Christ, ordered that, laden with iron and lead, she should be led through the streets of the city. And she came before the house of a very powerful man, by name Geminianus, in whose house were countless images of demons.
[11] in some things differs And while holy Lucy passed by that house, suddenly a dove white as snow descended from heaven, and thrice tracing a cross over the head of Geminianus settled there. Geminianus, looking up, saw heaven open to him, and at once starting into a run came to the place where the Saint of God was already being tortured. And prostrating himself at her feet, he began to relate what he had seen, and to seek the washing of Baptism. And there was a certain priest, Protasius by name, to whom an angel of the Lord, appearing by night, gave warning that he should go to the prison, and baptize Geminianus, who was seeking the fount of salvation. And he, when he had awakened, went in haste, and washed the blessed Man with the water of salvation. After the third day holy Lucy was set before Diocletian, and with her Geminianus, of whom the emperor had already heard. Whom he, after they had been most grievously afflicted with punishments and long tortured, handed over to a certain most perverse judge, that he might supply what was lacking of punishments. Who first ordered their necks to be bruised with cudgels, and presently, an earthquake taking place, the vault of the judgment-house fell and crushed the impious judge. Then the holy Martyrs were set before Apofrasius, under whom also seventy-five fulfilled martyrdom, who, having seen the miracles which the Lord was working about his Saints, had believed. This most impious judge, after the slaying of these holy martyrs, the devil goading his horse, was flung headlong from a stone bridge into the river. His body was afterwards found in no place. Then blessed Lucy and holy Geminianus, being pressed hard by Megasius, a man of consular rank, after a praiseworthy victory, were executed by the sword of martyrdom on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of October. Whose bodies a certain Christian woman, Maxima by name, carried off, and, as was fitting, buried the Martyrs.
[12] About all these things which I have now transcribed from Ado, Tillemont, in the persecution of Diocletian, article 15, briefly pronounces: from the Acts already reviewed. What Ado says about them (our Martyrs) is worth absolutely nothing: yet he adduces no cause for his censure. What could have displeased him, I suspect to be those unusual and stupendous prodigies, the earthquake recorded, by which the temple of Jupiter is said to have been utterly overthrown, which Gaetani himself banishes to old wives' fables, and things like these, on which it does not please me to linger, especially since from what has been said and what is to be said they may easily be gathered. I observe however that Ado's synopsis differs in not a few things from the Acts, both manuscript and printed: for these plainly all write that Lucy and Geminianus were carried by the help of angels from Rome into Sicily, but Ado has not even a word about that conveyance: these Acts relate that Lucy, after many torments, peacefully gave up her spirit; but that Geminianus was beheaded by the sword; Ado expressly writes that both were slain by the sword, etc. But since it must not be thought that the Acts were transcribed by Ado either in bad faith or faultily, it follows that one may be permitted to suspect that the Acts of SS. Lucy and Geminianus were not, in Ado's time, so interpolated as they now are.
§ II. The time and arena of the martyrdom.
[ ] The time of the martyrdom uncertain. The Most Eminent Baronius and others reckon SS. Lucy and Geminianus among those whose certain year, in which they were crowned with martyrdom, is by no means expressed. And certainly it is difficult to determine the time of their contest, since the authority of the Acts is plainly shattered by so many fables: yet it pleases me here to weigh whether on a solid foundation the glorious contest of our Saints can be placed before the year of Christ 303. It is now altogether agreed among the learned that the most savage persecution of Diocletian did not begin before the 19th year of his reign, Diocletian holding his eighth consulship, and Maximian Herculius his seventh, and consequently the beginnings of that most cruel butchery must certainly be referred to the year of Christ 303, in which falls the aforementioned consulship of each old man. Since therefore SS. Lucy and Geminianus are marked in the sacred Calendars as slain under Diocletian, or at least while his persecution raged, and this did not blaze out against the Christians before the year 303, it is more likely that these victims did not fall for Christ before that year.
[14] Ottavio Gaetani, cited above, in animadversion 2 on the Contest of SS. Lucy and Geminianus, Gaetani's opinion, according to the writing of certain codices thinks their martyrdom happened in the 13th year of the reign of Diocletian, and holds that the eighth consulship of Diocletian and the seventh of Herculius, as by no means to be joined with the 13th year of the reign, were wrongly added by writers to the Acts of those Martyrs, and says that it is no wonder that false consuls are marked in these Acts, since certain other things in the same are corrupted. That he attributes this year to the Saints' martyrdom, he asserts that he is also induced by this, that Lucy the widow and Geminianus were put to death under Megasius, the consular of Sicily; but in the 20th year of the reign of Diocletian not Megasius, but Paschasius, who subjected Lucy of Syracuse to martyrdom, was consular of Sicily: It is therefore more likely, he says, that SS. Lucy and Geminianus began their contest at Rome in the 13th year of the reign of Diocletian and Maximian, which afterwards, about two or three years later, they completed in Sicily: but of these things more fully below.
[15] our Saints in the 13th year of Diocletian But the objection which could be made against this opinion of his, the aforesaid writer strives thus to forestall in the same place: Nor let it move you that the Acts made mention of an edict issued by Diocletian in the XIX year of his reign, for I shall presently say what that edict was: and in animadversion 5 he speaks thus: Do not take it as that most savage edict which Diocletian and Maximian … promulgated at the end of their reign: but understand the first edict, which was issued by Diocletian in the third year of his reign at Rome against the Christians who were living at Rome: for the Acts signify this very edict, when they hand down, to show the savagery of the persecution, that there was no city, no village, in which images were not set up, whereby they seem to have alluded to Diocletian's orders given at the beginnings of his reign, that it should be lawful for no one to sell or to buy, nor to carry on any commerce, unless he had first burned incense to an image, as is clear from Aretas the bishop and Bede. Thus he tried to remove every difficulty, by fixing that decree at the beginnings of the reign of Diocletian, as do also the Acts of St. Sebastian, which you have in our Work on the XX day of January.
[16] as having suffered But it seems to me far more likely that that edict, by which all were ordered to burn incense to the images of demons publicly set out everywhere, ought to be referred to the year in which we said the persecution began: for before this no other, proceeding from the edicts of Diocletian himself, is to be admitted. That I so judge is caused by the authority of Eusebius, who in book 8 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 4, the happy state of the Church in the first eighteen years of Diocletian's reign describing, testifies that the demon was then oppressed as with a deep sleep, and that the faithful of Christ were held by all in the highest veneration. Civil tumults also and almost continual wars brought upon Diocletian and Maximian by foreign nations then demanded all their cares and endeavors so much that they seem by no means to have thought of so bitter a vexation of the Christian religion, which at last, freed from the disturbances of war, and puffed up by the multitude of their victories, they stirred up in a dreadful manner. To this opinion of mine there agrees also the most beautiful contrast of Lactantius, between the reign of Diocletian keeping peace with the Christians and that of the same persecuting them: and thus it stands in his book On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter 9: Diocles … reigned with the highest felicity so long … as he did not stain his hands with the blood of Christians: and chapter 17: This crime (of persecution) therefore being perpetrated, Diocletian, when felicity had already withdrawn from him, etc.
[17] is impugned, It will be useful here also to transfer the words of Eusebius, book 8 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 13. Therefore before war was declared against us; so long as the emperors were of a placid and benevolent mind toward us, what abundance of all good things, and what felicity, the Roman empire enjoyed, who will suffice to set forth? And after a few words interposed: Thus, while their principate was increased without any obstacle, and flourished daily with new increases; suddenly, their counsel being changed, dissolving the peace which they kept with us, they brought upon us an inexpiable war. Not yet had the second year of this warlike commotion passed, when behold, a new and unlooked-for mishap almost overthrew the Roman state. That irrefragable authority of each of these writers, and the comparison instituted between the felicity of the emperors favoring the Christians and the unhappiness of the same persecuting the Christians, does not indeed seem able to be sufficiently reconciled with so atrocious an edict of Diocletian, which Gaetani contends was issued in the third year of his reign and remained in force to the thirteenth and beyond.
[18] But Gaetani's assertion becomes also less probable from this, and the arguments being answered, that the Acts, in this point by no means corrected by him, place Diocletian present at Rome at the contest of SS. Lucy and Geminianus; whereas however the presence of Diocletian in the City in the 13th year of his reign seems to rest on no sufficiently solid foundation; nay, it can be effectively shown that he was then absent from Rome. There are indeed many things which persuade us that in the said year Diocletian was in the East, and subdued Alexandria in the eighth month from the beginning of the siege, and filled all Egypt with slaughters and proscriptions, Achilleus, the author of the sedition, being killed, under whose leadership six years before Alexandria with all Egypt had revolted from the Roman power. These things, more fully deduced and proved, the curious reader will find in the Critica of Pagi at the year of Christ 296. There may also be consulted Tillemont in his History of the emperors, volume 4, articles 14, 15, and 16, where many things are read which make it evident that Diocletian was absent from Rome in the 12th, 13th, and 14th years of his reign. Whence it appears that the Acts are on this side also of no authority, and that those codices are convicted of error which bind the martyrdom of our Saints to the 13th year of Diocletian's reign, and at the same time, but altogether against the truth of history, note his eighth consulship.
[19] Of the edict which Gaetani will have to have been issued at the beginning of Diocletian's reign, the things which can be brought forward for Gaetani's opinion, the Acts of St. Sebastian indeed make mention, which, cited by Baronius and Hessels, Bolland inserted into his lucubrations; but them he did not adopt as plainly authentic; and, that they should not be admitted as such, there makes, besides other things, what I subjoin. In volume 2 of January, page 275, number 64, it is thus read in the Acts: In the reign of Carinus, Diocletian, and Maximian. But Diocletian was in the City with Maximian: while Carinus was stationed with his whole army in the parts of Gaul. Who would believe that Diocletian was at Rome, so long as Carinus held supreme power in the West? For it is now undoubted that Diocletian was at Chalcedon, and was not taken to the purple before the XVII of September of the year 284, after the slaying of Numerian. Carinus, after Julian, who had taken the name of emperor in the West, had been slain, moved into Illyricum against Diocletian, and after various battles, victorious, fell by the blows of his own men in the year 285, as from the Calendars of Idatius and other documents Pagi learnedly demonstrates at the said years. While Carinus survived, therefore, Diocletian was not at Rome; and since the Acts of St. Sebastian assert this, their authority totters, and it seems that it may be said with Tillemont, in the Persecution of Diocletian, article 3, that by the compiler of those Acts there was attributed to the beginnings of Diocletian's reign what should have been referred to its end.
[20] But, you will say, it cannot be doubted that before the 19th year of Diocletian's reign some martyrs, both at Rome is rejected as improbable. and elsewhere, sealed the faith of Christ with their blood. This I do not think should be denied; but there does not on that account seem to be admitted that monstrous vexation of the Christians which Gaetani places from the third year of Diocletian to the thirteenth. For if in the first years after he came to the empire, by Diocletian's order, St. Sebastian was pierced with arrows, if some others were killed, he could, either for the sake of winning the goodwill of the Romans, or for other particular causes, have punished certain Christians: yet it must be said that afterwards, having perceived the fidelity of the Christians and their deserts toward himself, he changed his hatred into love, especially since it is certain that several Christians were set by him over provinces, without his in any way compelling them to sacrifice to idols. If we must acknowledge others before the persecution begun in the year 303, I shall say that they were put to death by the private superstition and cruelty of prefects, stirring up the ancient edicts of the emperors, although not renewed by Diocletian, to the destruction of the Christians: and if on that footing anyone should contend that before the year 303 SS. Lucy and Geminianus could have been crowned with martyrdom, I shall not gainsay it. But of these things more than enough.
[21] They could have suffered on the 16th of September in the year 303. As about the year, so also about the day on which these holy Martyrs suffered, nothing certain can be determined; and that this day is marked by most martyrologists as sacred to their birthday, has its origin either from their own judgment or from the Acts, whose credit, as I said above, is none. Tillemont, in the Persecution of Diocletian, article 15, says: It is certain that Diocletian, to whom St. Lucy is reported to have been presented, was not at Rome in the month of September; but he adds not a single word by which to establish this certitude of his, nor does he indicate whence he drew it. Since therefore I can here attain the mind of this critic only by conjecture, I judge that Diocletian's absence from the City in the said month seemed certain to him because he undoubtingly acknowledges the XVII day of September as the birthday of Diocletian's reign, and on that very day, if he had been at Rome, the vicennalia of his reign would have been celebrated: but how far this opinion about the birthday of Diocletian's reign is from evident certitude, the reader will be able to see, if he will weigh the notes of Étienne Baluze on chapter 17 of the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors, where the arguments of Pagi, fighting for the XVII day of September, are answered. By the way I here observe that Tillemont's opinion is more effectively overthrown by Baluze's reasonings from this, that for fixing the birthday of Diocletian's reign on the XVII of September he rests chiefly on the subscription of certain laws, and on the authority of the Alexandrian Chronicle: but Tillemont himself more than once acknowledges that from the subscriptions of laws no very valid argument is drawn, and sometimes he detects an error in them: he abandons also the authority of the Alexandrian Chronicle, and of others who assign the year of Christ 304 to Diocletian's laying down of the purple, that he may adhere to the better authority, as he himself calls it, of Lactantius. See, if you please, volume 4 of the History of the emperors, in the Notes on Diocletian, 9, 17, 18, and 19.
[22] that our Saints died in Sicily, And so much for the time of the martyrdom; now of the arena which our glorious Champions empurpled with their blood, here we must treat. But before I approach this controversy, I submit to the examination of the fair reader some things from the Acts in which the whole dispute lies. After narrating Geminianus's constant profession of the faith, now together with Lucy, before the tribunal of Diocletian, and the cudgeling endured by them, there is subjoined the overthrow of the house in which the impious judgment was being held; the judge himself and many of the heathen being crushed, Lucy and Geminianus, dismissed lifeless, are said to have been carried by divine power into Sicily: then passing from one place to another, they tread with their feet, having implored God's help, the impassable waters of a river swollen by winter rains, no otherwise than paved stones. Having advanced to the town of Menda, they drive out the demons infesting the region, and, the accustomed prodigies being performed, they win many to Christ. By the judge Apophrasius, about to avenge his gods, while seventy-five victims offered their necks to the impious sword for the name of Christ, angels pour out a phial full of perfumes over the bodies of the slain: but, divine vengeance following the judge, being thrown from a horse seized by a demon, his body was found nowhere. Fearing the rage of Megasius, the other judge, SS. Lucy and Geminianus are hidden by a sudden gaping of a mountain, and in their thirst are refreshed by a fountain wonderfully flowing forth from a rock, and at last, when she had ended her life peacefully and he by the sword, angels were a help to a pious woman devoting her labor to burying the holy bodies, carrying marbles for the building of their tombs.
[23] What I have recounted has been extracted from the Acts published by Gaetani among the Lives of the Sicilian Saints, volume 1. with many arguments We saw at number 6 some things which Gaetani deservedly struck out of the Acts, as smacking of fable. I, that I may determine nothing hastily about the things which I related in the preceding number, first of all gladly profess with Ruinart in his Annotation to the Acta martyrum sincera of the Paris edition of the year 1689, page 344, that The Acts of martyrs are not to be rejected on this ground, that sometimes in them … unusual miracles have been inserted by the faithful; nay, I contend that great prodigies are to be received with the highest veneration, and to be held as testimonies of divine omnipotence, if they be narrated either by those whose testimony is not suspect, or be otherwise indubitably confirmed; but if they are related only by authors of small name, or if it may rightly be doubted whether they have not been embellished by poetic wits, I judge that they must be weighed by any prudent man according to the laws of an exact balance. Let us therefore search out the springs from which they were drawn, and the weights of the matters on which the things here controverted rest.
[24] Gaetani, contending that SS. Lucy and Geminianus consummated in Sicily the contest Gaetani contends, which they had begun at Rome, says that Galesinius, in writing that the Roman soil was ennobled by their death, was deceived, not having examined the manuscript codices and the printed books, which decide against Galesinius: for that they were carried by divine power from the city of Rome into the island of Sicily, he says in animadversion 24, … the manuscript parchments teach … Besides, native writers skilled in our affairs, and in them worthy of credit; and to this, foreigners: Peter, bishop of Equilio, Vincent of Beauvais, and St. Antoninus. But he had premised in animadversion 13: That many holy Martyrs were carried into other lands by the ministry of angels. Read the examples in their Acts. For my part I neither wish the bounds set to be set to divine omnipotence, nor do I deny that this could have been done; but that this prodigious translation took place, and that unusual miracles followed it, Gaetani ought to have shown by solid documents by no means suspect of falsehood. Let us inspect his arguments one by one.
[25] This translation, he says, is asserted by the codices both Roman and other writers; but and Sicilian. Be it so; but since, as we have seen, Gaetani acknowledged that the Acts of our Saints were corrupted by very many fables, and for that very reason judged that they should be castigated, it concerned him to prove by more certain testimonies that in the rest, which he did not correct, the genuine sincerity of the Acts remains, and that the writer, who imposed upon us in a good many things, was faithful in others, and by no means a fabler: for I judge that nothing is immune from the suspicion of fable which is taken from a history stuffed with trifles and fictions, and is not proved from elsewhere. He asserts that native writers stand for this translation: since he names none, I could not weigh the weights of the reasons by which they try to establish their opinion: if they published nothing but the Acts, I judge it lawful for me to assert that they are of no greater authority than the Acts themselves: nay, perhaps that falls upon the Sicilian writers which Noël Alexandre said about the foreigners mentioned by Gaetani, volume 3 of his Ecclesiastical History, reprinted at Paris in the year 1714, at century 1, dissertation 17, page 185: I add that the authority of Vincent of Beauvais and of St. Antoninus in historical matters is of lighter weight. On which matter it pleases me to subjoin the censure of that most learned man, Melchior Cano, bishop of the Canaries; book 2 On Theological Places, where he treats of the authority of human history, chapter VI, rule 2: “Of Vincent of Beauvais, he says, and of St. Antoninus, I judge more freely; each of whom took pains not so much to describe true and certain things as not to pass over anything at all which was found written in any papers whatsoever. Thus, for estimating each history, and weighing it with its own weight, they used neither the balance of craftsmen, nor even the popular scales. Wherefore, though good men and by no means deceitful, yet men who neither diligently examined the authors from whom they transcribed their books, nor handed down to memory matters weighed with just weights, they lack authority among grave and severe critics”.
[26] their weights of reason being weighed, This censure of Melchior Cano deservedly strikes Peter de Natalibus also, and makes the more for my opinion, in that both he and the two writers cited inserted into the Acts of SS. Lucy and Geminianus published by them not a few things which Gaetani cut out as to be approved by no one, and repeatedly called trifles: which, since it is not necessary to linger in reviewing them here, let the curious reader consult their writings. To what Gaetani added about several Saints translated into other regions by the ministry of angels, I reply that, if the credit of the Acts be no greater, nor the foundations for the truth of their history more secure, these translations must be held no less suspect of falsehood than the one of which we are treating. The remaining arguments of Gaetani are drawn from the ancient tradition of the churches of Sicily, and from the cultus of SS. Lucy and Geminianus among the people of Noto; besides, from documents which relate their coming into those places as carved on stones; from the fountain which flowed miraculously to quench their thirst, renowned for miracles, and from the concourse of the people to their cave, a hiding-place divinely laid open: and finally from this, that our ancestors called our Lucy Montana, to distinguish her from the Lucy of Syracuse of the same name.
[27] the arena of the martyrdom These arguments, and others which can be made for claiming SS. Lucy and Geminianus for Sicily, would have their strength, and I would gladly yield my beaten hands to them, if the origin of this tradition, most received throughout Sicily, were proved solid: but since it is most evident to the learned world that often some memorable deed has been invented by an idle wit for the commendation of its own country, and then, by the piously credulous eagerly embracing what pleases them, adopted as true and long retained; since besides Gaetani himself is compelled to confess that, contrary to historical credit and dignity, into various Acts of the Sicilian Saints, and namely into those of which we here treat, not a few errors were thrust by pious men (for far be it to suspect anything harsher) and simple ones, who thought it lawful for themselves even so to increase the cultus of religion and of the Saints, and the veneration of the faithful toward the Heavenly ones, I cannot so far assent to this tradition. For what, does not Gaetani banish to old wives' fables the prodigy which the Acts relate, of the executioner turned into stone, only one hand remaining of flesh? Yet Piazza writes in his sacred Hemerologium that the place at Rome now called the Macellum of the Crows was formerly called At S. Marco at the Fleshly Hand, and he cites the ancient Ceremonial; with Piazza agrees Floravante Martinelli in his Roma sacra, page 43: the former however derives the origin of this appellation from this, that the lictor about to behead Lucy, the latter that he who was about to beat her with a cudgel, was turned into stone. Nothing therefore can be had by way of support from popular traditions.
[28] But neither do the extant documents to which Gaetani appeals prove anything, more probably neither the cave, nor the fountain even now surviving: for whatever can be had from above seems to flow only from the same corrupted spring: certainly the pious simplicity of the peoples, resting on depraved Acts, could have fabricated these inscriptions, could have revered the fountain as miraculously sprung up, and chosen our Saints as protectors with God, for whose merits God has hitherto bestowed on the faithful the benefits recorded by Gaetani, and will go on bestowing them—God who is wont to reward the confidence of the faithful, wherever they exist, imploring the help of the Saints, wherever they suffered. Would that someone would clear away the rubbish from the simple and sincere Acts of these holy Martyrs, so that, by distinguishing false from true, an end may be put to an odious controversy. And while we grieve that this has not been done up to now, let their own authority remain to the ancient Martyrologies, which mark Lucy and Geminianus at Rome, not easily to be abandoned, even as regards the place and the year of their death and other like things, so long as it is not established by certain weights of reason that an error about these things crept into these sacred Calendars.
[29] Against this authority of the Martyrologies there object, both Gaetani in the place often cited, at Rome and Tommaso d'Angelo in his Historico-critical Annals of the Sicilian church, page 89, that they are announced at Rome, not because they died there, but, says Gaetani, because they began to suffer there; but to that answer has already been abundantly made. And Tommaso d'Angelo speaks thus: Galesinius marks them as having suffered at Rome, led thereto because in the Martyrology of Notker their solemn day is held in the City. It would indeed be necessary, if an argument of this sort were effective, that Martha and Magdalen died at Jerusalem, for their memory is established as being celebrated there with solemn rite from the ecclesiastical Calendars and Martyrologies, as Noël Alexandre learnedly weighs. (At century 1, that is, dissertation 17 of the edition cited above, page 186) Those whom the earth brought forth, not those whom heaven did, the City solemnly venerates. So he: but before I weigh the force of his argument, I restore Galesinius, who has been badly reported: for thus he has it in his Note on the XVI of September: There are those who write that they underwent martyrdom in Sicily, but they are plainly deceived, since that they endured it at Rome is clearly shown by the documents of the Roman Church, and the Aquileian tables, and St. Antoninus, and Mombritius, and the writers of the ancient Martyrology. Is this to be led by the authority of Notker alone? But whether Galesinius rightly alleges St. Antoninus for himself, it does not belong here to dispute. is adjudged, the holy LXXV martyrs, of whom the Acts speak,
[30] Now to the argument of Tommaso d'Angelo, confirmed by the authority of Noël Alexandre, I reply that it is altogether true that from the fact that some Saint is venerated in a certain city, it by no means follows that he died in that city: but I hold that the conclusion is rightly drawn in this manner: as often as some Saint is ascribed by the martyrologists to a certain determinate place, and it is not otherwise established that there is an error of writing, this place is held by the learned to be that Saint's place of death: but by the Roman Martyrology and others the martyrdom of SS. Lucy and Geminianus is assigned to Rome, nor can it be shown from elsewhere by any authentic instrument that an error crept into the Martyrologies; it remains therefore that we believe that Roman soil alone, and no other region of the world, was empurpled with their blood. There went before this reply of mine the aforesaid Noël in the same dissertation 17, page 180, where, dissolving the objection made to him about the silence of the ancient martyrologists concerning Magdalen's landing in Provence, and rendering its causes, he thus at last concludes: But the Roman Church, shaking off this scruple, adds to the ancient Martyrologies the designation (of the place) in which they departed from this life, in these words: “At Marseilles, the birthday of St. Mary Magdalen, etc. At Tarascon in Narbonnese Gaul, of St. Martha, etc. At Marseilles in Gaul, of Lazarus, etc.”. here deservedly passed over.
[31] We saw at number 22, a little after the middle, that in the Acts published by Gaetani there are recited LXXV, both men and women, brought by SS. Lucy and Geminianus to Christ, and, Apophrasius raging, beheaded. Of these in the Prætermissi on the XIII day of September in our Work it is thus read: Martyrs LXXV are announced by Ottavio Gaetani and Ferrarius at Menda in Sicily. But since these become known from the little accurate Acts of SS. Lucy and Geminianus, all must be treated together on the day on which Lucy and Geminianus are in the Roman Martyrology, the XVI of September. Concerning these, in the summary of the Acts in Ado, the following is read: Under whom (Apofrasius) also seventy-five fulfilled martyrdom, who, having seen the miracles which the Lord was working about his Saints, had believed. Nevertheless the aforesaid Ado announces them neither with SS. Lucy and Geminianus, nor in any other place, as Martyrs venerated anywhere. Wherefore, considering the slight credit of these Acts, and having weighed the silence of all the ancient martyrologists concerning those seventy-five martyrs, by which we are at least compelled to doubt whether they obtain cultus anywhere, we have judged that they should be passed over in silence in the title. For since the knowledge of those LXXV martyrs has flowed only from the Acts of SS. Lucy and Geminianus, infected with manifold blemish, and since no more ancient martyrologist has made mention of them, I should not dare to give them a place here, until it shall have been established, either concerning the mind of the Church, or concerning their legitimate cultus, from documents by no means suspect.