1. The Documentary Sources in General
The sources from which the history of the ecclesiastical year and the festivals of the saints is drawn are first of all official documents, namely service-books, decrees of councils, papal constitutions and bulls; in the second place come the information derived from ecclesiastical writers of various periods and countries which must be used and brought into connection with the official sources.
Among the liturgical books of the Church, the missals and breviaries hold the first place. In earlier times these were differently arranged and had different names from those which they bear at present. The collects and psalms in particular employed at the mass were not included in one volume as they are now, but were taken from a number of books. The essential prayers of the mass were contained in the so-called Sacramentarium, in which were also to be found the collects, prefaces, and, in certain cases, even the whole canon. The lections from Holy Scripture, the Epistles and Gospels, were collected together in the Lectionaries, either all together, or the Epistles and Gospels in separate volumes; another name for this kind of book was Comes. The psalms and other portions to be sung by the choir were contained in separate books, the Antiphonaries, Graduals, and Hymnaries, etc. It was only in the Middle Ages that for the sake of convenience all the different parts of the mass were contained together in one volume, called a missale plenarium, but the separate volumes still continued in use for certain occasions.
In the course of our investigations, we have often had to refer to the so-called sacramentaries, of which the three most ancient belonging to the Roman Church are also the most important. These are:—
1. Sacramentarium Leonianum. This is a collection of older formularies which had been already drawn up by an unknown author, some of which may well be the work of Leo the Great; the title, which gives rise to the opinion that Leo was the author of the book, is due to the first editor. The only existing codex is in Verona, and is unfortunately imperfect, being deficient in all that relates to Lent and Easter. Since it contains a prayer for Pope Simplicius († 483), Rome must be regarded as the place where it was drawn up, and where it was used, while the date when it took its present shape was the pontificate of Felix II. (483-492).
2. The Gelasianum, so called after Gelasius I. (492-496). This pope did actually compose some liturgical books, but the volumen sacramentorum, ascribed to him by Gennadius, cannot have been one of them, since it contains the four festivals of our Lady which were celebrated in Rome only after Gregory the Great. On the other hand it does not contain the stations for the Thursdays in Lent introduced by Gregory II. (715-731); consequently, it represents the liturgical usages of the seventh century, i.e. of the period after St Gregory the Great, and bears the name of Gelasius incorrectly. It consists of three books: (1) De Tempore, beginning with Christmas; (2) De Sanctis, beginning with the 1st January; and (3) masses for the ordinary Sundays, votive masses, and masses for the dead. The number of prefaces contained in the sacramentary amounts to over a hundred. The Stowe Missal, which is independent of the Gelasianum, gives the canon Gelasii Papæ. This book was drawn up in Rome and was intended for local usage, but we only possess the MSS., which were meant for the churches of France; the most ancient belongs to the end of the seventh century, and was written apparently for the Abbey of St Denys (Cod. Vat. Reg. Sueciæ, 316). The other existing codices only give an edition specially adapted from the original Roman book for use in the Frankish Empire; this is shown by the prayer, “Respice propitius ad Romanum sive Francorum imperium.”
3. The Gregorianum. This represents the Roman rite of the period of Pope Adrian I. (772-795) and Charlemagne. It is entirely a compilation of Roman origin belonging to the eighth century, destined originally for the use of the popes but afterwards adapted for general use. The canon stands at the head of the work, which commences with Christmas, but Advent comes at the end of the Proprium de Tempore. The Agnus Dei, added to the text of the mass by Pope Sergius I., is given here in its place, while it is absent from Gelasianum.[739] The earliest mention of this work is in the collection of letters of the popes of the eighth century known as the Codex Carolinus, in a letter of Adrian I. to Charlemagne who received a copy of the work from Adrian between 784 and 791,[740] from which date it was introduced into the Frankish Empire, copied, and circulated, and also added to. In his letter Adrian ascribes a personal share in the production of the work to his predecessor Gregory, relying, of course, on the tradition of his Church.[741]
4. This last-named book gradually supplanted the ancient liturgies and service-books of Gaul; of these we possess the Sacramentarium Gallicanum, along with its lectionary, the Missale Gothico-Gallicanum, and the Missale Francorum;[742] the Mozarabic missal and breviary are also very important documents.
The ecclesiastical calendars and martyrologies come next under consideration. As regards the former, the service-books of which we have been speaking were on the whole drawn up in accordance with the local calendar and added both the movable and immovable feasts as best they could. In proportion as the number of feasts increased the calendars were regarded as independent catalogues of festivals, and are found both as separate documents, or bound up with the other liturgical books; in the latter case, they are usually placed at the beginning of the volume.
While the calendars give merely the names of the saints or the date of their feasts, the martyrologies or Synaxaria contain more detailed notices, giving the place, time, and circumstances of the saints’ death, rank, etc., according as the compiler had more or less material at his disposal; in many instances these notices have grown into considerable historical narratives, and on this account, the character of the different martyrologies varies greatly. As to their employment for historical purposes, the shorter the contents the higher the value and trustworthiness of a calendar. The martyrologies were usually compiled by private individuals, even when intended for ecclesiastical use, but the calendars shared in the official character of the liturgical books of which they formed part, since alterations could not be made in them without the knowledge and consent of the authorities of the church or corporation to which they belonged.[743]
Manuscript calendars belonging to earlier centuries exist in large numbers, for all missals and breviaries were provided with them. Their value for historical research depends upon their age, and also upon our knowledge of the locality for which they were drawn up, the best data for discovering this latter point being afforded by the names of local saints contained in the calendar itself. No calendar can be set aside as altogether useless, for in case of need all can throw light upon the history of at least their own locality. For this reason, and for others as well, an increasing amount of attention has been given to them in recent times, and a large number of them have been printed (see sect. 10 of this part). The days marked in the calendars are those of the saints’ deaths (vid. ante, p. 213); but the days on which their relics were translated to some particular church are also marked as festivals in the calendar of the church in question. When in different calendars different days are given to the same saint, the date in the calendar belonging to the church where he died is usually to be regarded as the day of his death; the others are days on which his relics were translated.[744]
Another class of documents consists of the ordos drawn up for divine service belonging to particular countries, dioceses, or the more important ecclesiastical foundations (ordines, ordinaria; in Greek, typica). These were not originally drawn up for the course of merely one year, like our present ordos, but contained the list of recurring festivals and fasts observed from year to year in some monastery or cathedral, along with detailed directions for the performance of divine service. The most important of these are the thirteen oldest ordos of the Roman Church, collected and published by Mabillon, but other dioceses and monasteries as well as the Church of Rome had similar ordos, some of which have been already printed,[745] while others still await publication.[746]
2. The Earliest Christian Calendars
The worship of the saints, especially of the martyrs, asserted itself in various ways in the liturgy of the Church. Among the Latins, it appeared even in the liturgy of the mass, since special masses in honour of the saints were composed at an early date for the commemorations of the most celebrated saints. These were included in the sacramentaries, and, finally, as their number continued to increase, they were placed together in a separate division of the book (proprium sanctorum), instead of being distributed, as formerly, over the whole year. Among the Greeks, this was not possible, since they repeat the same mass daily, and employ only two or three mass formularies throughout the entire year.
In the second place, the cultus of the saints gained a footing in the Canonical Hours, the Psalter, both among Latins and Greeks. It was customary among the Latins as early as the sixth century to read a portion of the account of the martyrdom (passiones martyrum), as Aurelian of Arles tells us;[747] this was the commencement of the existing lections of the breviary. Then collections of lives of the saints for the whole year were drawn up on the lines of the calendar, which came to be called martyrologies on account of the character of the larger part of their contents. In course of time, two kinds of martyrologies came into existence, those containing legends of greater length more suited for private reading, and those distinguished by the brevity of their notices intended for employment in the services of the Church. Even these have no immediate connection with the liturgy, although the names of the saints for the day were read at Prime, a custom which possibly the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle of 817 had in view in its sixty-ninth canon.[748] These martyrologies developed out of the diptychs and calendars of particular churches, by way of compilation and expansion; like the calendars, they contain simply the names of the saints, but with the mention of the locality to which the saint belonged, and, in many cases, with an indication of the date at which he lived.
The martyrologies aimed at completeness in other directions. First, it was attempted to unite together the names of all the martyrs who had ever suffered throughout the whole Church, along with the day of their death, and secondly, an attempt was made, but only in later times, to fill up the calendar by allotting every day in the year to at least one saint. This latter attempt was made in the West only in the seventh and eighth centuries, and achieved considerable success. While the first efforts in this direction attained to only relative completeness, since they took into consideration only a part, and not the whole, of the universal Church, as the Arian and Carthaginian martyrologies had done, yet the tendency towards universality appears unmistakably at a later date, especially in the so-called Martyrologium Hieronymianum.
With regard to the Greek service-books, menology means the same thing as martyrology—a catalogue of saints arranged in the form of a calendar according to the days of the month, and merely giving the name of the saint against the particular day set apart by the Church in his honour. The lives of the saints arranged according to months and days are called Menæa or Meniæa, and the shorter abstracts from it are called Synaxaria.[749]
The list of calendars opens with two documents, the most ancient of their kind possessed by the Roman Church, i.e. the lists of popes and martyrs with the days of their death, which have often been referred to already—the Depositio Episcoporum from Lucius to Julius I., and the Depositio Martyrum, a catalogue of the martyrs of the city of Rome, extending only to 304, three martyrs not belonging to Rome being included in this list, Cyprian, Perpetua, and Felicitas. The connection of these two lists to one another is shown in their titles (item), and also by the fact that Sixtus, who is placed among the martyrs, is omitted from the list of popes. This latter list comprises the period from Lucius († 255) to Julius († 352) only; either the compiler had no material at hand for the earlier period, or he set it aside as not bearing upon the point he had in view. The list of martyrs contains the names of popes who were also martyrs, such as St Peter, St Clement, St Calixtus, St Pontianus, St Fabian, and St Sixtus; of martyrs, not bishops, we have here the most famous saints of the city of Rome, St Agnes and St Lawrence (but not St Cecilia), as well as many other quite obscure names. In reply to the inquiry what principle was followed in drawing up this list, Mommsen,[750] relying on the title which connects the document with Carthage, replies that it contains “the names of those martyrs and bishops whose commemoration was celebrated annually in the Church.” Both these lists were first published by Ægidius Bucherius (Gilles Boucher), and form a portion of the work on the Calendar of Dionysius Philocalus (see above, p. 136 seqq.).
Next in order comes a Calendar of the North African Church belonging to the fifth century, and edited by Mabillon from a codex of the seventh century formerly belonging to the Monastery of Cluny. The original must have been completed after 505, for Bishop Eugenius of Carthage is mentioned in it. It contains St John the Baptist, some apostles and martyrs not belonging to North Africa, Sixtus, Gervasius and Protasius, Lawrence, Clement of Rome, Eulalia, Felix of Nola, Agnes, Agatha, Vincent, and the Machabees, who belong to the Churches of Rome and Spain. Unfortunately, the list is not quite perfect owing to the bad state of the MS.
The Calendar of Philocalus for the year 352 contains nothing definitely Christian.[751] On the other hand, the Calendar of Polemius Silvius, Bishop of Sion, drawn up between 435 and 455, is interesting as showing a mixture of Christian and heathen entries. Destination, character, place, and time of the compilation can be learnt from the calendar itself; it was not drawn up for one particular year, at least there is nothing by which to determine the year, for Dominical letters, movable feasts, etc., are all wanting; among heathen festivals we have the Carmentalia, Lupercalia, Terminalia, Quinquatria, and Lavatio Cereris, all of which recall heathen religious customs. The Saturnalia are included on account of their popular, not on account of their religious significance, and appear as feriæ servorum on the 17th December, as well as feriæ ancillarum on the 7th July. In addition, there are many other popular commemorations, such as the 7th January, 13th September, etc., and a great number of natales of emperors. The number of ecclesiastical feasts is very small, being limited to Epiphany, the 25th and 27th of March as the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Christmas, and six saints’ days—Depositio Petri et Pauli on the 22nd February instead of the 29th June, Vincent, the Machabees, Lawrence, Hippolytus, and Stephen on their usual days. Besides these we have the natales of authors—Cicero and Virgil, and finally, the days are marked on which the Senate usually held sittings and games were given in the circus. In comparison with the Calendar of Philocalus, the number of such days is much reduced; in the former there are over a hundred, here only fifty-three. The meteorological entries are numerous. The calendar was evidently intended for the provinces of the western half of the empire, and takes into account both the ecclesiastical and civil requirements, although it deals with the former to a limited extent.
3. The Arian Calendar of the Fourth Century
(About 370-380)
One of the most interesting documents in connection with our subject in virtue of its age, contents, and plan is the Arian martyrology, published by W. Wright in 1865.[752] As is well known, the Arians were an active party who, until about 380, attempted with some success to gain the upper hand in the Church. As a means to this end, it was to their interest to invest their followers as much as possible with the appearance of sanctity, and the Arian historian Philostorgius devoted himself especially to this; he characterises as saints and workers of miracles Agapetus and a certain Theophilus who worked in India, and also Aëtius, Eunomius, and Leontius, the ringleaders of thorough-going Arianism.[753] As a consequence of this the Arians encroached in various ways upon the domain of liturgy also. It goes without saying that they did not wish to figure as heretics, but as forming the true Church, and so they exhibited a corresponding activity in hagiology.
While, generally speaking, the local churches confined themselves each to its own diocese, and the principle of individualism continued to hold its own for a long time throughout the whole Church, the Arians early abandoned this method, and even while they did not completely adopt the principle of universality, yet they did so partially, their position as a minority among Christians giving them an impulse in this direction. Thus we find their martyrology embraces Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece, Mœsia, Illyria; in fact, the entire eastern half of the empire, and even Italy and North Africa are not passed over altogether.
We must first of all turn our attention to the external and historical side of the document. Wright found it in a Syrian MS., belonging to Nitria in Egypt, of the time of Porphyrius, Bishop of Antioch (404-413), and written in the year 411.[754] It consists of two different parts, of which the first is a martyrology drawn up in accordance with the calendar, and originally composed in Greek. Unfortunately, the section from the 1st to the 25th December is missing. This part is the original document, and was early translated into Syriac, although, as we shall see later, it is full of defects. The fact that, nevertheless, it was considered worthy of being translated, and that by an orthodox translator, shows that it was regarded as a remarkable piece of work. What impressed its contemporaries was its universal character, then quite a novelty. At the end, there is a somewhat mutilated appendix consisting of a list of Persian martyrs arranged, not by the date of their death, but according to their rank in the hierarchy, into three groups—bishops, priests, and deacons.
The second part, originally composed in Syriac, was an addition of the Syrian translator. Among the persons named in this part, it is noticeable that there are no Arians, nor even Nestorians, who, when expelled from the Roman Empire by Theodosius II. in 435, made themselves masters of the Persian Church. Of the sixteen bishops mentioned in the first section, at least eight are known to have been orthodox Persian martyrs, all belonging to the period before 400, e.g. Simon Bar-Sabai, Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon († 17th April 344), his successor, Schahdust († 346), and Sapor, Bishop of Beth Gormai.[755] Miles (Milles), Simeon, Barbasimas, Joannes, Sapores, Gudiab, Sabinus, Abdos, Paul, and Ebedjesus are mentioned by Sozomen as Persian martyrs of the reign of Sapor I.[756] This very primitive calendar contains only the names of martyrs to the exclusion of other persons who were even regarded as saints, such as Mares, the second bishop of Seleucia († 82).[757] The compiler calls those whom he included in his calendar the Holy Martyrs who had been put to death in the East, while he regards those named in the first part as the Holy Confessors of the West, regarding the Roman Empire as the West in respect to Persia.
The first part, which concerns the West, differs from the second in many respects. It was drawn up by another hand, and was written originally in Greek. The latter is a document entirely historical in character, while the former is liturgical; the one belongs to Persia, the other to the Roman Empire, and probably to Nicomedia. It was then employed in Antioch, where it was enlarged, and finally, as it appears, was translated into Syriac at Edessa. It forms one of the most remarkable documents of ancient Christian literature.
That this Arian martyrology belonged to the Roman Empire, and especially to its eastern part, is proved by the calendar employed therein, i.e. the Julian, with the addition of the Chaldean names for the months, the days of the month being given simply without reference to calends and nones and ides. The author is well-informed with regard to the eastern half of the Roman Empire; he knows names and date of death of eight bishops of Antioch, the name Antioch occurs in all twenty-four times, Nicomedia is named thirty-two times, but the name of no bishop of Nicomedia is given, Alexandria is mentioned nineteen times, Constantinople, Rome, and Jerusalem only twice.
The date of this work is fixed by the mention of the celebrated Bishop James of Nisibis on the 15th July. He was alive after 350, when the Persians besieged Nisibis, and flourished, according to the somewhat vague expression of the Chronicle of Samuel of Ani, in the 283rd Olympiad, i.e. 353-356.[758] Thus the martyrology was written in the period between 370 and 400, and sometime about 380, when Arianism was the dominant religion in the eastern half of the empire.
The Arian character of the martyrology is shown by the fact that Arius himself is mentioned in it, while none of the adherents of the Nicene faith of that date are included, and the only orthodox bishop whose name appears is James of Nisibis. Since he was orthodox, and since Nisibis belonged to Persia, his name could not have been in the Greek original, which, besides being Arian, was limited to worthies belonging to the Roman Empire, but the insertion of his name is probably due to the orthodox Persian translator.
The compiler drew his information from the works of his predecessors, to which he made additions of his own. One of these sources he names, for he states with regard to the names of eleven personages, that they are taken from the “Number of the Ancient Confessors.” He also used an old list of martyrs, which he does not further describe. To judge by the character of the quotations from this document, it must have dealt with the same part of the Church as the new compilation. Antioch (four times), Synnada, Nicomedia, Pergamus, and Heracleia are named in it, while Alexandria is not mentioned. By the “Ancient Confessors” are to be understood the martyrs before Diocletian, and it is probable that they were taken from the lists of “Depositions” belonging to each city, just as the chronographer has preserved for us those of Rome.[759]
As regards the contents, they resemble those of similar documents of earlier and later date, and are fully described in the superscription, which states that it “contains the names of the Lords, i.e. the saints, confessors, and victors, and the days on which they received their crowns.” One would expect to find the place of their death mentioned as well, but many saints are given without any indication of the locality to which they belonged, perhaps on account of imperfect information on the part of the author. The date of death is on the whole correctly given, a remarkable instance to the contrary being the commemoration of SS. Peter and Paul, which is placed on the 28th December. This cannot throw doubt upon the date observed in Rome itself, for the Greeks were, as a rule, very imperfectly informed concerning ecclesiastical events in the Latin portion of the empire. The sources from which the compiler drew his information cannot have been very full, for there is no mention of the famous Western martyrs, Agnes and Lawrence, and, indeed, beyond the mention on the 1st Ab (August) of Aksitus, Bishop of Rome, by which Xystus II. is probably intended (the day of St Xystus’ death was the 6th and not the 1st August), and of SS. Perpetua and Felicitas, correctly given on the 7th March, no Western saints are commemorated.[760]
Among the bishops of Alexandria there are two mentioned whose names do not occur in the official lists, Artemon on the 3rd September, and Hodion (Orion) on the 16th August. Similarly, among the bishops of Antioch, there are two not mentioned elsewhere, Amphimelus (4th March) and Philippus (27th March). Can these have been Arian prelates?
Besides St Peter and St Paul, the only two apostles commemorated are St John and St James, who held the most important place in the eastern half of the empire; they are placed together on the 27th December, on which day the latter especially was formerly commemorated. St Stephen, also called an apostle (schelico), appears on the day still consecrated to his memory (26th December).
The bishops, priests, and deacons appear with their proper titles; all the others have the designation, confessor (mandaya). This designation implies martyrdom, for in the first three centuries confessor means a martyr whose sufferings stop short of death. It is also worthy of notice that some who appear not to have been martyrs have to be content with a mere commemoration (dukrana = commemoratio), as, for example, St Xystus, James of Nisibis, Eusebius of Cæsarea, etc. The names, again, of others are merely mentioned without any addition or title.
Finally, there are still some peculiarities in this menology which ought to be mentioned. Some of these may be due to oversight, or to the ignorance of the compiler, others seem to be mistakes made in transcribing the document, and ought not to appear in documents of an official character. Thus Marcianus of Tomi appears twice (on the 5th and on the 10th June), Dius once as confessor and once as presbyter (11th and 12th June). Especially remarkable is the circumstance that three individuals, whose names occur in no other calendar, not even in the Menologium of Constantinople, are given three times, namely, Cosconius, Melanippus, and Zeno, sons of Theodota, once for Nicea on the 19th January, once for Asia on the 23rd February, and once for Nicomedia on the 2nd September. As slips of the pen, we may notice Hadriopolis for Hadrianopolis, Pedinthus for Perinthus, Tunjus (10th June) for Tomi, which is elsewhere spelt correctly, Sindus for Synnada, which once (30th June) has the addition, “in Phrygia,” and once (15th June) is without it. The proper names are frequently wrongly spelt, or so confused as to be unrecognisable.
Of the Church festivals, only Epiphany and Easter are marked. The MS. is, unfortunately, imperfect where we should expect to find the 25th of December. On the Friday after Easter the Commemoration of all the Confessors, i.e. Martyrs, is set down.
The relation of the Arian martyrology to Eusebius’ work on the Martyrs of Palestine deserves to be considered. One would expect to find this work often referred to, but it is not so, and the compiler seems to have had no knowledge of it. This is all the more remarkable since Eusebius always gives the dates of the death of the martyrs. The two works have, however, very few points of contact, but they confirm one another in the points where they do coincide. Both place the death of the priest Pamphilus and his eleven companions at Cæsarea on the 16th February; both mention the martyr Romanus at Antioch, Eusebius placing his death on the 17th November, the martyrology on the 18th—a trifling discrepancy which proves their independence of each other. Hermes the Exorcist, Domnion of Salona, James of Nisibis, etc., are given on the dates which they occupy in the calendars of other Churches.
The so-called martyrology of St Jerome has many names in common with this Arian martyrology. St Jerome often assigns to one place and day more martyrs than this Arian Calendar, as, for example, on the 25th March, Dulas, on the 4th, 18th, and 21st April, etc. Sometimes the Arian gives more names than St Jerome, e.g. on the 11th March, the 2nd May, etc., while in some places they are in perfect agreement, e.g. on the 13th March, Modestus and twenty-one companions—the Hieronymianum gives the names of the whole twenty-one, while here only the number is given—on the 16th April, Leonidas and eight companions in Corinth, etc. We cannot infer from this that the compiler of the Hieronymianum incorporated the work of his Arian predecessor in his own, but he certainly was acquainted with it, and made use either of it or of common sources.
The comparison of the Arian martyrology with that of St Jerome has further led to a curious discovery,[761] i.e. that the entries from the 6th (or more correctly from the 8th) to the 30th June are indeed included in the martyrology of St Jerome, but have been bodily transferred to the corresponding dates in July.[762] This latter month has only three entries, and it has been thought that the mistake is due to the Arian compiler or his transcribers, but it is just as likely that the change of date was made by the author of the Hieronymianum. How this fact is to be explained must be left to conjecture. Another important point bearing upon the connection between the two documents is the fact that the one mentions Bishop Eusebius of Cæsarea on the 30th May, but the other in more detail on the 21st June, as follows: In Cæsarea Palæstinæ Dep. Eusebi Epi. Historiographi. Which is correct? Certainly the Syrian document, which also gives correctly the day of Arius’ death. The entry on the 6th June clearly exhibits the Arian character of the document: “In Alexandria, Arius Presbyter.” The fact that he is merely commemorated, proves that it is incorrect to suppose, as many do, that another Arius, a reputed, but otherwise unknown, martyr of Alexandria is intended. The martyrs in this document are treated to more than a mere commemoration (dukrana). Accordingly he did not regard this particular Arius as a martyr.
From the description which we have given of this highly important document, one is led to expect that it will throw fresh light on certain historical questions, and so, as a matter of fact, it does. For instance, we can fix the death of Arius by its assistance on the 6th June 336. Arius died on a Saturday shortly before sunset. On the following day he was to have been solemnly received into the Church.[763] The only year which can be taken into consideration is 336, for in it the 6th June fell on a Saturday.[764]
The historian Eusebius died about the time when Athanasius returned to Alexandria from his first exile. This was shortly after Constantine’s death († 22nd May 337). Since Eusebius died soon after he had finished the life of Constantine, whom he did not long survive, his death is to be placed on the 30th May 338. This takes for granted that the Bishop of Palestine mentioned on the 30th May is identical with the historian, which can scarcely be called in doubt. Cæsarea was the ecclesiastical metropolis of Palestine, and this accounts for his title, Bishop of Palestine.[765] His successor and heir and biographer was the energetic Acacius.
A more important fact is that the martyrdom of Bishop Babylas of Antioch can now be definitely established. We have in this document reliable evidence that he suffered on the 24th January, which corresponds with the evidence of Chrysostom, who stated that the Festival of SS. Juventinus and Maximin, which was kept on the 4th February, followed closely on that of St Babylas.[766] Moreover, St Babylas was generally commemorated on the 24th January. According to Eusebius,[767] Babylas died in prison under Decius, and, according to Jerome, in the first year of his reign. Decius reigned from October, or, according to other authorities, from August 249 to 27th July 251, and one of his first acts was to inaugurate the persecution against the Christians. Accordingly the death of Babylas must have happened on the 24th January 250. Since all authorities agree in stating that he had been bishop for thirteen years, we are now able to fix the year of the death of Zebinas, his predecessor, i.e. 237, and the day of the month is given as 13th January in the Arian martyrology. This document must be regarded as a thoroughly reliable source for the dates of the death of the Antiochene bishops in particular, and we can, therefore, place the death of Maximin, the seventh in the list of bishops, on the 4th February 191, and the death of Serapion on the 14th May 215.
It is scarcely necessary to observe that this calendar, although it is an Arian document, contains not merely the names of Arian worthies, but many which belong to Catholic antiquity. It is chiefly to this that it owes its importance for the history of the Church, and it is also due to this that it was capable of being combined with the catalogue of Persian saints, which is an essentially Catholic document. On the other hand, it is by no means a complete martyrology, and is in itself a liturgical, and not a historical, document intended by its unskilful compiler to serve party ends.
The Goths in Italy had also a menology of their own, of which a fragment was discovered by A. Mai. Unfortunately, it contains only the month of November. It is noteworthy that it mentions the Apostle Andrew, whose name does not occur in the similar martyrology of which we have just been speaking. The fragment, with this exception, contains Gothic names alone. St Clement and St Cecilia do not appear, which proves its freedom from Roman influence, and shows that it was essentially a national production.[768]
4. The so-called Martyrologium Hieronymianum
(Second Half of the Seventh Century)
Already in the time of St Gregory the Great there existed in Rome a complete and universal list containing merely the names of the martyrs and the place where they suffered, arranged according to the days of the year. Eulogius, the contemporary bishop of Alexandria, besought the pope to send him the complete collection of the acts of the martyrs drawn up by Eusebius in the time of Constantine. He believed these were to be found in Rome. He had doubtless in view the “Collection of Martyrs” (συλλογὴ τῶν μαρτυρίων) just mentioned. St Gregory replied that they had in Rome a collection of the names of all the martyrs in one volume, but no complete collection of their acts.[769]
The work of Eusebius here referred to was not forthcoming in Alexandria either, and was already regarded as lost, but the fact that such a work had once existed was not forgotten. A work of the same kind was also attributed to St Jerome, which is also no longer in existence. The senator Cassiodorus exhorts his monks to read diligently the histories of the martyrs (passiones martyrum) who have lived throughout the whole world, in order to stir themselves up to the practice of virtue. These they will find in the letter written by St Jerome to Chromatius and Heliodorus. These last words are somewhat obscure, for it would be impossible to deal with the acts of all the martyrs in one letter.[770] However, so much is plain that Cassiodorus ascribed to St Jerome a work of this kind. Finally, it must be borne in mind that St Jerome had translated some of the historical writings of Eusebius. This may have given rise to the idea that he had also translated his collection of the martyrdoms. It is not impossible that he may have done so, although we have no evidence of the fact. Bede also speaks of a martyrology of St Jerome, but with some uncertainty, for he had never seen it himself, and thought St Jerome may have been only the translator and not the author of the work.[771] In Bede’s day the so-called Hieronymianum was already in existence, as the researches of De Rossi and Duchesne have recently shown. That it was also known to Gregory the Great and Cassiodorus cannot be maintained, especially as the words of the latter are so obscure. It is, however, certain from his words that Cassiodorus believed Jerome to have been the author of a work of this kind. Further evidence for this is, unfortunately, lacking, though the thing is not impossible in itself. Abbot Hilduin, a writer of the ninth century, referred also to this point, and was of opinion that Constantine had collected all the acts of the martyrs from all parts of the empire, and had sent them to Eusebius at Cæsarea.[772] This statement, however, is not of much importance, since it represents a view originating in the interpolated letter of St Jerome already referred to.
However this may be, there have existed since the eighth century numerous MSS. of a collection of the names of the martyrs of all times and countries belonging to the Roman Empire which went by the name of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, and to which was attached two reputed letters of St Jerome to Chromatius, Bishop of Aquileia, and to Heliodorus, Bishop of Altinum. The work corresponds to that mentioned by Cassiodorus.
Upon close examination, it is quite clear that the work, as we have it now, cannot have been composed by St Jerome. It includes the names of many persons who lived at a date subsequent to St Jerome, as, for example, to name one out of many, St Gregory the Great on the 12th March. In other respect the names do not extend beyond the seventh century, as appears upon an inspection of the earliest codices. In later recensions we naturally meet with the names of many persons who lived at a still later date.
As regards the date of composition, the personality of the compiler and kindred questions, we are face to face with an historical and literary problem resembling that of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals and the Donation of Constantine. Still some light has now been cast upon these difficulties, since we have at last a thoroughly critical text of the document, the investigations of De Rossi and Duchesne having determined which of the existing MSS. is the earliest.[773]
Among the MSS. belonging to the eighth century, is one written for the Monastery of Weissenburg in the diocese of Spires, now preserved in Wolfenbüttel, Codex Wisseniburgensis, 23. De Rossi believed it was written shortly before the death of Abbot Wando († 756) of Fontanelle in the diocese of Rouen, because his death has been added by a later hand on XV. Kal. Mai. It is certain that the codex was written before 772, because this date is referred to in it. Of about the same period is the Parisian Codex 10 837, belonging to Echternach. It is written in an Anglo-Saxon hand, and is perhaps somewhat later than the former, but is derived from an original MS. certainly older than the Weissenburg Codex. This view which is that of De Rossi gains support from the fact that the two festivals in honour of the Holy Cross are not contained in the codex, while they appear in the Weissenburg and all later codices. Both codices are full of errors of grammar and spelling. The codex from the monastery of Hilariacum originally belonging to Metz and now at Berne, is more correct and better written, but unfortunately only extends to the 21st November. The latest entries made in it by the first hand belong to the year 766 and refer to Bishop Chrodegang. The text dates from the time of Clotaire II. (584-628).
These three most ancient recensions do not differ from one another to any great extent, but the MSS. belonging to later times, when the work was often copied and used, show much greater divergencies, for alterations and additions were continually being made in it corresponding to the requirements of the local churches and monasteries where it was employed.
Since the two learned editors have succeeded in detecting the original matter common to the three recensions, we are in possession of the following result: the martyrology which formed the original source of all later texts as far as they are known to us was written in Auxerre between 592 and 600. The grounds for this conclusion are briefly as follows: the compiler is evidently well informed as to ecclesiastical and secular events in Gaul, in fact far better than with regard to any other country. In naming the cities of Gaul, he gives the provinces in which they are situated, and gives also many unusual details respecting the individuals named, as for example when he gives in the case of bishops, not only the day on which they died, but the date of their ordinations as well; the names are also always given correctly, while in other documents they are often frightfully distorted. A circumstance which especially points to Auxerre as the locality from which the martyrology originated is that this not very important city is mentioned thirty times while the neighbouring and much larger city of Lyons is named only twenty-six times. Moreover, all the bishops of Auxerre, with one solitary exception, are named, while there are many gaps in the lists of the bishops of Lyons and Autun. Thirdly, a litania is enjoined on the first of each month, and this custom was peculiar to the Church of Auxerre, having just been introduced at that time by Bishop Aunarius. Again, the day of the ordination of this not very famous Bishop Aunarius is marked (II. Kal. Aug.), but not as we might have expected the day of his death. The same holds good of Syagrius, Bishop of Autun; the date of his consecration (natale suscepti episcopatus) is given, but not the date of his death which happened in 599 or 600. The last Gallic bishop whose death is noticed is Avitus of Clermont († 592).
On account of these facts, Duchesne arrived at the conclusion that the so-called Martyrologium Hieronymianum originated at Auxerre between 592 and 600. This conclusion is not weakened by the fact that personages belonging to the seventh century are included,[774] such as Desiderius of Vienne († 606-7), Columbanus († 615), Eustasius, Abbot of Luxeuil († 629), and Abbot Attala, the date of whose death is unknown. Desiderius, indeed, appears in the Berne and Weissenburg Codices, and the three others in that of Echternach, but they have been added by the transcribers, and both De Rossi and Duchesne are agreed that none of these codices represent the original text composed at Auxerre.
The editors go yet further, and show that the compiler was also very well informed concerning ecclesiastical matters in Italy, especially in Northern Italy and Milan; while he has comparatively little to say about Spain, Rhætia, Dalmatia, Pannonia, and nothing at all about Scotto-Irish saints. This postulates the existence of a yet older work, used by the compiler of Auxerre, which may have been identical with the work familiar to Cassiodorus.[775] This document, however, has entirely disappeared without leaving behind it any other documents derived from it. If one follows the perspective thus opened out, the connecting links may finally come to light which connect this document with the work of Eusebius, referred to by Eulogius of Alexandria and in the two letters attributed to St Jerome.
However, we shall not follow these interesting suggestions further, but shall content ourselves with the fact that in the Hieronymianum, in the earliest form in which it has come down to us, we have a primitive martyrology,[776] with additions and alterations made to it by a Frankish transcriber or compiler between 592-600. In its original form it contained only saints belonging to the Græco-Roman empire, and this accounts for the absence of the Irish saints and those of Mesopotamia. Thus at last the so-called Hieronymianum has been made serviceable for use in historical and liturgical investigations; the learned editors, in giving us as far as possible the original text, have given us for the first time a reliable edition of the document, and the Bollandists have rendered the work still more serviceable by the addition of a reliable alphabetical index, thus considerably lightening the labours of those who use this work. This is no common gain for liturgical study, since the Hieronymianum, obtained in the course of time, an increasingly prominent position, more prominent indeed at last than it deserved; moreover it has not been without its influence upon later martyrologies and calendars, and has had an appreciable effect even on the development of the Church’s cycle of festivals.
To know the number and condition of the Christians who had laid down their lives for the faith within the limits of the Roman empire would be of the highest interest now and always; to record the name, date, and locality of each with statistical accuracy would have been a work deserving the thanks of posterity. It might have been done immediately after the cessation of the Diocletian persecution, but only with the assistance of the secular authorities. Eulogius and the writer of the letters ascribed to St Jerome were on the right track in thinking that Eusebius had undertaken to furnish a work of this character with the assistance of the emperor; the latter informs us that Eusebius actually did so, and that the collection contained the names of from five to eight hundred martyrs for every day of the year, thus giving a total of between 182,500 and 292,000 martyrs.
Our Latin compiler indeed has not brought together so many names, and he states in the reputed letter of St Jerome that he only admitted those martyrs whose commemoration was celebrated with special solemnity (qui sunt in amplissima festivitate). However he has brought together in round numbers 6000 names—quite a respectable number when compared with the Menologium Basilianum, which belongs to a much later date, and it remains a question how it was possible for a Frankish scholar of the sixth century to get together so many names. Some of them certainly are distorted, others are repeated in a remarkable way, and others again have an unreal sound,[777] but when all deductions have been made, there still remains so much that is historical and unexceptional that the whole work cannot be dismissed as devoid of all authority. With regard to the origin and value of this mass of names, one finds oneself confronted by a question which seems equally insoluble, whether the compiler was a native of Gaul, of North Italy, or of anywhere else. He certainly incorporated into his martyrology the older lists of martyrs existing at his day, many of which are known to us, and the two editors have displayed both industry and insight in making this clear in several cases; yet all these lists of martyrs taken together contain scarcely a thousand names. From what sources has the compiler obtained the rest? This is the question which still awaits an answer. On the other hand the compiler has given expression to an important principle to which is due his influence on the hagiology and liturgy of later ages. The Arian Calendar of which we have spoken, concerned itself with the eastern half alone of the empire, and is composed almost entirely of names belonging thereto, but the author of the Hieronymianum set to work on quite another principle; he had in view the entire Christian world, East and West, Africa and Gaul. His point of view is infinitely wider than that of his predecessors, and even of many of his successors, and he made use of the fruitful principle of universalism, rejecting all particularism in the ecclesiastical sphere.
While there had been calendars in the West containing the names of martyrs belonging to a particular diocese or country, the compiler of the Hieronymianum regarded the Church as a whole—as catholic. The meaning of this will be seen from a glance at the service-books, the sacramentaries especially. In the ninth century and later, the Roman sacramentaries, even those intended for use in other countries such as those of St Gall, Mainz, Cologne, and Essen, contain only Masses for the Roman saints, confining themselves to one or two local saints in the supplement. The principle of universality only very gradually affected the formularies of the Mass, and did not reach its full expression until the sixteenth century, but it came to the fore much earlier in the martyrologies, as early indeed as Ado, Usuardus, Notker, and Rabanus Maurus, chiefly owing to the influence of the Hieronymianum.
This document is not without peculiarities of its own. In all recensions of the text, the 25th March is given as the day of Christ’s death, and since James the Lord’s brother, here called also “The Just,” died at Easter, his death is placed also on the 25th March. In the Berne Codex the sacrifice of Isaac is commemorated on the same day. There is a goodly array of Old Testament names, e.g. Aggeus, Habacuc, Job, Joel, Aaron, Eliseus, etc. In the Berne Codex, the 28th September is given as the day of Noe’s going out of the ark, the 7th January as the day of the Exodus, and the 1st May as the commencement of our Lord’s preaching.
Now that the date of its composition has been fixed, the Hieronymianum is specially valuable for the information which it gives concerning Frankish hagiography and its gradual development. Whoever will devote himself in the future to investigating St Denys of Paris, St Ursula, etc., must pursue his studies in the various recensions and transcriptions of the Hieronymianum. It will well repay the trouble, if someone would investigate how many of the reputed martyrs of Lower Germany are named in this important document. It only knows of two martyrs at Cologne, Asclinius and Pamphilus, in addition to the Moorish martyrs whose numbers, however, vary greatly in the MSS.; their commander is named Gereon. No saints are given for Mainz. For Treves we have Valerius, Paulinus, Maximinus, and a Bishop Militius; Palmatius Thyrsus and his Innumerable Company had not yet been discovered or invented. For Bonn the connection in which Cassius, Florentius, and Mallusius stand to one another on the 10th October is worthy of notice. We find some African martyrs first of all on this day, and then, without indication of Bonn or any other locality, we have: “Et alibi Cassi, Eusebi, Florenti, Victoris, Agrippinæ, Mallusi cum alii trecentos xxx.” (sic). The later legends omit Eusebius, and put Mallusius instead, who was buried at Birten and discovered by Bishop Evergisil; the martyr Victor is said to have been also originally buried at Birten.[778]
With regard to the Roman martyrs and the succession of the popes, the Hieronymianum is not altogether independent of the Philocalian list, although it is fuller. The earliest pope mentioned in it is Cornelius, and the last St Leo I., while the Philocalian list begins with Lucius († 254), and ends with Boniface I. († 422). The Hieronymianum gives also the days of the consecration of some of them, e.g. Miltiades, Liberius, Innocent I., and Boniface I. On the other hand the earlier martyrs are omitted with the exception of Clement I.
The indications of place are dealt with on various principles. For the most part the city is naturally given where the martyrdom took place; occasionally only the province is given, as, for example, Achaia, Asia, Campania, Sardinia, and Sicily, this being especially the case in regard to the last-named island. Remarkable on account of its vagueness is the phrase in Africa which occurs more than a hundred times without the name of any town being given, but, nevertheless, in the case of many African martyrs the town is given.[779] Often so many personal names follow one another that one suspects that some indications of place have dropped out, a conjecture to which one is all the more inclined as the indefinite expression et alibi is very often employed.
The martyrs themselves are only distinguished by their rank in the hierarchy, when they belonged to the sacred ministry, i.e. deacon, presbyter, bishop, but by far the larger number of personages are without any indication of place, date, etc. In many cases it is evident that the same person has been entered twice or oftener,[780] and mutilations, disfigurements and alterations are very numerous, more especially in the later MSS. The transcribers allowed themselves considerable freedom, adding supplements and corrections, apart from the unintentional mistakes they made. A hint of a literary nature is given by the remark, “cujus” or “quorum acta habentur,” indicating the existence of the acts of such and such a martyr. Later transcribers were not satisfied with this, but, when the acts were forthcoming, added larger or shorter notices from them to the text.[781] Had we the work as it came originally from the hands of the compiler of Auxerre, these imperfections would disappear to a considerable extent. A glance at any entry in the three recensions shows how freely the earliest transcribers dealt with the original text; in the new edition the three recensions are printed in parallel columns.[782] All these remarks have an intimate bearing upon the question of the sources and origin of the work. With regard to sources, the Roman Depositio Martyrum has been incorporated bodily, and a great part of the Carthaginian Calendar as well, but the compiler must have had the Arian Martyrology in a better copy than that which has come down to us, or even in its original form; this is shown by the fact that frequently he has quite correctly enlarged some of its indefinite entries.[783] His use of this martyrology is clear from his inserting Eusebius among the saints, in ignorance of his Arianism; he inserted the name in all simplicity, a mistake avoided by the Greek menologies, and the same may possibly have been the case with regard to Arius in the Weissenburg Codex.[784]
This employment of earlier sources coupled with the numerous correct entries in the Hieronymianum entirely excludes the view that the document is a fabrication. Indeed its composition can safely be said to have come about in the following manner:—in the two first centuries the persecutions were on the whole local, and the number of martyrs not very large, although the persecution at Lyons in 177 caused the death of more than forty martyrs, not counting confessors; a change took place in the third century, when persecutions were commanded by the emperors for the whole extent of the empire, and, under Diocletian, the martyrs were to be reckoned, if not by millions, at least by thousands. At the conclusion of the persecutions, it must have occurred to many to ask how many had lost their lives in this troublous period, and the idea of drawing up statistics of the martyrdoms must have sprung up. We have no evidence of anything of this sort actually having been done, but in the sixth century there was a widespread opinion that a work of this kind had been accomplished by Eusebius under Constantine, and the passages quoted from Cassiodorus and Gregory the Great show it was believed a list of the martyrs for the whole year existed in Italy or in Rome. If this work contained merely a list of names and dates, its interest must have been merely statistical and in no wise scientific, since little could be learnt from the names by themselves. In the seventh century, however, either in Auxerre or in North Italy, it seems to have been held in greater esteem; it found a transcriber and reviser, and finally was brought into connection with the liturgy owing to its being read at the choir-offices in monasteries and convents, and by this means, it won its way to a position of widespread importance, which, however, did not have an advantageous effect on the purity of the text.
With regard to the printed editions, there are several published by various scholars who relied upon late MSS. of little value. We may mention the editions of Fiorentini, Lucca 1668 (incomplete), of D’Achery in the Spicilegium, ii. 1 (Migne, xxx.), and of Galesinius, Milan, 1577. It used to be disputed which of these editions gave the earliest text, but they are all quite superseded now. There are also many abstracts of the Hieronymianum in mediæval handwriting, as, for example, the Martyrol. Gallicanum; Martène, Ampliss. Coll. VI., called after Chauvelin (Migne, Patr. Lat., xxx. 607); the Fuldense; Anal. Boll. XIII.; the Reichenau martyrology, etc., but they are of small scientific importance.
5. The Lectionary and Martyrology of Silos
Since the appointment of special Masses in honour of the saints is a distinguishing feature of the Latin rite, Western liturgical books are in themselves a source from which we can increase our knowledge of the saints’ festivals, the most important in this respect being the sacramentaries, but the other books used at the celebration of Mass, the collections of epistles and gospels especially, also throw light on the subject.
In addition to the books of this kind already named, the Lectionarius of Silos has, in recent times, attracted much attention in this connection.[785] It is of the highest importance both for the history of the development of the ecclesiastical year and for the festivals of the saints, for as it belongs to the period preceding the Carolingian liturgical reform, it represents a very ancient rite of which, until its discovery, all trace had disappeared. This rite is not the same as the southern Spanish rite of the Province of Boetica from which the so-called Mozarabic rite is derived, but belongs to the ancient ecclesiastical province of Toledo. The codex in which it is contained was written before the year 1062, for a later event, i.e. the translation of St Isidore’s relics from Seville to Leon, is added by a later hand. This codex, originally belonging to the monastery of St Sebastian at Silos and now in the National library of Paris, contains two distinct documents, a lectionary giving the lections from scripture for the whole of the year, and a martyrology; the latter was compiled between 925 and 1000; but the lectionary much earlier. Its antiquity is proved: (1) By the limited numbers of saints’ days; (2) by the circumstance that the catechumenate is still in force; (3) that the Saturdays in Lent are not fast days, agreeing with the eastern custom; (4) the Sundays after Epiphany and Pentecost do not appear as forming part of the ecclesiastical year, and are not even numbered, but, as in the Gelasianum, there are added twenty-four Masses called “dominicæ quotidianæ”; (5) there are five Sundays in Advent; (6) with regard to saints’ days, Anastasius the Persian is not yet placed along with St Vincent on the 21st January, and the Apostle James is also omitted along with all reference to the Spanish legend connected with his name. From this it is plain that St James, at the time when this work was compiled enjoyed no special worship in Spain. On these grounds the first editor, G. Morin, regards the lectionary as certainly belonging to 650.
The book represents a rite hitherto entirely unknown but which can be no other than the ancient rite of Toledo, since in it the Annunciation is placed on the 18th December as is prescribed by the first canon of the tenth council of Toledo. It differs from the Mozarabic rite as to the number of Sundays in Advent, of which the latter reckons six, and also in the eight Masses for the Sundays after Epiphany and Pentecost; another peculiarity is that the Innocents’ Day is omitted on the 27th December, but an “Allisio Infantium” is kept instead in the 8th January. None of the Roman and Byzantine feasts of our Lady are mentioned, and only one feast of the Holy Cross on the 3rd May, omitting the other on the 14th September; all Masses for saints’ days have two epistles.
The martyrology of Silos also is an important document on account of its original character, although it is some three centuries later than the lectionary. It is entitled, Martyrum Legium, and it is considerably richer in names of saints than the lectionary, and is quite independent of the Hieronymianum, though influenced in a slight degree by the Roman rite. The martyrs in the Moorish persecution, under, Abdurrhaman II., which lasted from 850 to 860, appear in large numbers. The historian of this persecution, the priest Eugenius of Toledo, who was put to death on 11th March 859, is entered, but placed on 1st June, the day of the translation of his relics; St Pelagius of Corduba, who suffered death on 26th June 925 under Abdurrhaman III. is also entered, and this date gives one limit in fixing the date of the work, the other limit being the year 1000. There are five additions by a later hand, i.e. on 12th March, Gregorii Papæ; on 1st May, Transitus Philippi Apostoli, without St James; on 28th April, Prudentii et Sociorum ejus; on 21st December, S. Thomæ Apostoli, and on 22nd December the Translatio corporis S. Isidori. Some personages are entered, who are not called saints, but only Domnus, four of whom belong to Toledo, two being bishops: Julian († 6th March 690) and Eugenius II. († 29th May 647); on 14th January, another Julian, and, on 13th March, Depositio Leandri. Half of the entire names belong to Spain, the other half to Rome and the East; of the Frankish martyrs, Denys of Paris, Afra of Augsburg, and Boniface of Mainz are commemorated. As regards the feasts of our Lady, besides the ancient Spanish feast on the 18th December, we have only the Assumption on 15th August. Litanies are appointed for 10th September, 7th November, and 15th December, besides a fast on 2nd January. The name of the Apostle St James is absent from the martyrology as well as from the lectionary. Bishop Torquatus and his companions are placed on 1st May, in both documents, but in the martyrology they are not described as disciples of the apostles, which is favourable to their historical existence. The Apostles Simon and Jude are on the 1st July instead of the 28th October, and there is also a Symon Apostolus on 19th October as well. Although traces of later influence appear in this martyrology, it has still preserved the independent character of the early Christian Calendars.