The Feasts of St Lawrence

Since the earliest times, St Lawrence has been venerated as a patron Saint of the city of Rome, along with Ss Peter and Paul, and his feast day has always been one of the most important in the ecclesiastical year. A remarkable number of Roman churches are dedicated to him, several more, in fact, than are dedicated to either of the Apostolic founders of the Church in the Eternal City. Among them are the Patriarchal Basilica of St Lawrence outside-the-Walls, where he is buried, and three of the most ancient parishes in the historical center of the city: San Lorenzo in Panisperna, (the reputed site of his martyrdom), San Lorenzo in Lucina, and San Lorenzo in Damaso. These four churches are frequently found on the list of station churches from Septuagesima Sunday to Low Sunday, in proximity to stational observances in honor of Ss Peter and Paul. San Lorenzo in Miranda was one of the first major churches to be built in the heart of the ancient city’s political and religious life, the Roman Forum; it sits within the portico of the temple of the divinized Emperor Antoninus Pius and his wife Faustina, on the steps of which the great martyr was said to have been tried and condemned.

The Basilica of Saint Lawrence outside-the-Walls, in an eighteenth century engraving by Giuseppe Vasi.

Two private chapels of the popes are also dedicated to him, San Lorenzo ‘in Palatio’ at the Lateran, and the Niccoline Chapel at the Vatican. The former was built in the mid-8th century, and after various restorations and embellishments, became a papal chapel about three centuries later; rebuilt by Nicholas III (1277-80), it now survives only in part within a building known as the Scala Sancta, across the street from the pope’s cathedral. The chapel’s nickname ‘Sancta Sanctorum – the Holy of Holies’, does not come from its status as a papal chapel, but from the amazing collection of relics formerly kept therein: among them, a piece of the grill on which St Lawrence was roasted alive, and some parts of his body.

In the 330-year period from 1048 to 1378, the popes spent roughly 250 years outside of Rome; after so long a period of neglect and partial abandonment, and two massive fires in the 14th century, most of the vast complex of buildings around the Lateran was in no state to be lived in. The popes therefore took up residence at the Vatican, and have been there ever since. In 1447, Nicholas V built a new chapel within the Vatican, and commissioned the Dominican painter Fra Angelico to paint the walls with stories of the two deacon martyrs, St Stephen and St Lawrence, to whom the chapel is jointly dedicated.

The Martyrdom of Saint Stephen, on the left wall of the Chapel of Nicholas V, by Fra Angelico. The martyrdom of Saint Lawrence is directly beneath it, but the part that shows Lawrence on the grill in the lower right hand corner is ruined.

The association of Ss Stephen and Lawrence, naturally suggested by the parallels between their lives and deaths, figures prominently in art and liturgy in Rome. Both were deacons under the authority of the pope in their respective cities, Stephen in Jerusalem under St Peter, and Lawrence in Rome under St Sixtus II, the most venerated of the early popes martyred after Peter. Both were put in charge of the Church’s charitable activities by the popes whom they served, and both were eloquent preachers of the Christian faith. Both suffered terrible martyrdoms, Stephen by stoning, as recounted in the Acts of the Apostles, while Lawrence was roasted alive.

In the office of St Stephen, the third antiphon of Lauds (partially quoting Psalm 62, with which it is sung), reads “Adhaesit anima mea post te, quia caro mea lapidata est pro te, Deus meus. – My soul hath stuck close to Thee, because my flesh was stoned for Thy sake, my God.” In the office of St Lawrence, this same antiphon is changed to “Adhaesit anima mea post te, quia caro mea igne cremata est pro te, Deus meus. – My soul hath stuck close to Thee, because my flesh was burnt for Thy sake, my God.” The artistic pairing of the two done so beautifully by Fra Angelico is also found twice in the Sancta Sanctorum which the Niccoline Chapel replaced, in the mosaics over the altar and in the frescoes that adorn its walls.

St Lawrence in the 11th century mosaics over the altar of the Sancta Sanctorum. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

The martyrdom of St Lawrence in the late 13th-century frescoes on the walls of the Sancta Sanctorum. The Emperor Decius appears on the left; the medieval accounts of St. Lawrence usually place his death in the persecution of Decius in 250-51, rather than that of Valerian in 257-58.

On August 3rd, a two-week long cycle of feasts associated with St Lawrence begins with the Finding of St Stephen, a feast of the universal calendar of the Roman Rite until 1960. The body of St Stephen was discovered in the year 415, along with those of Gamaliel, his son Abibas, and Nicodemus, when Gamaliel appeared to Lucian, a priest of Jerusalem, and revealed the place of their collective burial. Relics of Stephen were brought to many places throughout the world; in the final book of The City of God, St Augustine describes a number of miracles that took place when a part of them came to Africa, including the raising from the dead of six people. Another portion of them was brought to Rome in the reign of Pope Pelagius II (579-90), who placed them in the basilica of St Lawrence outside-the-Walls; the Golden Legend tells the story that when the pope went to lay them in Lawrence’s tomb, the Roman martyr moved to one side to make room for his fellow Levite. The early 13th-century porch still has extensive remains of original frescoes of that period, illustrating the history of the two great deacon martyrs; sadly, these were already in poor condition when the church was hit with a bomb during World War II, damaging them further.

The relics of St Stephen being laid to rest in the tomb of St Lawrence, by Lorenzo di Niccolò, ca. 1412.; from the Brooklyn Museum.

On August 6th occurs the feast of St Sixtus II, who was martyred at the catacomb of Callixtus, along with six of the seven deacons of the church of Rome, the seventh being Lawrence. When the edict of persecution was issued by the Emperor Valerian in the year 257, the holy Pope ordered Lawrence to distribute all of the wealth of the church to the poor of the city. Having done so, Lawrence then saw Sixtus being led to martyrdom and, as told by St Ambrose, addressed him thus: “Whither goest thou without thy son, father? Whither, holy priest, dost thou hasten without thy deacon? Never wast thou want to offer sacrifice without thy minister. What then hath displeased thee in me, father? Hast thou found me ignoble? Make proof surely whether thou didst choose a worthy minister. Dost thou deny a share in thy blood to one to whom thou didst entrust the consecration of the Lord’s blood, and a share in the celebration of the sacraments?... Abraham offered his son, Peter sent Stephen before him…” To this Sixtus replied, “I do not leave or abandon thee, son, but greater contests await thee. We, as elder men, receive the way of an easier combat; a more glorious triumph against the tyrant awaiteth thee as a younger man. Soon shalt thou come after, cease weeping; after three days shalt thou follow me, as levite followeth priest.” (These words from the 39th chapter of St. Ambrose’s De Officiis form the basis of several antiphons and responsories in the office of Saint Lawrence.) Sixtus and his deacons were then beheaded by Roman soldiers.

The martyrdom of St. Sixtus and his deacons, from a 14th century manuscript of the lives of the saints.

St Sixtus is named in the traditional canon of the Mass, immediately after the first three successors of St Peter, followed by two contemporary bishops also martyred under Valerian, Pope Cornelius and St Cyprian of Carthage; St Lawrence is then named first among the non-bishops. A Roman station church near the Lateran is named for Sixtus; it was entrusted to Dominican nuns within the lifetime of St Dominic, who died on his feast day. (The church attached to the Dominicans’ Roman University of St Thomas, also called the Angelicum, is dedicated to both Sixtus and Dominic.) After their founder was canonized in 1234, the Order of Preachers kept his feast on the 5th of August, rather than the day of his death, in deference to the much older feast; this remained their custom until the reforms of the later 16th century, when he was moved back a day to make way for Our Lady of the Snows. Likewise, when Pope Callixtus III instituted the feast of the Transfiguration in 1456, assigning it to the sixth of August, many churches simply ignored it because the day was already occupied by St Sixtus.

The Madonna and Child with Ss Sixtus II and Barbara, generally known as “the Sistine Madonna”, by Raphael Sanzio, 1513-14; commissioned for the monastery of San Sisto in Piacenza, which had relics of both Saints.

The ninth of August, the vigil of St Lawrence, was formerly also kept as the feast of St Romanus, which was reduced to a commemoration in the Tridentine reform. He was said to have been a soldier converted to Christ by the preaching of Lawrence, who baptized him while in jail awaiting execution; Romanus was beheaded at the orders of the Emperor the day before Lawrence was killed.

The tenth is the feast of Lawrence himself, the day of his martyrdom by being roasted alive on a grill; the Byzantine tradition, which devoted the sixth of August to the Transfiguration centuries before the Latin church, commemorates Sixtus, his deacons, and Romanus all together along with Lawrence himself on this day. The story of his martyrdom is told thus in the Roman Breviary of 1529. (Valerian appears as an official under the previous persecuting emperor, Decius.)

And Decius said to the blessed Lawrence: Sacrifice to the gods. And he answered, “I offer myself as a sacrifice to God, unto the odor of sweetness, for a contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God.” But the executioners pressed on in adding the coals, and placing them under the grill… . The blessed Lawrence said, “Learn, wretched Valerian, how great is the might of my Lord, for thy coals bring me refreshment, but to thee eternal torment; for he knows that I denied not his holy name when accused, I confessed Christ when asked, I gave thanks while being roasted.” … And all those present began to marvel, since Decius had commanded him to be roasted alive. But with a most comely countenance he said, “I give thee thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, who hast deigned to strengthen me.” And lifting up his eyes to Valerian, he said, “Behold wretched man, thou hast roasted one side; turn me over, and eat.” Then giving thanks to the Lord, he said, “I give thee thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, because I have merited to enter thy gates.” And saying this he gave up his spirit.

Saint Lawrence, in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia at Ravenna, ca. 450. The armoire on the left contains four books labelled with the names of the four Evangelists, a reference to the custom of keeping liturgical books locked in the sacristy in an era when any book was an expensive rarity. The deacon would process to the sacristy when it was time for the Gospel, receive the book from a porter, and process it out, a custom still found in the traditional Ambrosian liturgy.

The thirteenth of August is the feast of St Hippolytus, an officer of the guards in the prison where St Lawrence was held, and also converted by him to Christianity. In the Breviary of 1529, he is said to have taken the body of Lawrence for burial; reproved for this by the Emperor, and threatened with torture and death, he answered “May I merit to be a likeness of the blessed martyr Lawrence, whom you have dared to name with your polluted mouth.” After torture, he was killed by being torn apart by wild horses. The story is normally dismissed as a fabrication by modern scholars on the grounds that this manner of death, reported by the poet Prudentius, is the same as that of the Greek mythological character Hippolytus, the son of Theseus who was dragged to death by the horses of his chariot. It seems not to have occurred to any of the modern skeptics that the persecutors might have been inspired by his name to choose this manner of killing him in imitation of the mythological story.

It is certainly true, however, that there is much confusion about Hippolytus’ history; when Pope St Damasus I (366-84) placed an epitaph upon his tomb recounting his martyrdom, he stated that he himself “relied on purely oral tradition, which he does not guarantee: ‘Damasus tells these things which he has heard; it is Christ who maketh proof of them.’ ” (Loeb Classical Library, The Poems of Prudentius, p. 304, footnote) Prudentius also attests that he personally was healed of various ailments more than once while praying at Hippolytus’ tomb. In the Communicantes of the traditional Ambrosian canon, Sixtus, Lawrence and Hippolytus are named (in that order) immediately after the twelve Apostles, indicating how great the devotion to them was in the see of Milan in antiquity.

The Saint Hippolytus triptych by Dietric Bouts the Elder, ca. 1470.

Like all of the most important feasts, that of St Lawrence was traditionally celebrated with an octave; the octave day has a proper Mass, like the octave of Ss Peter and Paul, sharing only the Epistle and Gospel with the feast day. The introit of this Mass is taken from Psalm 16, which is also said at Matins of St Lawrence: “Thou hast proved my heart, and visited it by night, thou hast tried me by fire: and iniquity hath not been found in me.” The words “visited (my heart) by night” refer to the Emperor’s threat to torture Lawrence for the length of the night, to which the great Levite answered, “My night hath no darkness, but in it all things shine brightly in the light.”

The Feast of Saint Praxedes

Saint Praxedes, by Johannes Vermeer, ca. 1655 (The attribution to Vermeer has often been disputed.)

According to her legend, Praxedes was a Roman maiden, the sister of St Pudentiana; when the Emperor Marcus Antoninus was hunting down Christians, she sought them out to relieve them with money, care, comfort and every charitable aid. Some she hid in her house, others she encouraged to keep firm in the faith, and of yet others she buried the bodies; and she allowed those who were in prison or toiling in slavery to lack nothing. At last, being unable any longer to bear the cruelties inflicted on Christians, she prayed to God that, if it were expedient for her to die, she might be released from beholding such sufferings. And so on July 21 she was called to the reward of her goodness in Heaven. Her body was laid by the priest Pastor in the tomb of her father, Pudens, and her sister Pudentiana, which was in the cemetery of Priscilla on the Salarian Way. (From Butler’s Lives of the Saints, revised by Herbert Thurston S.J. and Donald Attwater; 1956)

Saint Praxedes is depicted in art squeezing the blood of the martyrs which she has collected from a sponge into a vessel. In her basilica in Rome, a part of the floor in the central nave is marked as the place where their relics were laid to rest within the building that was once her house.

Especially on this day, let us remember and pray for all persecuted Christians in every part of the world!

The Martyrs of Gorkum

The Roman Martyrology notes today as the feast of a group of Saints known as the Martyrs of Gorkum. Their feast has never been on the general calendar, but is celebrated in many places, and by the various religious orders to which they belonged, the Franciscans, who were the majority of the group, the Dominicans, Premonstratensians and Augustinian Canons. They were solemnly canonized in 1867 by Bl. Pius IX, as part of a year-long series of celebrations to commemorate the 18th centenary of the martyrdom of Ss Peter and Paul, then generally held to have taken place in 67 AD.

The Glorification of the Martyrs of Gorkum; engraving of the year 1675 after a painting by Johan Zieneels. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

In 1572, Dutch Calvinists in rebellion against the Spanish Catholic rulers of the Hapsburg Netherlands, as they were then called, seized control of the town of Gorkum. Eleven members of the local Franciscan friary, three secular priests, including the local parish priest, and an Augustianian canon were taken by the soldiers; when a member of the local Dominican community came to administer the Sacraments to them, he was also taken and imprisoned with them. Shortly thereafter, two Premonstratensians and another secular priest were added to their number, a total of nineteen. Over the course of several days, beginning on June 26, the soldiers subjected them to terrible cruelties, partly out of hatred for the Catholic religion, partly in the hopes of getting hold of precious vessels from the church which they believed the religious had hidden. On the morning of July 7th, they were transferred to another town, called Briel, and in the presence of the Calvinist commander, the Baron de la Marck, and several Calvinist ministers, told they would be set free if they would abjure the Catholic doctrine on the Blessed Sacrament, which they refused to do.

The baron then received a letter from the leader of the rebellion, the Prince of Orange known as William the Silent, ordering that they all be released. He agreed to this on the new condition that they publically repudiate the primacy of the Pope, which they also refused to do. On the morning of July 9th, they were taken to an abandoned monastery in the countryside near Briel and hanged from the beams of one of the outbuildings, with the nooses placed in their mouths. Even this incredibly slow and painful death did not satisfy the barbarity of the Calvinists, who also mutilated the bodies, some of them while they were still alive. One of the Franciscans, a Dane named Willehad, was 90 years old; three others were in their seventies. When the bodies had been taken down, their remains were left in a ditch, and not recovered until 1616, during a truce in the Eighty Years’ War between Spain and the Netherlands; they are now kept in the Franciscan church of St Nicholas in Brussels. There is also a pilgrimage church dedicated to them at the place of their martyrdom in Briel.

The Martyrs of Gorkum, by Cesare Fracassini; this painting was made specifically for the canonization ceremony of 1867. One of the traditional customs of the canonization ritual was that images of the Saints were hung within decorative frames from the balconies in the central rotunda of St Peter’s Basilica, but covered with plain pieces of burlap, which were then allowed to drop to the floor, exposing the image for the first time, once the Pope had finished reading the bull of canonization. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Perhaps the most appalling of Calvin’s many appalling doctrines was that of double predestination, the belief that we are all pre-destined to eternal salvation or damnation. (Calvin also taught that perhaps 100 souls would be saved from among the entire human race, although there was still enough human left in him at least to recognize that this was a “horrible conclusion.”) Inevitably, this drives people to search through their lives for signs that they are among the pre-saved; hence the idea that material prosperity in this life is a sign of pre-election in the next, a doctrine which has, with equal inevitability, now degenerated to truly parodic levels. But, as Catholic apologists immediately noted, this doctrine is pastorally disastrous, since it encourages not just the sinful, but also those who have repented of a sinful life, to see their past or present sins as a sign that they are among the pre-damned, and thus despair of their own correction and salvation. (A friend of mine who grew up in a Calvinist church and is now a Catholic priest once expressed the attitude that results as follows: “If I’m going to hell anyway, I might as well take the champagne flight.”)

Against this, we may adduce as particularly notable witnesses, the first meaning of the Greek word “martyr”, the lives and deaths of two among the company of Gorkum, which demonstrate that the door of conversion is not closed to anyone in this life, not even to the most obdurate sinner.

One of the two Premonstratensians, James Lacops, had formerly renounced both his vows and the Catholic Faith, after being reproved by his superiors for a very irregular life, and declared contumacious. Having been reconciled to the Church, he and St Adrian Jansen were captured in Gorkum when they opened the door of their presbytery to a man claiming that he wished to receive the Last Rites. Although the town was under occupation, and they knew that it might be a trick (as indeed it was), they would not risk letting someone die without the ministrations of a priest, and so they were taken to torture and death. It is, of course, especially appropriate that a son of St Norbert, who was himself rather a lax cleric in his youth (though nowhere near so egregiously) should die for the Catholic teaching on the Blessed Sacrament.

Even more interesting is the case of one of the secular priests, St Andrew Wouters, who was well-known as a womanizer and the father of more than one illegitimate child; despite being in disgrace, he joined the company of the others voluntarily. The Calvinist soldiers mocked him on account of the sins for which he was so notorious, and, in accordance with the logical conclusions of their creed, fully expected such a bad-living priest to apostatize and save his skin. This he did not do, and his last recorded words were, “Fornicator I always was, but heretic I never was; I will go to my death with the others.” As the article about them in the revised Butler’s Lives of the Saints wisely states, “it is a significant warning against judging the character of our neighbor, or pretending to read his heart, that, while a priest of blameless life recanted in a moment of weakness, the two who had been an occasion of scandal gave their lives without a tremor.”

Despite their disdain for religious vows and priestly celibacy, Calvinists did not of course believe that fornication was not sinful, and thus they would have seen in the sinful life of Andrew Wouters a clear sign of his eternal predestination to hell. To Catholics, his death as a martyr and canonization as a Saint are a reminder that we should never look on any sinful life, including our own, as anything other than a call to pray for conversion, which can happen even at the very last moments of life.

The reliquary of the Martyrs of Gorkum at the Franciscan church of St Nicholas in Brussels.

The full names of the martyrs are as follows.

The secular priests: Leonard van Veghel, pastor of Gorkum, Nicholas Poppel, Godfried van Duynen, and Andrew Wouters.
The eleven Franciscans: Fathers Nicholas Pieck, (who is listed first on the Franciscan liturgical calendar, since he was the guardian of the friary at Gorkum), Jerome of Weert (the vicar), Theodore van der Eem, Nicasius Jansen, Willehad of Denmark, Godfried of Mervel, Antony of Weert, Antony of Hoornaer, and Francis de Roye; the two lay brothers, Peter of Assche and Cornelius of Wyk near Duurstede.
The Premonstratensians: Adrian Jansen van Hilvarenbeek and James Lacops.
The Dominican: John of Cologne.
The Augustinian canon: Jan Lenartz of Oosterwyk, chaplain of the beguinage in Gorkum.

The Octave of All Saints 2024

From the Roman Breviary of 1529, the conclusion of the sermon for the feast of All Saints.

We believe that this day’s festivity is also made renowned by the priests, doctors, and confessors of Christ, who spiritually nourish the hearts of the faithful, like heavenly waters, so that they may be able to bring forth in abundance the incorruptible fruit of good works. They have taken care not only to give back the talents entrusted to them, but also to increase them with interest, … ; for the good which they learned and understood through the grace of the Holy Spirit, they strove to impart not only to themselves, but to the minds of those subject to them. … Celebrating the sacred and holy mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ upon the altar, in the depths of their heart they cease not to offer a living sacrifice, and pleasing to God, that is, themselves, without blemish or admixture of any evil deed. And although they did not feel the sword of the persecutors, yet through the merit of their lives, they are worthy of God and not deprived of martyrdom. For martyrdom is accomplished not only by the shedding of blood, but also by abstaining from sins, and the practice of God’s commandments. … Very many have shone forth with signs and wonders, restoring sight to the blind, strengthening the steps of the lame, giving hearing to the deaf, conquering demons, and raising the dead.

All Saints in Glory, by Giovanni da San Giovanni, 1630, in the apse of the church of the Four Crowned Martyrs in Rome.

Therefore, dearest brethren, with the full intention of our minds let us ask for the protection of the mighty intercessors of whom we have spoken, so that through the temporal feast which we keep, by their merits interceding, we may be able to come to eternal joy. All things pass away that are celebrated in time. Take care, all that take part in these solemnities, lest you be cut off from the eternal solemnity. For what profiteth it to take part in the feasts of men, if it befall you to miss the feasts of the Angels? (The words from “All things pass away...” to the end are added from a homily of Saint Gregory of Great for the Octave Day of Easter.)

From the Breviary of St. Pius V, 1568, the end of the treatise on mortality by St. Cyprian of Carthage, bishop and martyr, read on the Octave Day of All Saints.

We must consider, most beloved brethren, and continually reflect upon the fact that we have renounced the world, and in the meanwhile live here as guests and pilgrims. Let us embrace the day which assigns each of us to his own home, which restores us to paradise and the heavenly kingdom, delivered hence and freed from the snares of the world. What man that has been placed in foreign lands would not hasten to return to his own country? What man that is hastening to sail back to his friends desireth not the more eagerly a prosperous wind, that he might the sooner be able to embrace those dear to him?

We regard paradise as our country, already we begin to deem the patriarchs as our parents: why do we not hasten and run, that we may see our country, that we may greet our parents? There a great number of our dear ones awaits us, and a dense crowd of parents, brothers, children, longs for us, already assured of their own immortality, and still solicitous for our salvation. To attain to their sight and their embrace, what gladness both for them and for us in common! What delight there is in the heavenly kingdom, without fear of death; and how lofty and perpetual the happiness with eternity of living!

There the glorious choir of the apostles, there the host of the prophets rejoicing, there the innumerable multitude of the martyrs, crowned for the victory of their struggle and passion; there the triumphant virgins, who subdued the desire of the flesh and of the body by the strength of their continency. There are the merciful rewarded, who by feeding and helping the poor have done the works of justice, they who, in keeping precepts of the Lord, have transformed their earthly patrimonies into the heavenly treasures. To these, beloved brethren, let us hasten with eager desire; let us long quickly to be with them, that quickly we may come to Christ.

November 8th is also the feast of the Four Crowned Martyrs, the titular Saints of a very ancient but much-rebuilt church on the Caelian Hill in Rome. Every year on the feast, the altar is covered with a very beautiful frontal, and silver reliquary busts of the martyrs are displayed in the sanctuary.

Among the many inscriptions preserved in the church, this one records that Pope Leo IV (847-55) placed under the church’s altar the relics of the Four Crowned Martyrs, and a great many others; in addition to those listed by name here, he placed “many other bodies of Saints whose names are known to God.”

The Feast of All Saints 2024: The Martyrs

From the Roman Breviary of 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the feast of All Saints.

After the Apostles) is added the triumphal title of the Martyrs, who through diverse sorts of torments imitated the passion of Christ, offering no provocation in their minds or hearts. Some were killed with the sword, some burnt, some beaten, some pierced with bolts, some crucified, … it is they that celebrate the triumph, and are the friends of God, who, defying the orders of criminal rulers, are now crowned, and receive the reward of their labors, because they were founded upon the firm rock, that is, Christ. … The blessed Gregory says of the warriors of this sort, in his explanation of one of the Gospels, “Behold, the elect of God subdue the flesh, strengthen the spirit, gain mastery over the devils, shine brightly with virtues, despise the present world, and speak of the eternal fatherland in their words and in their manners. And even as they die, they love, and so they come there through their torments. They can be killed, but they cannot be bent, “and though in the sight of men they suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality. Afflicted in few things, in many they shall be well rewarded: because God hath tried them, and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace he hath proved them, and as a victim of a holocaust he hath received them.” Now therefore, we have heard of the contests and victories of the martyrs of Christ. To them, certainly, we hold this day to be sanctified, insomuch as they did not cease to labor within themselves, that they might be sanctified through their sufferings.

The Ten Thousand Martyrs on Mt Ararat, by Vittore Carpaccio, 1515

The Legend of St Denis

October 9 has traditionally been kept as the feast of Ss Denis (“Dionysius” in Latin) and Companions, who were martyred at Paris in the 3rd century. St John Leonardi, the founder of a small congregation of clerks regular, died on this day in 1609; when he was added to the general calendar in 1940, his feast was placed on top of that of the martyrs, who were thus reduced to a commemoration. In the post-Conciliar reform, however, both feasts have been made optional memorials, which means that the martyrs may now be celebrated more freely in the Novus Ordo than in the Roman Rite. That they should be present at all in the modern liturgy is very surprising, since St Denis is the subject of one of the most famous hagiographical confusions, of exactly the sort that led to the suppression or downgrading of so many other feasts.

A statue of St Denis, from the treasury of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Paris. One legend tells that St Denis was beheaded on the hill of Montmartre which overlooks Paris, after which he picked up his head and walked about 4 miles to the site where he is buried, the future location of the abbey which bears his name. (Photo courtesy of the Schola Sainte-Cécile.)

In his History of the Franks (I.30), St Gregory of Tours (538-94) lists Denis as one of seven men sent to Gaul as bishops to evangelize various cities during the reign of the Emperor Decius (249-51), and says that sometime after, he was “afflicted with various sufferings for the name of Christ, and ended the present life at the blow of a sword.” In the Martyrology incorrectly attributed to St Jerome, Denis is named on October 9th together with a priest and a deacon, Rusticus and Eleutherius, who are also mentioned in the prayer of their collective feast day. Their bodies were buried at a site a few miles to the north of Paris, and a church built over it, which Gregory of Tours mentions twice, once in connection with a miracle, and again when describing its profanation. Not long after his time, King Dagobert I (603-39) established a monastery under royal patronage at the site, and completely rebuilt the church; it was rebuilt again in the days of Pepin the Short and his son Charlemagne, the latter of whom attended its consecration in 775.

According to the revised Butler’s Lives of the Saints, even before the Carolingian period, St Denis of Paris had already been confused in some quarters with the Biblical figure of the same name (i.e. Dionysius), who was converted by the preaching of St Paul in Athens (Acts 17, 22-34). This preaching took place at the “Areopagus – the hill of Ares”, a large outcropping of the Athenian acropolis which was used as a place of judgment for serious crimes like murder; St Luke calls Dionysius “the Areopagite”, i.e., one of the judges who sat on the court held there. The Church historian Eusebius reports (3.4.11), on the witness of another Dionysius (a very common name in antiquity), bishop of Corinth in the later 2nd century, that the Areopagite was the first bishop of Athens; by the turn of the seventh century, he was believed to have died as a martyr, being burnt alive by the Emperor Domitian.

The Preaching of St Paul at Athens; a preparatory cartoon made by Raphael in the 1510s as part of a series of designs intended to be woven into tapestries; now at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Sometime in the later 5th or early 6th century, an unknown Greek-speaking theologian produced a series of four treatises and ten letters, purporting to be works of Dionysius the Areopagite. This is not a case like those of Ss John Chrysostom or Augustine, among many others, to whom writings were very often mistakenly ascribed in later generations; the author clearly and deliberately intended to pass himself off as the contemporary of St Paul. To this end, he claims to have been present, along with Ss Peter and James, for the Dormition of the Virgin Mary (Div. Nom. 3, 2), and addresses letters to Ss John the Evangelist, Timothy and Polycarp. Scholars generally suppose him to have been a Syrian; the dating of his works depends in part on the obvious influence upon them of the neo-Platonic philosopher Proclus, who died in 485. Further attempts to glean information about the author from his writings remain speculative.

By the first decades of the sixth century, these writings were cited by authors on both sides of the debate over the Monophysite heresy, which the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon had condemned in 451. Most notably, at a council held in Constantinople in 533, the Monophysites cited them in support of their teaching, to which the leader of the Catholic party replied that they were forgeries. Nevertheless, as the controversy continued, and as the heresy evolved into Monotheletism in the 7th century, they came to be gradually accepted as both genuine and orthodox by several important figures, the most significant being St Maximus the Confessor, who cited them at a council held in the Lateran Basilica in Rome in 649, under Pope St Martin I. They were further defended and cited to the same effect at the next two ecumenical councils, Third Constantinople in 680, and Second Nicea in 787. To this day, the Byzantine Rite’s liturgical texts for St Dionysius, “the Holy Martyr and Areopagite”, bishop of Athens, are filled with references to the writings, as for example, this hymn at Vespers: “Having made thy mind equal in honor to that of the Angels through virtue, o all-wise father Dionysius, thou didst write an account in (thy) holy books of the heavenly order of their hierarchy, and according to it, didst organize the orders of the Church’s government, likening them to the ranks of heaven.” (He is also the titular Saint of the Roman Catholic cathedral of Athens.)

An early 11th-century mosaic of St Dionysios the Areopagite, in the monastery of St Luke in Boeotia, Greece. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

In the year 827, the Byzantine Emperor Michael II (820-29) sent a copy of the writings to Charlemagne’s son, King Louis the Pious, along with several other gifts. By coincidence, they happened to reach the king on the evening of October 8th, when he was at the royal abbey of St Denis for the vigil of the titular Saint’s feast day. The abbot, Hilduin, who was very close to the king, had them translated into Latin, although this translation was not very well done, and was replaced by another about 30 years later. At the king’s behest, he also wrote a life of St Denis, which definitively conflated the bishop of Paris with the Areopagite, ascribed his mission in Gaul to Pope St Clement I towards the end of the 1st century, and acknowledged the writings as his. This conflation was henceforth accepted, and remained the common legend of St Denis in western Europe for the next 700 years. The writings became extremely influential in the High Middle Ages; Hugh of St Victor, St Albert the Great, and yet another Denis, the great Carthusian theologian, wrote commentaries on them, and they are cited well over 2000 times in the works of St Thomas Aquinas.

In the Renaissance, when many of the certainties of the medieval tradition were being called into question, the authenticity of the writings, and the identification of the two Denises as the same person, were challenged by two of the most prominent among the great humanist scholars, Lorenzo Valla (1407-57), who also unmasked the forgery known as the Donation of Constantine, and later Erasmus. The question was the subject of much controversy and debate over the following centuries, with learned men, Catholic and Protestant, offering their opinions as both defenders and detractors of the tradition. The neo-Gallican revision of the Parisian liturgical books sided with the detractors by separating Denis into two persons, one of Athens, kept on his Byzantine date, October 3rd, and the other of Paris on the traditional date, without the title “Areopagite”, a change which was later harshly condemned by Dom Prosper Guéranger.

A leaf of a 15th century Missal according to the Use of Paris, with the Epistle of the Mass of St Denis, Acts 17, 22-34. (Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 859A)

However, this diffidence towards the traditional legend of St Denis was not a novelty of the neo-Gallicans. The pre-Tridentine Roman Breviary devotes only a single lesson of less than 70 words to St Denis and his companions, which makes no mention of the theological treatises. It also says that he was sent to Gaul “by the Roman Pontiff”, without specifying which one, a clear sign of doubt about the legend that it was St Clement.

Much more tellingly, the pre-Tridentine Parisian Breviary also pointedly does not refer to Denis as the author of the Areopagitic corpus, although it does accept him as the Athenian disciple of St Paul and the contemporary of St Clement. The Matins lessons for the feast day and the days of its octave are taken directly from Hilduin’s life of the Saint, but omit the chapters (9-17) which describe the theological writings, nor is there any reference to them in any of the proper antiphons or responsories of the Office, or in the Sequence of the Mass. (The Epistle of the latter is the passage from Acts 17 cited above.)

In point of fact, it was only with the Tridentine revision that the Roman Breviary accepted Hilduin’s conflation of the Athenian and Parisian Denis as the same person. Furthermore, a sentence is added to the effect that “He wrote wondrous and indeed heavenly books, on the divine names, on the celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchies, on mystical theology, and certain others.” This is perhaps the only case in the Breviary of St Pius V in which the legend of a Saint moves further away from the more skeptical view, almost certainly due to the influence of Cardinal Baronius, who defended the traditional legend in his notes on the revision of the Martyrology.

As late as 1857, when the Abbé Migne put together his great corpus of Patristic writings, the Patrologia Graeca, which is arranged in chronological order, he put the Areopagitic corpus and associated writings, including several defenses of its authenticity, between the works of St Clement I and those of St Ignatius of Antioch. However, in 1895, two Catholic scholars, Hugo Koch and Josef Stiglmayer, working quite separately from each other, demonstrated the dependence of the writings on the works of Proclus, and the question is now universally regarded as settled in the negative. This also explains what was, of course, the strongest objection to their authenticity all along, namely, the complete absence of any reference to them in the writings of earlier Church Fathers.

Part of the choir of the abbey of St Denys. Around the year 1135, the abbot Suger began the process of enlarging the Carolingian church, during which the choir was rebuilt from 1140-44. Inspired by the Areopagite’s theology of light as an expression and manifestation of God’s presence, Suger created the idea of having huge walls of windows which flood the church’s interior with light; this is the foundation of the architecture style which we now call Gothic, and this choir is the first example of it. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Guilhem Vellut, CC BY 2.0)

As with the many controversies over the authorship of the books of the Bible, the assumption behind this debate was to a large degree that if a work is not genuinely by the author to whom it is attributed, it is therefore a forgery, and hence worthless. And likewise, as with the many controversies over the authorship of the books of the Bible, this assumption has more recently been to a large degree subsumed by an understanding that authenticity is principally an historical question, and one that need not always impinge on the value of a writing as a work of theology. In his series of Wednesday audiences on the Church Fathers, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the author of these writings (May 14, 2008), and explicitly rejected the idea that he passed himself off as the Areopagite in order to vest his work with the authority of one close to the Apostles, but rather, did so “to make an act of humility; he did not want to glorify his own name, he did not want to build a monument to himself with his work but rather truly to serve the Gospel, to create an ecclesial theology, neither individual nor based on himself.”

The Martyrs of the Theban Legion

Today is the feast day of St Thomas of Villanova (1488-1555), an Augustinian friar who became Archbishop of Valencia in Spain in 1516, and served in that office until his death, which happened on the feast of Our Lady’s Nativity. When he was canonized in 1658, Pope Alexander VII took the unusual step of assigning him to a date already occupied by another feast, that of Ss Maurice and Companions, also known as the Martyrs of the Theban Legion, who were thus reduced to a commemoration. This is unusual for two reasons.

The Martyrdom of Ss Maurice and Companions, by El Greco, 1580-2 (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

First, at the time, there was a date closer to that of his death, September 18th, which was free of any general observance; indeed, the Saint who would later occupy it, Joseph of Cupertino, was still alive in this world. Second, even though the feast of these martyrs was kept at the lowest rank, it was still very uncommon to place one feast on top of another where it was possible to avoid doing so, and this remained a general principle for centuries. [1] Even so late as 1954, the feast of Pope St Pius X was assigned to a date two weeks after that of his death, rather than place it where it would impede either of the lowest-ranked feasts in the area (Aug. 26 and Sept. 1).

This decision most likely reflects a certain diffidence about the historical details of the martyrs in question, whose feast was previously reduced in the Tridentine reform from an Office of nine proper historical readings to only one.

They are called “the Theban Legion” from the place where they were recruited, Thebes [2], which in very ancient times had been the capital of the Kingdom of Upper Egypt. The traditional story recounts that they were all Christians, and sent to Gaul in the year 287 AD, specifically, the area around Lake Geneva, where they were placed under the command of the Emperor Maximian. The first account of their passion was written by St Eucherius, bishop of Lyon, who was born about a century after their time, and died ca. 450; he represents Maximian as a ferocious persecutor of the Christians, one who, “beset by greed, lust, cruelty and the other vices … had armed his impiety to extinguish the name of Christianity.”

The emperor therefore ordered the Theban legion to participate in the persecution of their coreligionists, which they refused absolutely to do, withdrawing to the town of Agaunum, a short distance from the main encampment. For this, they were then “decimated”, a traditional disciplinary practice of the Roman army by which every tenth man of a refractory military unit was killed. Encouraged particularly by three of their officers, Mauritius, Exsuperius and Candidus, the soldiers remained wholly unintimidated. Eucherius’ account includes the text of their written statement sent to the Emperor, expressing their continued refusal to obey him, which begins as follows.

“We are thy soldiers, o emperor, but yet servants of God, which we freely confess. To thee we owe our military service, but to Him our innocence. (i.e., the duty to remain free from sin.) From thee we have receive the wage of our work, but from Him, the very beginning of our life. In this, we can in no wise follow the emperor, that we should deny God, who is indeed our maker and Lord, and thy maker too, will thou or no. If we are not forced so grievously to offend Him, we will obey as we have hitherto; otherwise we will obey him rather than thee.”

A 12th century reliquary bust of the skull of St Candidus, from the treasury of the Abbey of St Maurice, which is located on the site of their martyrdom in ancient Agaunum, now known as Saint Maurice. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Lothar Spurzem, CC BY-SA 2.0 DE)

The legion, numbering 6000, was then massacred without offering any resistance. Eucherius also reports that a veteran named Victor happened to pass by as the soldiers who had perpetrated the massacre were dining off the spoils of their victims, and was invited to join them. On learning the cause of the party, he refused to participate; when asked whether he too was a Christian, he replied that he was and always would be, for which he was immediately killed. “And as he was joined to the other martyrs in that same place in death, so also he is joined to them in honor. Of that company of martyrs, only these names are known to us, those of the most blessed Maurice, Exsuperius, Candidus and Victor; the rest are unknown to us, but are written in the book of life.”

The historical difficulty here lies in the reported cause of the martyrs’ death, which requires a bit of background to understand.

The 3rd century was an era of prolonged crisis for the Roman Empire, often described as a “military anarchy”, with one general after another contending for the imperial throne, and most meeting a violent death at the hands of their successor after only a few years. The man who, after almost 50 years of this, finally began to restore stability was Diocletian, who became emperor in 284, and is now infamous as the last major persecutor of the Christians. Recognizing that the empire was too large for a single man to rule, he divided it into two parts, East and West, [3] each ruled by an “Augustus” and a “Caesar”, i.e., an emperor and a vice-emperor. He also instituted an orderly succession, by which an Augustus would resign after 20 years and be succeeded by his Caesar. [4] Within this system, known as the Tetrarchy, the Maximian named above was the first Augustus of the West, as Diocletian was of the East. And in due course, they both resigned in 305 in favor of their respective Caesars, Galerius and Constantius Chlorus, the latter of whom was the father of the first Christian Emperor, Constantine.

A sculptural group representing the Tetrarchs, made ca. 300 AD out of Egyptian porphyry, an extremely durable material, the color of which was long considered a sign of royalty by the Romans. It was originally located in a public square in Constantinople called the Philadelphion; the piece missing at the lower right was found near there in 1965, and is now in the Istanbul Archeological Museum. During the sack of Constantinople in 1204, it was stolen by the Venetians, brought to their city, and installed in a corner of the façade of St Mark’s Basilica. A Venetian legend claims that they were four thieves (unusually well-dressed!) who attempted to steal some of the basilica’s treasures, and were petrified by St Mark as a warning to other miscreants. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons by Rino Porrovecchio, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Now the historical problem. First of all, it is a well-established fact that Maximian was in the region of Lake Geneva in 287 not to institute or enforce a general persecution of Christians, but to put down a rebellion that had broken out against the Romans among several Gallic tribes in the area.

Second, it is true that as the Tetrarchy approached its first (and last) peaceful transition of power, the hostility which its eastern half, Diocletian and his Caesar Galerius, had long shown to the Christians broke out into open persecution. This was enforced with great severity and violence in the East, marginally less so in the provinces governed by Maximian, hardly at all in those governed by Chlorus. [5] However, persecution of this sort was hardly even possible in 287, when Diocletian and Maximian were literally pulling the empire back from the brink of collapse. It seems possible, therefore, that Eucherius assumed too much about the events of Maximian’s earlier career on the basis of his actions during the great persecution.

Third, the story of the Theban legion was embellished considerably over time, which is always a red flag to the hagiographical skeptics. Like the veteran Victor mentioned by Eucherius, several other Saints from different regions have been made honorary members of the legion, and by the 6th century, St Gregory of Tours had transplanted them and their martyrdom to Cologne. According to the version of their story in Bl. Jacopo of Voragine’s Golden Legend, they were ordered by Diocletian and Maximian to sacrifice to the idols, which was a feature of many ancient persecutions, but which is nowhere hinted at by Eucherius. In the Breviary of St Pius V, this is made the sole cause of their conflict with Maximian.

As one might guess from all this, their legend has been the subject of a great deal of scholarly discussion; the broad consensus now seems to be that Eucherius exaggerated or misunderstood their numbers, but that the martyrdom of a substantial company of Egyptian soldiers in the area of Lake Geneva really did take place. In the post-Conciliar reform, their feast was removed from the general calendar. According to the official account of the reform, this was done, not in function of the almost total suppression of commemorations, since St Thomas of Villanova was also suppressed, but because “not a few difficulties are found in regard to their history”, and because their feast, which was adopted at Rome only in the 11th century, “does not belong to the Roman tradition.” This latter alleged reason is difficult to square with the suppression of any number of other feasts which are thoroughly Roman and much older than the 11th century.

As to the difficulties in their history, Prof. Donald O’Reilly, in an article published in Vigiliae Christianae in 1978, makes some very interesting observations. A papyrus dated to the year 282, and found at Panopolis, which is not far from Thebes, records the requisition of a quantity of bread large enough to support a legion-sized unit for three months, roughly the time needed to travel at a military march from Egypt to Gaul. In the same period, coins were minted in Egypt of a type specific to the commemoration of the founding of a legion.

A page of the Notitia Dignitatum, with the shields of military units under the “magister peditum – master of the footsoldiers”; the “Thebans” are in the middle of the 4th rank. All of the surviving copies of this document depend on a single Carolingian manuscript which was in the capitular library of Speyer Cathedral, and lost sometime before 1672. The copy from which this page (folio 110v, image cropped) is taken was made directly from the Speyer manuscript in 1436 at Basel in Switzerland, for one of the bishops participating in the Ecumenical Council then being held there, which was later transferred first to Ferrara, and then to Florence. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 9661)

Prof. O’Reilly then argues that one of the principal objections to the legend, the massacre of an entire legion of over 6000 men, is also the result of a misunderstanding. Diocletian effected a major reorganization of the Roman army, in which many legions were brought down to only 1000 members. By 293, a document called the Notitia Dignitatum, an explanation of the Roman imperial administration which includes the names of many military offices and titles, lists four such units as the bodyguard corps of the four Tetrarchs, each named after one of them (e.g. “Legio Diocletiana”), and qualified with the words “Thebaeorum – of Thebans.” Thinking of their last sixty years’ worth of predecessors, most of whom were murdered by their own troops, what better guards could the Tetrarchs find than men who believed, as a matter of strongly held religious conviction, that such an act would be a grave offense against God? The original Theban legion, therefore, would not have been massacred to a man, but rather, after suffering a decimation, and that, very possibly for some matter having to do with their religion, simply organized out of existence as a unit, and its former members assigned to the newly created corps of imperial bodyguards.

[1] Particularly in the 19th century, the calendars of many dioceses, individual churches and religious orders came to be filled with so many Saints that this principle could no longer be maintained.

[2] There were several ancient cities called “Θῆβαι” in Greek, “Thebae” in Latin, whence the English “Thebes”. The most important of these, in the region of Greece called Boeotia, was known as “the city of seven gates”, and figured prominently in both myth and history; the Egyptian Thebes was known as “the city of 100 gates.”

[3] The division effected by Diocletian would be undone and redone a few times over the course of the 4th century, and become definitive only in 395 with the death of Theodosius I.

[4] If a Caesar were to die before his term ended, his Augustus would appoint a new one; if an Augustus died, his Caesar would complete his term, and appoint a new Caesar as his own eventual successor.

[5] In his book On the Deaths of the Persecutors (cap. xv in fine), Lactantius reports that Chlorus permitted the demolition of some churches, but inflicted no violence on the Christians themselves.

Interesting Saints on July 17

Prior to the 1960 reform of the Missal and Breviary, July 17 was kept in the Roman Rite as the feast of a confessor named Alexius. The single proper Matins lesson for his feast states that he was of a noble family, and that on the night of his wedding, “by a particular command of God”, he left his bride untouched, and went abroad as a pilgrim for seventeen years. After spending much time in the Syrian city of Edessa (once a very important center of Christianity), he returned to Rome. There he was welcomed, wholly unrecognized, into the house of his own parents, and died after another seventeen years; when his body was discovered, he had with him a written account of his whole life. The martyrology adds that at his death, he was recognized not only by the writing he had left behind, but also “by a voice heard throughout the churches of the City.” The common tradition, attested in many other versions of his legend, states that after he came back to Rome, he lived under the staircase of the house like Harry Potter; the purported stairs can still be seen to this day in the Roman basilica dedicated to him on the Aventine Hill.

The chapel with the basilica of Ss Boniface and Alexius, which contains the relics of the latter; the stairs under which he lived are mounted on the reredos. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Kent Wang, CC BY-SA 2.0.)

It hardly needs to be stated that no aspect of this prima facie improbable story can be taken as true. Among many other things, it is said to have happened during the papacy of St Innocent I, who reigned from 401-17, and yet there is no trace of it in any Western source before the later 10th century. That includes the many writings of Pope Innocent’s contemporaries such as Ss Jerome, Augustine and Paulinus of Nola, all of whom had regular contact with Rome.

And indeed, the church of Rome was long very chary of including this legend in its liturgy. Before the breviary of St Pius V was published in 1568, St Alexius had regularly appeared in Roman liturgical calendars for over 350 years, and likewise, on the calendars of many other medieval Uses. However, the feast was otherwise not mentioned in the Roman liturgical books; no Mass was indicated in the proper of the Saints in the missal, and no lesson or collect was given in the breviary.

It is now generally recognized that the story of Alexius is based on that of a saint from Edessa known only as “the man of God”, who lived there as a homeless beggar in the early 5th century. He is said to have given most of the money which he received to those in even worse condition than himself, and to have confided to someone in the hospice where he died that he was the son of a Roman nobleman. By the later 10th century, the legend had expanded to give this man the name Alexius (or Alexis in Greek), and when a metropolitan of Damascus called Sergius, exiled to Rome from Syria, was given charge of a basilica dedicated to an equally legendary martyr called Boniface, he added Alexius as its co-titular Saint. (The breviary lessons for St Benedict Joseph Labré (1748-83), a Frenchman who lived by begging his way from shrine to shrine as a pilgrim, describe him as one who “followed in the arduous steps of St Alexius.”)

This icon, known as “the Madonna of Saint Alexius” or “of Edessa”, is traditionally said to have been in Edessa in the time of St Alexius, and greatly venerated by him when he lived in that city, then brought to his Roman basilica by the bishop Sergius mentioned above. It is now generally thought to have been made in Byzantium in the 12th or 13th century. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons, by Beloved Olga.)

On the same day, the martyrology notes the death of the Scillitan Martyrs, a group of twelve Christians, seven men and five women, from a town called Scilla in North Africa, who were martyred for the Faith at Carthage in 180 AD. (Scilla was a suffragan of Carthage, about 172 miles to the southwest of it.) Their written acts are universally recognized as historically accurate, and are also the first account of a martyrdom preserved to us from that region, which gave the Church many martyrs in the early centuries. A basilica was dedicated to them at Carthage, and three sermons which St Augustine preached in it on their feast day are preserved. In the first of these, he refers to the ancient custom by which the acts of the martyrs were read during the Mass, the custom which led to their preservation.

“The holy martyrs, the witnesses of God, preferred by dying to live, lest by living they should die; they disdained life by loving life, lest by fearing death they should deny life. The enemy promised life, so that Christ might be denied, but not life such as Christ promised it. Believing, therefore, that which was promised by the Savior, they laughed at the threat of the persecutor. Brethren, when we celebrate the solemnities of the martyrs, we know that examples have been set forth for us, which we can obtain by imitating them. For we do not increase the glory of the martyrs by keeping this assembly; their crown is known to the companies of the angels. We could hear what they suffered when it was being read, but that which they received, ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.’ (1 Cor. 2, 9)” (Sermo 299/D in init.)

The cathedral of St John the Baptist in Lyon, France. Amid the violence of the ninth century, described below in reference to Pope St Leo IV, the relics of St Cyprian and the Scillitan Martyrs were brought here from Africa for safe keeping; some of the latter were later brought to the basilica of Ss John and Paul on the Caelian hill in Rome. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Otourly, CC BY-SA 3.0) 

In the Ambrosian Rite, July 17 is the feast of St Marcellina, the older sister of St Ambrose, who helped her mother to raise him and their brother Satyrus after the death of their father. From her youth, she wished to dedicate herself entirely to God, and was consecrated as a virgin and veiled by Pope Liberius on Christmas of 353 in St Peter’s Basilica. (This event is an early attestation of the Roman system of station churches.) St Ambrose addressed his treatise On Virginity to her, and at the beginning of the third book, preserves the address which Liberius gave at the time, beginning as follows:

“You… my daughter, have desired a good espousal. You see how great a crowd has come together for the birthday of your Spouse, and none has gone away without food. This is He, Who, when invited to the marriage feast, changed water into wine. He, too, will confer the pure sacrament of virginity on you who before were subject to the vile elements of material nature.”

The monument and relics of Saint Marcellina, in the Milanese basilica dedicated to her brother. Photo by Nicola de’ Grandi.

After her brother’s election as bishop of Milan, Marcellina visited him there many times, and advised him on the pastoral care of consecrated women, but continued to make her home in Rome, living, as aristocratic woman often did, in a private home, but very austerely. She outlived Ambrose, who died on April 4, 397, but the exact date of her death is unknown.

July 17 is also the anniversary of the death of Pope St Leo IV in 855, after a reign of just over eight years and two months. In his time, Saracen pirates were wreaking havoc throughout the western Mediterranean; the year before his election, they had sailed up the Tiber and sacked the basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls, destroying at least a large portion of the Apostle’s relics. His papacy began with the construction of major works to defend Rome, including a new set of walls around the Vatican, which are still called the Leonine walls to this day, and the complex as a whole was known as the Leonine city. (This used to be the name of the bus stop in front of Cardinal Ratzinger’s old apartment building, ‘Città Leonina’ in Italian.)

In the year of his election, 847, he put out a fire which had broken out in the Borgo, the neighborhood in front of the Vatican, by giving his blessing from the balcony of St Peter’s. Two years later, he formed a league with the maritime states of Naples, Gaeta and Amalfi; at the battle of Ostia, their combined naval forces destroyed a massive Saracen invasion force which had set out from Sardinia. Both of these events are depicted in one of the rooms now within the Vatican Museums known as the Stanze of Raphael, but these specific paintings are really the works of his students.

The Fire in the Borgo, by the workshop of Raphael, 1514-17. The three male figures on the left are a nod to the story of Aeneas escaping from the burning of Troy; their exaggerated musculature, and that of the man next to them hanging from the wall, reflects the exaggerated influence of the recently discovered statue of Laocoön, which also greatly influenced the work of Michelangelo. This painting was much admired for the cleverly designed figure on the far right, the woman with a water-jar on her head, who has just turned the corner, and opens her mouth in astonishment at the scene. ~ A few years prior to the commissioning of this painting, Pope Julius II and his architect Donatello Bramante had begun the process of replacing the ancient basilica of St Peter, then almost on the point of collapse. This image is an important historical record of what its façade looked like at the time.

The Battle of Ostia, also by the workshop of Raphael, 1514-15. Pope St Leo IV presides over the battle from the far left in cope and papal tiara, as one does; his face is that of the contemporary Pope, Leo X Medici.

The collection of papal biographies known as the Liber Pontificalis contains an enormous list of his works in and benefactions to Roman churches, and he translated the relics of many Saints from the catacombs outside the city to churches within it. He is also traditionally, but erroneously, credited with the invention of the Asperges rite, and the sermon on the duties of priests which the Pontificale appoints to be read by the bishop at their ordination.

The revised Butler’s Lives of the Saints also includes on this day St Clement of Okhrida, who is reckoned as one of the seven Apostles of the Bulgarians. His feast is kept on July 27, but this was apparently the day of his burial, ten days after his death.

Clement was born ca. 835; his ethnic origins and place of birth are not quite certain, but he is generally thought to have been a Slav, born in the Balkan territories of the Byzantine Empire. It is disputed whether he was a Bulgar himself. (The Bulgars were not originally Slavs, but of the same Turkic stock as the Huns and the modern Turks, later Slavicized when they settled in the Balkans.) He became a disciple and collaborator of Ss Cyril and Methodius in their mission to Great Moravia, and led it after Methodius’ death, but was soon expelled from the area, and came down to Bulgaria. The king at that time, Boris I, was to Bulgaria what Constantine had been to Rome, and what Saints Vladimir and Olga would later be to Kyivan Rus’. But Boris was much concerned to keep his kingdom politically free of his Byzantine neighbors, and therefore wished the Church in his domain to use Slavonic, rather than Greek.

An icon of St Clement of Okhrida, with his teachers Ss Cyril and Methodius above him, the former (on the right) holding a scroll with some of the letters of the Glagolitic alphabet. From the Bulgarian monastery on Mt Athos, Zographou, founded in the later 10th century by monks from Okrida. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Yane Bakreski, CC BY-SA 4.0)

The invention of Church Slavonic as a literary idiom, created specifically to translate the Bible and the Byzantine liturgy, was the work of Cyril and Methodius. They also created an alphabet to write it with, since there are many sounds in the Slavic languages for which the Greek and Latin alphabets have no letter. This alphabet, however, was not the one which bears Cyril’s name, and which is still used to write Church Slavonic in modern liturgical books, and (with variations) its many daughter languages. It was rather a very different kind of script known as Glagolitic, from an old Slavic word for “word”.

The so-called Cyrillic alphabet was actually invented about 30 years after Cyril’s death at one of the two literary schools which Clement and his collaborators founded in Bulgaria. Ironically, although this was done to favor Bulgaria’s cultural and political independence from the Greek-speaking Byzantines, it is effectively the Greek alphabet with several letters added for Slav-specific sounds, and some of the Greek letters relegated to use only in Greek loan-words. After the controversies which brought the mission of Ss Cyril and Methodius to naught, it was the work of these schools which definitively established Church Slavonic’s place as a liturgical language.

The early Cyrillic alphabet.