The Lives of the Saints, Volume 01 (of 16): JanuaryBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
The Lives of the Saints, Volume 01 (of 16): January
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Christian saints
But even this Latin version has not come down to us in its original
form. There are numerous copies, purporting to be the Martyrology of S.
Jerome, still extant, but hardly two of them agree. The copies have been
amplified. The occasion of S. Jerome making his translation was as
follows. At the Council of Milan, held in 390, the presiding Bishop,
Gregory of Cordova, read out daily on the eve, as usual, the lists of
martyrs whose anniversary was to be celebrated on the morrow. As a good
number of those present knew nothing of the martyrs thus commemorated,
they wrote by the hands of Chromatius, Bishop of Aquileja, and
Heliodorus, Bishop of Altino, to S. Jerome, then at Bethlehem, to
request him to draw up for their use a Martyrology out of the
collection made by Eusebius of Caesarea.
To this S. Jerome answered by letter, stating that he had got the
passions of the martyrs written by Eusebius, and that he would gladly
execute what was asked of him. With this letter he sent the Martyrology,
with the name of a martyr to every day in the year except the first of
January.[13] Unfortunately, as already said, we have not got a copy of
the Martyrology unamended and unenlarged.
Next in importance to the Martyrology of Jerome comes the "Martyrologium
Romanum Parvum," mentioned by S. Gregory the Great, who sent a copy of
it to the Bishop of Aquileja. Ado, Bishop of Vienne, saw this; it was
lent him for a few days, and he made a transcript with his own hand, as
he tells us in the preface to his own Martyrology, and it served him as
the basis for his work.
Baronius was unable to discover a copy, though he made inquiry for it,
in the libraries of Italy; but it was discovered by Rosweydus, the
learned Bollandist, and published by him in 1613.
S. Gregory the Great, in his 29th Epistle, says, "We have the names of
nearly all the martyrs with their passions set down on their several
days, collected into one volume, and we celebrate the Mass daily in
their honour."
Cassiodorus, in his "Institution of Divine Lessons," says, "Read
constantly the passions of the martyrs, which among other places you
will find in the letter of S. Jerome to Chromatius and Heliodorus; they
flourished over the whole earth, and provoked to imitation; you will be
led thereby to the heavenly kingdom."
Next in importance to the Martyrology of Jerome and the little Roman
Martyrology, comes that of the Venerable Bede. In the catalogue of his
own works that he drew up, he says, "I wrote a Martyrology of the natal
days of the holy martyrs, in which I took care to set down all I could
find, not only on their several days, but I also gave the sort of
conflict they underwent, and under what judge they conquered the world."
If we compare this Martyrology with the Acts of the Martyrs, we see at
once that Bede took his account from them verbatim, merely condensing
the narrative.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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