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.