The Lives of the Saints, Volume 01 (of 16): January

by S. Baring-Gould

The names of the martyrs to be commemorated were announced on the eve. By degrees other names besides those of martyrs were introduced into the Martyrologies, as those of faithful servants of God whose lives were deserving of imitation, but who had not suffered to the death in testimony to the truth. Thus we have confessors, or those who endured hardships for Christ, doctors, or teachers of the Church, virgins, widows, bishops and abbots, and even penitents.

The Martyrologies may be divided into two series, the ancient and the modern. We need only concern ourselves with the Ancient Martyrologies.

The first to draw up a tolerably full Martyrology was Eusebius the historian, Bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine, and he did this at the request of the Emperor Constantine. In this Martyrology he noted all the martyrs of whom he had received an authentic account on the days of their suffering, with the names of the judges who sentenced them, the places where they suffered, and the nature of their sufferings. Eusebius wrote about a.d. 320, but there were collections of the sort already extant, as we may learn from the words of S. Cyprian already quoted, who in his instructions to his clergy ordered them to compile what was practically a Martyrology of the Carthaginian Church.

We have not got the Greek Martyrology of Eusebius, but we have the Latin version made by S. Jerome. Bede says of this, "Jerome was not the author, but the translator of this book; Eusebius is said to have been the author."

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 Cæsarea.

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."