The modern Roman Martyrology has on this day: "In Jerusalem the commemoration of the Blessed Thief, who confessed Christ on the Cross, and merited to hear from him: This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." Baronius, in his notes to the Martyrology, adds that the thief is traditionally called Dimas, under which name chapels have been dedicated to him, but that as this name is derived from apocryphal sources, it is not sanctioned by the Roman Martyrology. Masinus asserts that the body of S. Dimas, the Penitent Thief, is preserved in the church of SS. Vitalis and Agricola at Bologna.
S. QUIRINUS, M.
(A.D. 269.)
[Roman Martyrology. Another S. Quirinus on March 30th, and another on June 4th. The Quirinus on this day, March 25th, is mentioned in the Acts of SS. Maris, Martha, Andifax, and Habakkuk (Jan. 19th), which are genuine. All other accounts of Quirinus are fabulous.]
Quirinus is said, but the statement is palpably false, to have been the son of the emperor Philip, and to have been converted by his Christian mother, Severa. Putting this idle fable aside, we know of Quirinus only that he was executed with the sword in prison in 269, and the body was thrown into the Tiber, but was recovered by a priest named Pastor, who buried it in the Pontiani cemetery, whence it was removed in the pontificate of pope S. Zacharias (March 15th), and it found a shrine and resting-place eventually in the monastery of Tengern-see, in Bavaria. A spring of naphtha rising there goes by the name of Quirinus-oil.
The S. Quirinus of Rome commemorated on March 30th, according to the Roman Martyrology, is supposed to have been a military tribune, chiefly from the fact that he has been represented in armour seated on horseback. He is the patron Saint of Cologne, Correggio, and Neuss. This S. Quirinus is often represented with a falcon, which circumstance has been said to indicate his high birth, and has also led to his being reputed to have been of the Imperial family, and so being identified with the S. Quirinus commemorated on March 25th. The real reason for the falcon's presence seems, however, to lie in the story related of his martyrdom (see page 504).
MEMORIAL OF THE CRUCIFIXION.
After a Picture by Roger Van der Weyden, in the Museum at Madrid.
March 25.