Calendar of the Church of Carthage (central North Africa) lists saints whose liturgical commemorations were celebrated in December. Written in Latin in Carthage, probably between 505 and 535.
Evidence ID
E02203
Type of Evidence
Liturgical texts - Calendars and martyrologies
Calendar of Carthage
December
Nonas Dec. sanctorum martyrum Bili, Felicis, Potamiae, Crispinae, & comitum.
iiij Id. Dec. sanctae Eulaliae.
iij Id. Dec. sanctorum martyrum Eronensium.
xvj Kal, Jan. sanctorum martyrum Felicis, Clementiane, Honorate & Massariae.
x... Kal. Jan. sancti Nemessiani.
viij Kal. Jan. Domini nostri Jesu-Christi, filii Dei.
vij Kal. Jan. sancti Stephani primi martyris.
vj Kal. Jan. sancti Johannis Baptistae, & Jacobi Apostoli, quem Herodes occidit.
v Kal. Jan. sanctorum infantum quos Herodes occidit.
'5 December. (Feast) of the holy martyrs Bilus, Felix, Potamia, Crispina, and companions.
10 December. (Feast) of saint Eulalia.
11 December. (Feast) of the holy Eronenses martyrs.
17 December. (Feast) of the holy martyrs Felix, Clementiana, Honorata, and Massaria.
.. December. (Feast) of saint Nemesianus.
25 December. (Feast) of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
26 December. (Feast) of saint Stephen, the first martyr.
27 December. (Feast) of saint John the Baptist and of James, the Apostle, whom Herod killed.
28 December. (Feast) of the Holy Infants whom Herod killed.'
[Probably *Crispina and companions, from Thagora, martyred at Theveste, S00905; *Eulalia, virgin and martyr of Mérida, S00407; *Eronenses, otherwise unknown martyrs, S02907; *Felix, Clementiana, Honorata, and Massaria, otherwise unknown martyrs, S02907; *Nemesianus, child martyr of Africa, S01811; Christ's Nativity; *Stephen, the First Martyr, S00030; *John the Baptist, S00020 and *James the Apostle, S00108; *Holy Innocents, killed on the orders of Herod, S00268]
Text: Mabillon 1682, 400-401.
Translation and identifications: Bryan Ward-Perkins.
Festivals
Saint’s feast
Source
The calendar of Carthage was discovered by Jean Mabillon in the library of Cluny abbey, on sheets of parchment attached to the wooden boards binding a codex of Jerome's commentary on Isaiah, and a full transcription and commentary was published by him in 1682 in volume 3 of his Analecta Vetera. Mabillon recorded that the text was affected by wormholes and other damage (as is also clear from the gaps in his transcription). For photographs of Mabillon's text, see the Images attached to E02196.A brief description of the manuscript, written in 1722, stated that it consisted to two sheets of parchment and a third half sheet, all used in the later binding (Oursel 1906). These were last recorded in the library at the very beginning of the nineteenth century, and were subsequently lost. Mabillon's transcription is the only record of the text.
Mabillon wrote that '[t]he script is Roman, written in majuscule letters, no later than the seventh century' (Scriptura Romana est, litteris majusculis exarata, saeculo septimo non inferior); in the absence of the original, this dating of the manuscript is impossible to verify.
The approximate date of the written text in the form that we have it can be established with some confidence, as the days of the burials of all bishops of Carthage subsequent to Cyprian are recorded, and the last bishop named is Eugenius, who died in exile in around 505 (Victor of Tunnuna, Chronicle, 86). After Eugenius, the see remained vacant until the election of Bonifatius who held the bishopric from 523 to c. 535. The Calendar, in the form we have it, can therefore be dated to between c. 505 and c. 535. It has, however, sometimes been argued that the core of the text has to pre-date Vandal rule, which started in 439, since there is no reference in the Calendar to martyrs of the Arian persecution under these new masters. The argument, however, is not a strong one, as there is almost no evidence anywhere of cult for the men and women who suffered in the persecutions of the fifth century.
Mabillon rightly termed this document a 'Calendar' (Kallendarium), a record of the feasts celebrated by a specific church, in this case that of Carthage, as opposed to a 'Martyrology', which is a much more wide-ranging list of feast days. In its preface/title and in the wording of its entries, the Calendar of Carthage draws a distinction between the burials (depositiones) of Carthage's bishops, which were probably marked with comparatively little ceremony, and the natalicia (literally 'birthdays', into heaven) of the martyrs, which were proper feast days. In its combination of episcopal commemorations and major feasts, the Calendar of Carthage is similar to the early calendars of the church of Rome contained in the Chronography of 354, except that the calendars of Rome list the depositiones of its martyrs (E01052) and those of its bishops (E01051) separately.
The Calendar of Carthage also reflects the progressive spread of the cult of saints. In it there are seventy-two feast days for martyrs, compared to the twenty-three noted in Rome in the mid-fourth century, and there are also many more non-local martyrs than in the Roman calendar. In the Calendar of Carthage, martyrs from Rome are particularly well represented, reflecting the close ties between the 'Catholic' church in Africa and the church of Rome: nine unquestionably Roman martyrs are commemorated (with two more whose location is uncertain, but who could well have been Roman).
The Calendar opens the year on 19 April, after Easter, and closes it on 16 February, before Lent (during which, and during the Easter festivities, martyrs' feasts were not celebrated in Carthage). Hence, for instance, the feast of Perpetua and her companions, on 7 March, is absent from the Calendar.
Many of the martyrs recorded in the Calendar of Carthage are otherwise unknown, and because the Calendar records them simply as 'martyrs', without ever specifying their role or rank in life, for these we know no more than their names and their dates of commemoration. In very many cases, we also do not know precisely where they came from and where they were martyred, though, on the basis of those we can locate, we can be confident that all were from central North Africa, not too far distant from Carthage.
There is reason to believe that the precise dates of some commemorations were moved, so that they could to sit on the same days as others (Achelis 1900, 28). It is, for instance, implausible that bishops Deogratias and Eugenius of Carthage, and bishop Restitutus of Carthage and Augustine of Hippo were buried, as the Calendar states, on precisely the same two days, in January and August respectively (see E02199 and (E02204). It is therefore possible that martyrs who appear in the text as companions - for instance, as Flavianus and Septimia do on 25 May (E02196) - were actually separate.
Discussion
Bilus, Felix, Potamia and Crispina, commemorated on 5 December, are probably Crispina and companion martyrs of Thagora (Numidia), martyred at nearby Theveste (S00905). Crispina is the protagonist of the Martyrdom of Crispina (E07611), which tells us she was from Thagora. In this, she is the sole heroine of the story; but one of the manuscripts of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum records, on this same 5 December (E05042), commemoration 'in the city of Togora' of the following martyrs: Iulius, Potamia, Crispina and 'seven others'. If, as seems likely, all these Crispinas are the same martyr, she was in origin just one of a group, who was then written up as a particular heroine. Augustine delivered two sermons in her honour (E01771 and E01775), without reference to any companion martyrs.Eulalia, commemorated on 10 December, is certainly Eulalia, virgin and martyr of Mérida in Hispania (S00407), whose feast on, or very close to, this date was well established. She, and Vincent of Zaragoza and Valencia, commemorated in January, are the two martyrs of Hispania who feature in the Calendar.
The Eronenses (S02907), commemorated on 11 December, are otherwise unknown. Nor do we know the precise name or the location of the place they came from; but, given the pattern of the Calendar, we can be confident that it was not far distant from Carthage.
Felix, Clementiana, Honorata, and Massaria (S02907), commemorated on 17 December, are otherwise unknown. Felix and Honorata perhaps also feature in lists of martyrs commemorated 'in Africa' on 17 and 18 December according to the Martyrologium Hieronymianum (E05054 and E05055), amongst whom there are a Honoratus (male) and a Felix.
Nemesianus (S01811), commemorated on one of the days between 18 and 24 December, is otherwise only known from a reference in a sermon by Augustine (E02323) to a martyr Nemesianus, whom he describes as a 'boy' (puer).
The feast of Stephen (S00030) on 26 December was well established by the early sixth century.
The '(Feast) of saint John the Baptist and of James, the Apostle, whom Herod killed', on 27 December, requires some explanation. John the Baptist (S00020) is celebrated in no other calendar at the end of December, while the two apostles who were brothers - James and John, the sons of Zebedee (S00108 and S00042) - were widely celebrated together on one of the days immediately following Christmas (see, for example, E01397). Possibly what has happened is that the text originally read (in the spare style characteristic of the Calendar): '(Feast) of saint John and James, the apostle', to which a (somewhat ignorant) glossator at some point added 'the Baptist' and 'whom Herod killed', additions which then became established in the text. It is, we think, safe to assume that the church of Carthage celebrated James and John, the sons of Zebedee, and not James and John the Baptist.
A feast of the Holy Innocents (S00268), the children killed at Herod's orders, was widely celebrated on 28 (or 29) December.
Bibliography
Edition:[All editions depend on Mabillon's printed text, as he is the only scholar known to have transcribed the Calendar.]
Achelis, H., Die Martyrologien, ihre Geschichte und ihr Wert (Abhandlungen der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, philosophische-historische Klasse, neue Folge, Band III, nro 3; Berlin, 1900), at 18-29 (with commentary).
de Rossi, J. B., and L. Duchesne (ed.), Acta Sanctorum 65: Novembris II.1 (Brussels, 1894), pp. lxix-lxxii.
Lietzmann, H., Die drei ältesten Martyrologien (Bonn 1903), 5-8.
Mabillon, J., Vetera Analecta, Vol. 3 (Paris 1682), 398-401 (with commentary, 402-422).
Preuschen, Analecta. Kürzere Texte zur Geschichte der alten Kirche und des Kanons (Freiburg im Breisgau and Leipzig, 1899), 123-6.
Ruinart, T., Acta primorum martyrum sincera et selecta (Paris 1689), 693-5. [in the table of contents, Ruinart states that his text derives from Mabillon's ('Ex tomo 3 Analectorum').]
Further reading:
Oursel, M., “Note sur le calendrier de l’église de Cartage à la bibliotheque de Cluny,” Bulletin historique et philologique du comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, Année 1906, nos. 1 and 2, 66.
Record Created By
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Date of Entry
19/08/2023
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00020 | John the Baptist | Iohannes Baptista | Certain | S00030 | Stephen, the First Martyr | Stephanus | Certain | S00108 | James, the Apostle, son of Zebedee | Iacobus apostolus quem Herodes occidit | Certain | S00268 | Innocents, children killed on the orders of Herod | Infantes quos occidit Herodes | Certain | S00407 | Eulalia, virgin and martyr of Mérida | Eulalia | Certain | S00905 | Crispina, of Thagora, martyred at Theveste, with companions | Crispina; Bilus; Felix; Potamia | Certain | S01811 | Nemesianus, child martyr of Africa | Nemessianus | Uncertain | S02907 | Eronenses, martyrs commemorated at Carthage | Eronensies | Certain | S02915 | Felix, Clementiana, Honorata, and Massaria, martyrs commemorated at Carthage | Felix; Clementiana; Honorata; Massaria | Certain |
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