Calendar of the Church of Carthage (central North Africa) lists saints whose liturgical commemorations were celebrated in February. Written in Latin in Carthage, probably between AD 505 and 535.
Evidence ID
E02205
Type of Evidence
Liturgical texts - Calendars and martyrologies
Calendar of Carthage
February
Kalend. Feb. sanctorum Luciani & Vincenti martyr.
iiij Non. Feb. sanctorum Carteriensium.
Nonas Feb. sanctae martyris Agatae.
v Idus Feb. sanctorum Filicis, Victoris, & Januarii.
xiiij Kalendas Mart. sanctorum martyrum Macrobi, & Lucillae, Nundinari, Caecilianae, & Petrensium.
'1 February. (Feast) of saints Lucianus and Vincentius, martyrs.
2 February. (Feast) of the Carterienses saints.
5 February. (Feast) of the holy martyr Agatha.
9 February. (Feast) of saints Felix, Victor, and Ianuarius.
16 February. (Feast) of the holy martyrs Macrobius and Lucilla, Nundinarius, Caeciliana, and the Petrenses.'
[*Lucianus and Vincentius, otherwise unknown martyrs, S02916; *Carterienses, otherwise unknown martyrs, S02688; *Agatha, virgin and martyr of Catania, S00794; *Felix, Victor and Ianuarius, otherwise unknown martyrs, S02906; *Macrobius, Lucilla, Nundinarius, Caeciliana and the Petrenses, otherwise unknown martyrs, S02910]
Text: Mabillon 1682, 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
Lucianus and Vincentius (S02916), commemorated on 1 February, are otherwise unknown.The Carterienses (S02688), commemorated on 2 February, are also otherwise unknown. Nor do we know the precise name or location of the place these martyrs came from; but, given the pattern of the Calendar, we can be confident that it was not far distant from Carthage. It is possible that these martyrs are the same as a list of four (or eight) named martyrs, with '74 others', who appear in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum on this same day (E04666); but, characteristically, the Hieronymianum only states that these martyrs were commemorated 'in Africa', without specifying the precise place.
Agatha, commemorated on 5 February, is the virgin and martyr of Catania (S00794), whose feast on this day is widely attested in our sources.
Felix, Victor and Ianuarius (S02906), commemorated on 9 February, are otherwise unknown. The same three names appear in a list of martyrs commemorated 'in Africa' on 30 October, according to the Martyrologium Hieronymianum (E05003), but the list is a long one, with fifteen names in all, and none of the names of our three martyrs are rare; so this is probably just coincidence.
Macrobius, Lucilla, Nundinarius, Caeciliana and the Petrenses (S02910), commemorated on 16 February, are otherwise unknown. Given the geographical spread of the more obscure saints in the Calendar, the Petrenses, are much more likely to be martyrs of an unknown place in central North Africa, than martyrs of Petra in present-day Jordan. In the Martyrologium Hieronymianum for this same day (E04685), amongst the names of many other martyrs, there is record of the commemoration of a Lucella, of a Nundinarus (or Nundianus) and of a Macrobus (or Marcopus/Magrobus), who could well be our Lucilla, Nundinarius and Macrobius, Macrobius being an uncommon name and Nundinarius a very unusual one. In the Hieronymianum, Lucella and Macrobus are indeed recorded as commemorated 'in Africa', though in a list of saints with over thirty names, while Nundinarius is in a different list commemorated 'elsewhere' (alibi), and Caeciliana does not appear at all.
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 | S00794 | Agatha, virgin and martyr of Catania | Agata | Certain | S02688 | Carterienses, martyrs commemorated at Carthage | Carterienses | Certain | S02906 | Felix, Victor and Ianuarius, martyrs commemorated at Carthage | Felix; Victor; Ianuarius | Certain | S02910 | Macrobius and other African martyrs commemorated on 16 February | Macrobius; Lucilla; Nundinarius; Caeciliana | Certain | S02916 | Lucianus and Vincentius, martyrs commemorated at Carthage | Lucianus; Vincentius | Certain |
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