Valerianus, bishop of Cimiez (southern Gaul), delivers a sermon (Sermon 18) in praise of the *Maccabean Martyrs (pre-Christian Jewish martyrs of Antioch, S00303). Written in Latin at Cimiez in the mid 5th century.
E03609
Literary - Sermons/Homilies
Valerianus of Cimiez, Sermon 18
Summary:
This sermon is built around the Maccabean martyrs, seven brothers successively tortured to death in the presence of their mother on the orders of King Antiochus (during the Jewish revolt against the Hellenistic Seleucid monarchy, in the 2nd century BC). It focusses especially on the mother of the seven, who is praised for willingly accepting the martyrdom of her sons, before being martyred herself (§ 1). The sermon describes the successive torture and killing of each brother (§§ 2-3), and how in each case their mother was concerned only with encouraging her sons to endure martyrdom, including the youngest of them (§ 4). It ends with a description of the mother's own martyrdom, accompanied by an exhortation to treat her and her sons as models because of the contempt for the world they displayed (§ 5).
Text: PL 52, 746-749.
Translation: Ganss 1953, 415-420.
Summary: David Lambert.
Sermon/homily
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesWomen
Ecclesiastics - bishops
Source
Valerianus was bishop of Cemelium in Provence (Cimiez, now part of Nice) in the mid 5th century: his name appears several times in episcopal letters and the records of church councils between 439 and 455.Only the first of the twenty sermons now attributed to Valerianus of Cimiez was actually transmitted under his name (although in most manuscripts it is attributed to Augustine). The others survive in a single, anonymous manuscript (BnF Lat. 13387) and were attributed to Valerianus by the 17th century scholar Jacques Sirmond on the basis of stylistic similarities with the first (on the attribution, see Quantin 2013, 700-705). Sirmond's identification of the author of these sermons as Valerianus continues to be accepted by scholars.
Discussion
Unlike Valerianus' other sermons on martyrdom (E03604, E03607, E03608), this deals not with a local martyr but with a group of Hellenistic Jewish martyrs, whose martyrdom (described in 2 Maccabees 7) had been incorporated into Christian martyr-veneration. The general lesson, as in the other sermons, is to use the example of the martyr as an inspiration to despise earthly goods.Bibliography
Edition:Migne, J.-P., Patrologia Latina 52 (Paris, 1845), 746-749.
Translation:
Ganss, G.E., Saint Peter Chrysologus, Selected Sermons, and Saint Valerian, Homilies (Fathers of the Church 17; New York, 1953).
Further reading:
Quantin, J.-L., "Philologie et querelle de la grâce au XVIIe siècle: Sirmond, Valérien de Cimiez et le Saint-Office," in: J. Elfassi, C. Lanéry, and A.-M. Turcan-Verkerk (eds.), Amicorum Societas. Mélanges offerts à François Dolbeau pour son 65e anniversaire (Florence, 2013), 700-739.
David Lambert
02/07/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00303 | Maccabean Martyrs, pre-Christian Jewish martyrs of Antioch | Machabaei | Certain |
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