The 6th/7th c. recension of the Latin Martyrologium Hieronymianum, as transmitted in 8th c. manuscripts, records the feasts of a number of saints on 25 December.
Evidence ID
E05064
Type of Evidence
Liturgical texts - Calendars and martyrologies
Major author/Major anonymous work
Martyrologium Hieronymianum
The Martyrologium Hieronymianum is preserved in a number of early manuscripts which share much in common, but also diverge, making it impossible to reconstruct from them a single authoritative text. Below, we therefore offer separate English translations of each important early manuscript. By clicking 'Latin Text' (above), you can view these different versions in their original Latin, set side-by-side for ease of comparison, with also the editions and interpretations of the text suggested by the scholars Quentin and Delehaye. For a full discussion of the Martyrologium, click 'Discussion/Bibliography.'
The Martyrologium Hieronymianum commemorates on 25 December the following feasts:
The Nativity of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem,
*Eugenia, virgin and martyr of Rome, (S00401),
Perhaps *Agileus, martyr of Carthage, (S00630),
*Anastasia, martyr of Sirmium and Rome, (S00602),
Possibly *Felicitas, martyr of Rome, (S00525),
*Other saints, on 25 December in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum: in Rome and Pergamon (S02725).
BnF 10837:
'On the eighth day before the Kalends of January, the Nativity of Our Lord.
And in Rome, [the feast of] Iovinus, Pastor, Basileus, Victoriana, Accila, Euticus, Simforianus, Saturninus, Temedus, Ignatus, Cyriacus, Zagius, Ianuaria, Dativus. In Rome, [the feast of] the virgin Eugenia.
In Sirmium, [the feast of] Anastasia.
In Milan, [the feast of] Felicitas.
And in Pergamon, [the feast of] Saturninus.
In Constantinople, [the feast of] saint Anastasus.'
Bern 289:
'On the eighth day before the Kalends of January, in Bethlehem, the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the flesh.
In Rome, [the feast of] Iovinus, Pastor, Victoriana, Agelleus, Euticetus, Simfroniana, Saturninus, Timedus, Ignatus, Cyriacus, Gagus, Ianuaria, Dativus. And in the cemetery of Apronianus on the via Latina in Rome, the passion of the virgin Eugenia.
In Sirmium, [the feast of] Anastasia.
In Milan, [the feast of] Felicitas.
In Pergamon, [the feast of] Saturninus.
In Constantinople, [the feast of] the virgin Anastasus.'
Weissenburg 81:
'On the eighth day before the Kalends of January, in Bethlehem, the Nativity of the Savior Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the flesh.
In Rome, [the feast of] Iovinus, Pastor, Basileus, Victoriana, Acelleus, Euticetus, Simfroniana, Saturninus, Timedus, Agnatus, Ciriacus, Gagus, Ianuaria, Dativus. And in the cemetery of Apronianus on the via Latina at Rome, the passion of the virgin Eugenia.
In Sirmium, [the feast of] Anastasia.
In Milan, [the feast of] Felicitas.
And in Pergamon, [the feast of] Saturninus.
In Constantinople, [the feast of] saint Anastasus.'
BAV 238:
'On the eighth day before the Kalends of January, In Bethlehem, the Nativity of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in the flesh.
In Rome, [the feast of] Iovinus, Pastor, Victorina, Agelleus, Euticetus, Simproniana, Saturninus, Timedus, Ignatus, Cyriacus, Gagus, Ianuaria, Dativus. And in the cemetery of Ampronianus, on the via Latina at Rome, the passion of the virgin Eugenia.
In Sirmium, [the feast of] Anastasia, who followed saints from Rome, who were being led to martyrdom. She endured this glorious suffering.
In Milan, [the feast of] Felicitas.
And in Pergamon, [the feast of] Saturninus.
In Constantinople, [the feast of] Anastasus.'
Quentin follows the early manuscripts closely.
Delehaye follows the early manuscripts to a certain extent.
Translation and comments: M. Vukovic.
Festivals
Saint’s feast
Source
The Martyrologium Hieronymianum ('Martyrology of Jerome'), is the oldest extensive martyrology of the Latin West, listing the feast days of the saints for the entire calendar year, generally also specifying where their feasts are held (which is normally their place of burial). It derives its name from prefatory letters copied at the start of the martyrology, which attribute the text to the Church Father, Jerome of Stridon (ob. 420). These letters are present in all the earliest manuscripts, but it is uncertain when they were first attached to the text. The Hieronymianum is the primary source of all later martyrologies of the Latin world.It is universally accepted that the attribution to Jerome, intended to give the text greater authority, is false, and the predominant scholarly view is that the first version of the martyrology was compiled in northern Italy during the 5th century (probably in Aquileia), though no manuscript of this Aquileian redaction has survived. The text was then evidently revised and added to in Gaul, probably in Burgundy, around AD 600. The north Italian origin of the text, and its Gallic revision, are deduced from the presence in the martyrology of saints from northern Italy, and then of saints from Frankish Gaul. This Gallic version (sometimes referred to as the recensio gallica), just like its north Italian predecessor, does not survive in its original form in any manuscript (Lifshitz 2006, 14).
At some point in the 7th century, and no later than the early 8th, the Martyrologium reached Northumbria (in northern Britain), where it underwent some further revision and additions (Lapidge 2005, 45-46). From Northumbria, the text returned to the continent in the 8th century, and it is here that the earliest surviving manuscript copies were made, as listed below (Lapidge 2005, 73).
Some of the sources that were used by the compilers of the Martyrologium in northern Italy, and subsequently in Gaul, can be identified: the so-called Chronography of 354, a mid-4th-century list from Rome of saintly commemorations, primarily of local martyrs (E010151 and E01052); a lost Greek martyrology compiled at Nicomedia around 360 (drawn basically from Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History and Martyrs of Palestine), which was also a prime source for the Syriac Martyrology of 411 (E00465); the African Calendar of Carthage of 505/535 (E02195 - E02205); and early local calendars from Aquileia and Auxerre (Lifshitz 2006, 20).
The four earliest manuscripts of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum (three of them complete, one a fragment), on which all editions, including our own, are based, are all from eastern Francia and were copied in the eighth and early ninth centuries. They are as follows:
Ms Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), lat. 10837
Written in the abbey of Echternach (in present-day Luxembourg) by a single scribe, Laurentius, between 703 and 710 (Lifshitz 2006, 32). The Catalogue of the BnF, which publishes BnF lat. 10837 on-line, also provides brief information about the dating: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6001113z/f22.image (click Information). The text of the Hieronymianum is at fol. 2r-32v.
Ms Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Weissenburg 81
From the abbey of Weissenburg in Alsace. Dated to around 800 by the Wolfenbüttel on-line catalogue: http://diglib.hab.de/?db=mss&list=ms&id=81-weiss&lang=en. Lifshitz argues that the manuscript dates from around 772, and was written in the Carolingian royal sphere, in or around Maastrict (Lifshitz 2006, 4). The text of the Hieronymianum is at fol. 7r-103r.
Ms Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Bongars 289
From the abbey of Saint-Avold, near Metz. De Rossi and Duchesne, in the introduction to their edition, argue that Bern 289 must have been written after 766. The text of the Hieronymianum is at fol. 53v-129v. This manuscript is not yet available on line, but we have been able to check it through a microfilm.
Ms Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 238
From the abbey of Lorsch, near Worms. The manuscript contains only a fragment (five pages) of the Hieronymianum, covering 25 December to 3 January, and 27 January to 31 January, written in Lorsch in the first half of the 9th century: http://bibliotheca-laureshamensis-digital.de/bav/bav_pal_lat_238). The fragment is at fol. 74-75, 1-2.
The standard edition of 1894, by G. B. de Rossi and L. Duchesne, published these four manuscripts in parallel columns. In 1931, H. Quentin produced a new edition, with a commentary by H. Delehaye, which attempted to collate the different manuscript readings into a single text.
Even though all the early manuscripts are believed to descend from the same redaction, they are by no means identical. In particular, BnF lat. 10837, the earliest of all, often contains a text which differs markedly from Bern 289 and Weissenburg 81, which are much closer to each other. Because the text varies between manuscripts, in content as well as spelling, it is now universally agreed that it will never be possible to create an 'authoritative' single text of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum. De Rossi and Duchesne in 1894, facing the same problem, decided to print for each day of the year the text of all four early manuscripts, in four columns, and we have followed their lead. Our edition is essentially based on their edition, though we have checked their readings against the manuscripts, and corrected or removed some letters, words, diacritical marks, and comments introduced by the editors that do not exist in the manuscripts. We have then added three more columns: for Quentin’s text for the feast day, which sometimes comes in one version, sometimes in two, and for Delehaye’s reconstruction of much of the text, drawn from his Commentary. Delehaye's erudition was, and remains, unmatched, and we have leaned heavily on his commentary (which is in Latin), but it should be noted that his reconstructed text often departs markedly from the manuscripts. Using his extraordinary knowledge of the saints and their hagiography, he felt able to combine different parts of the Hieronymianum's text, and to correct garbled versions of names, to produce a more coherent 'original'. We consider each of his principal suggestions in our Discussion (below), and attempt a judgment as to how plausible they are. In Delehaye's extensive notes there are also other, more tentative, suggestions, which we have not discussed systematically.
The reason the Martyrologium Hieronymianum is such a difficult text is because it consists primarily of long lists of names (with no punctuation and no consistency in the use of capital letters), which were often unfamiliar to copyists and so easily garbled. Generally, we cannot get behind these garbled variants, but occasionally we can, allowing us to shed light on how the text evolved into its current, often confused, state. For instance, an entry for 9 March (E04711) probably originally read something like 'In Armenia minore Sebastia milit(um) XL', 'In Lesser Armenia, at Sebasteia, [the feast of] the Forty Soldiers' - in other words a commemoration of the 'Forty Martyrs of Sebaste' (S00103), prominent saints in the East, but less well-known in the Latin West. In one of our manuscripts (Weissenburg 81) this has become 'In arminia minore sabastiani et milia XL', 'In Lesser Armenia, [the feast of] Sebastianus and the forty-thousand'; somewhere in the process of transmission, the city of Sebasteia has become the martyr Sebastianus, and the 'soldiers' (militum) have become 'thousands' (milia).
Discussion
All the early manuscripts of the Hieronymianum open 25 December with the Nativity of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem.All the manuscripts then record the names of thirteen or fourteen saints in Rome: Iovinus, Pastor, Basileus, Victoriana/Victorina, Accila/Agelleus/Acelleus, Euticus/Euticetus, Simforianus/Simfroniana/Simproniana, Saturninus, Temedus/Timedus, Ignatus/Agnatus, Cyriacus/Ciriacus, Zagius/Gagus, Ianuaria, and Dativus. A number of these share their names with martyrs recorded in other sources from Rome, as Delehaye points out in his notes, but none can be reliably identified. The one confident identification that Delehaye makes – that Accila/Agelleus/Acelleus is a record of commemoration in Carthage of *Agileus (martyr of Carthage, S00630) – seems to us highly unlikely.
All the manuscripts close their list of saints celebrated in Rome with the name Eugenia, all specifying that she was a virgin martyr, and all but BnF 10837 stating that she was buried in the cemetery of Apronianus on the via Latina. She is readily identified at *Eugenia (virgin and martyr of Rome, buried on the via Latina, S00401), whose grave in this location is documented in a number of sources.
The next entry in all the manuscripts, to commemoration in Sirmium (in the north Balkans) of Anastasia, is also readily associated with a well-known saint: *Anastasia (martyr of Sirmium and Rome, S00602). BAV 238 adds a short summary of part of her Martyrdom.
All the manuscripts then record commemoration in Milan (northern Italy) of a Felicitas. She could be an otherwise unknown Milanese martyr, or possibly *Felicitas, (martyr of Rome, S00525), the mother of seven martyred sons. However, a feast of this Felicitas is more reliably recorded in the Hieronymianum on 23 November (E05028).
The Saturninus, commemorated in Pergamon (western Asia Minor), according to all four early manuscripts, is otherwise unknown.
All four manuscripts then record commemoration in Constantinople of a male saint Anastasus (Bern 289 specifies that he was a virgin). As Delehaye supposed, this is presumably an error for the female *Anastasia (martyr of Sirmium and Rome, S00602), commemorated on this same day in Sirmium (see above). According to the Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, the relics of Anastasia were translated from Sirmium to Constantinople in 457/458 (see E08019).
All unidentified saints are listed by us among *Other saints, on 25 December in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum: in Rome and Pergamon (S02725).
Bibliography
Editions:De Rossi, G. B., and Duchesne, L., Martyrologium Hieronymianum ad finem codicum adiectis prolegomenis. Acta Sanctorum Nov.II.1 (Brussels, 1894).
Quentin, H. and Delehaye, H., Acta Sanctorum Nov.II.2 (Brussels, 1931).
On the Martyrologium Hieronymianum:
Duchesne, L., "A propos du martyrologe hiéronymien," Analecta Bollandiana 17 (1898), 421-447.
Lapidge, M., The Roman Martyrs. Introduction, Translations, and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
Lapidge, M., "Acca of Hexham and the Origin of the Old English Martyrology," Analecta Bollandiana 123 (2005), 29-78.
Lifshitz, F., The Name of the Saint. The Martyrology of Jerome and Access to the Sacred in Francia, 627-827 (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006).
Ó Riain, P., "A Northumbrian Phase in the Formation of the Hieronymian Martyrology. The Evidence of the Martyrology of Tallaght," Analecta Bollandiana 120 (2002), 311-363.
On the manuscripts of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum:
Butzmann, H., Die Weissenburger Handschriften (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1964), 242-243.
Muller, J. C., "Trois manuscrits liturgiques de l'abbaye d'Echternach à Paris," in Abteistadt Echternach, éd. P. Schritz, A. Hoffmann (Luxembourg, 1981), 202-206.
Ó Cróinín, D., "Rath Melsigi, Willibrord, and the Earliest Echternach Manuscripts," Peritia 3 (1984), 17-49.
Libaert, P., "Notice sur 43 manuscrits d'Echternach conservés à la bibliothèque nationale de Paris," Hémecht 1 (1985), 53-73.
McKitterick, R., Books, Scribes and Learning in the Frankish Kingdoms, Sixth-Ninth Centuries (Aldershot: Variorum, 1994).
On saints and calendars:
Farmer, D. H., Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).
Nilles, N., Kalendarium Manuale utriusque Ecclesiae Orientalis et Occidentalis I-II (Farnborough: Gregg International Publishers Ltd, 1971).
Watkins, B., The Book of Saints: A Comprehensive Biographical Dictionary (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015).
Datum Table
| BnF 10837 | Bern 289 | Weissenburg 81 | BAV 238 | Other Mss | Quentin | Quentin | Delehaye |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VIII k. iañ nativĩ dñi ñi | VIII KL. IAN. IN. BETHLEEM NATIUITAS SALUATORIS DNI. NRI. IHU. XPI. SECD. CARN. | VIII KL. IAN IN BETHLEM NATIUITAS SALVATORISDNI.NRI.IHU.XPI. secundum carnem | VIII KL IANUARIAS IN BETHLEEM NATIVITAS DNI. NRI. IHU. XPI SEC. CARNĒ. | In Bethleem nativitas Domini nostri Ihesu Christi secundum carnem. | In Bethleem nativitas salvatoris domini nostri Iesu Christi secundum carnem. | ||
| et rom̄ iovini pastoris basilei victorianȩ accilae eutici simforiani saturnini temedi ignati cyriaci zagii ianuariae dativi rom̄ sc̃ae eugeniae virg̃ | Rome. iouini. pastoris. uictoriane. Agellei. euticeti. simfroniane. saturnini timedi. ignati. cyriaci gagi. ianuariae datiui. et in cim̄ aproniani. uia. latina Rom̄ passio. sc̃ȩ eugeniȩ uirginis. | Rom̄ iovini pastoris basilei victorianae acellei euticeti simfronianȩ saturnini timedi agnati ciriaci. gagi. ianuariae dativi et in cimit̃ aproniani via latina Rom̄ pas̃ sc̃ae eugeniae virg̃ | ROM. Iovini Pastoris Victorine Agellei Euticeti Simproniane Saturnini Timedi Ignati Cyriaci Gagi Ianuariæ Dativi ET in cimiterio amproniani via latina rome Passio sc̃æ eugeniæ virginis. | Romae Iovini Pastoris Basilei Victorianae Agellei Euticeti Simforiani Saturnini Temedi Ignati Cyriaci Gagi Ianuariae Dativi. et in cimiterio Aproniani via Latina Romae passio sanctae Eugeniae virginis. | 〈Carthagine〉 Agelei. Romae via Latina in cimiterio Aproniani passio sanctae Eugeniae virginis. | ||
| et sirmi anatasiae | sirmi et anastasiae. | sirmȩ et anastasiae | Sirmi et anastasiæ quæ de roma sc̃os secuta quae ad martyriū ducebantur haec gloriosam pertulit passionem | et Sirmi Anastasiae quae de Roma sanctos secuta qui ad martyrium ducebantur haec gloriosam pertulit passionem. | Sirmi Anastasiae, quae de Roma sanctos secuta qui ad martyrium ducebantur, [haec] gloriosam pertulit passionem. | ||
| mediolañ felicitatis | mediolan felicitatis | Mediolano felicitatis | Mediolano Felicitatis | Mediolano Felicitatis. | |||
| et in pergamo saturnini | et in p̱gamo saturnini. | et in p̱gamo saturnini | Et in Pergamo Saturnini | et in Pergamo Saturnini. | |||
| constantinop̃ sc̃i anastasi | constantinopł. sc̃i anastasi uirgiñ. | constantinopoli sc̃i anastasi | Constantinopoli sc̃i Anastasi | Constantinopoli sancti Anastasi. | Constantinopoli sanctae Anastasiae. |
Record Created By
Marta Tycner; Marijana Vukovic
Date of Entry
22/02/2019
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00401 | Eugenia, virgin and martyr of Rome, buried on the via Latina, and companions | Eugenia | Certain | S00525 | Felicitas, martyr of Rome, with her sons, buried on the via Salaria | Felicitas | Uncertain | S00602 | Anastasia, martyr of Sirmium and Rome | Anastasia | Certain | S00630 | Agileus, martyr of Carthage | Agelleus/Accila/Acelleus | Uncertain | S02725 | Other saints, on 25 December in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum: in Rome and Pergamon | Iovinus; Pastor; Basileus; Victoriana/Victorina; Euticus/Euticetus;Simforianus/Simfroniana/Simproniana; Saturninus; Temedus/Timedus; Ignatus/Agnatus; Cyriacus/Ciriacus; Zagius/Gagus; Ianuaria; Dativus | Certain |
|---|
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