Michael Lapidge
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198811367
- eISBN:
- 9780191848391
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198811367.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
The Roman Martyrs contains translations (with individual introductions and commentaries) of the passiones of the following Roman martyrs (listed in approximate chronological order): St Felicitas (I); ...
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The Roman Martyrs contains translations (with individual introductions and commentaries) of the passiones of the following Roman martyrs (listed in approximate chronological order): St Felicitas (I); SS. Anastasia and Chrysogonus (II); St Sebastian (III); St Caecilia (IV); Pope Clement (V); SS. Sixtus, Abdon and Sennes, Laurence, Hippolytus [the so-called passio vetus] (VI); Pope Cornelius (VII); SS. Nereus and Achilleus (VIII); SS. Eugenia, Protus and Hyacinthus (IX); SS. Chrysanthus and Daria (X); St Susanna (XI); Pope Callistus (XII); Eusebius the Priest (XIII); Pope Felix II (XIV); SS. Pudentiana and Praxedis; SS. Sixtus, Abdon and Sennes, Laurence, and Hippolytus (XVI); SS. Agnes and Emerentiana (XVII); SS. Gallicanus, John and Paul (XVIII); SS. Processus and Martinianus (XIX); Pope Marcellus (XX); SS. Primus and Felicianus (XXI); SS. Marius and Martha (XXII); SS. Marcellinus and Peter (XXIII); the Four Crowned Martyrs (XXIV); St Pancratius (XXV); Pope Stephen (XXVI); SS. Gordianus and Epimachus (XXVII); the Greek Martyrs (XXVIII); SS. Eusebius and Pontianus (XXIX); Pope Urban (XXX); SS. Rufina and Secunda (XXXI); SS. Alexander, Eventius and Theodulus (XXXII); SS. Calogerus and Parthenius (XXXIII); SS. Serapia and Sabina (XXXIV); SS. Felix and Adauctus (XXXV); SS. Simplicius, Faustinus and Beatrix (XXXVI); St Symphorosa (XXXVII); St Pigmenius (XXXVIII); St Getulius (XXXIX); St Basilides (XL).Less
The Roman Martyrs contains translations (with individual introductions and commentaries) of the passiones of the following Roman martyrs (listed in approximate chronological order): St Felicitas (I); SS. Anastasia and Chrysogonus (II); St Sebastian (III); St Caecilia (IV); Pope Clement (V); SS. Sixtus, Abdon and Sennes, Laurence, Hippolytus [the so-called passio vetus] (VI); Pope Cornelius (VII); SS. Nereus and Achilleus (VIII); SS. Eugenia, Protus and Hyacinthus (IX); SS. Chrysanthus and Daria (X); St Susanna (XI); Pope Callistus (XII); Eusebius the Priest (XIII); Pope Felix II (XIV); SS. Pudentiana and Praxedis; SS. Sixtus, Abdon and Sennes, Laurence, and Hippolytus (XVI); SS. Agnes and Emerentiana (XVII); SS. Gallicanus, John and Paul (XVIII); SS. Processus and Martinianus (XIX); Pope Marcellus (XX); SS. Primus and Felicianus (XXI); SS. Marius and Martha (XXII); SS. Marcellinus and Peter (XXIII); the Four Crowned Martyrs (XXIV); St Pancratius (XXV); Pope Stephen (XXVI); SS. Gordianus and Epimachus (XXVII); the Greek Martyrs (XXVIII); SS. Eusebius and Pontianus (XXIX); Pope Urban (XXX); SS. Rufina and Secunda (XXXI); SS. Alexander, Eventius and Theodulus (XXXII); SS. Calogerus and Parthenius (XXXIII); SS. Serapia and Sabina (XXXIV); SS. Felix and Adauctus (XXXV); SS. Simplicius, Faustinus and Beatrix (XXXVI); St Symphorosa (XXXVII); St Pigmenius (XXXVIII); St Getulius (XXXIX); St Basilides (XL).
Michael Lapidge
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198811367
- eISBN:
- 9780191848391
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198811367.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
Introduction: The forty passiones translated in this volume represent a genre of Christian-Latin literature that has seldom attracted attention and is poorly understood; yet in sum they constitute a ...
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Introduction: The forty passiones translated in this volume represent a genre of Christian-Latin literature that has seldom attracted attention and is poorly understood; yet in sum they constitute a remarkable body of literature composed during the period between 425 and 675, and provide valuable evidence of the sentiments and beliefs of ordinary Christians of that time — their aversion to pagan practices, their admiration for virginity, their firm commitment to orthodoxy — as well as evidence for the machinery of Roman legal procedure. Since the passiones appear to have been composed by the clerics who were custodians of the martyrial churches and shrines in Rome, in response to the ever-increasing volume of pilgrim traffic to these shrines, and since these clerics appear not to have received the benefit of the highest grade of Roman education, they provide first-hand evidence for the sub-élite Latin of the time. The passiones are works of pure fiction: they abound in absurd errors of chronology, and of the Roman magistrates who figure in them, very few can be identified (this is one of the reasons why the passiones have largely been ignored by historians of late antiquity). Of the forty passiones, some twenty-one treat martyrs who are attested in sources earlier than c. 384, and who may be considered ‘authentic’ martyrs (which is not to say that the descriptions of their arrest, trial, torture and execution — which are often described in ludicrous terms — are similarly ‘authentic’). The remaining passiones treat persons concerning whom there is no reliable evidence that they were martyrs: some are the names of pious persons who donated property to the church; others are the result of pure invention. In any case, there is very little evidence that large numbers of Christians were martyred at Rome in the period before the ‘Peace of the Church’ (c. 312): certainly not the large numbers implied by the fictional passiones. No records of trials of Christians from the period before c. 312, so for their accounts of the trials the authors of the fictitious passiones were obliged to model their accounts on genuine accounts of trial proceedings involving Christians in proconsular Africa (the so-called acta proconsularia); but many features of the trials described in the passiones are imaginary: for example, the lengthy debates between the presiding magistrate or judge and the martyr on questions of Christian belief (the virtues of virginity, the evils of paganism), some of which devolve into lengthy sermons by the martyrs. In any case, the martyrs in the passiones never succeed in converting the judge, and are accordingly sentenced to torture (often described in excruciating, and sometimes absurd, detail) and execution. In most passiones, the bodies of the martyrs are recovered by pious Christians and buried in identifiable shrines (usually in suburban cemeteries).Less
Introduction: The forty passiones translated in this volume represent a genre of Christian-Latin literature that has seldom attracted attention and is poorly understood; yet in sum they constitute a remarkable body of literature composed during the period between 425 and 675, and provide valuable evidence of the sentiments and beliefs of ordinary Christians of that time — their aversion to pagan practices, their admiration for virginity, their firm commitment to orthodoxy — as well as evidence for the machinery of Roman legal procedure. Since the passiones appear to have been composed by the clerics who were custodians of the martyrial churches and shrines in Rome, in response to the ever-increasing volume of pilgrim traffic to these shrines, and since these clerics appear not to have received the benefit of the highest grade of Roman education, they provide first-hand evidence for the sub-élite Latin of the time. The passiones are works of pure fiction: they abound in absurd errors of chronology, and of the Roman magistrates who figure in them, very few can be identified (this is one of the reasons why the passiones have largely been ignored by historians of late antiquity). Of the forty passiones, some twenty-one treat martyrs who are attested in sources earlier than c. 384, and who may be considered ‘authentic’ martyrs (which is not to say that the descriptions of their arrest, trial, torture and execution — which are often described in ludicrous terms — are similarly ‘authentic’). The remaining passiones treat persons concerning whom there is no reliable evidence that they were martyrs: some are the names of pious persons who donated property to the church; others are the result of pure invention. In any case, there is very little evidence that large numbers of Christians were martyred at Rome in the period before the ‘Peace of the Church’ (c. 312): certainly not the large numbers implied by the fictional passiones. No records of trials of Christians from the period before c. 312, so for their accounts of the trials the authors of the fictitious passiones were obliged to model their accounts on genuine accounts of trial proceedings involving Christians in proconsular Africa (the so-called acta proconsularia); but many features of the trials described in the passiones are imaginary: for example, the lengthy debates between the presiding magistrate or judge and the martyr on questions of Christian belief (the virtues of virginity, the evils of paganism), some of which devolve into lengthy sermons by the martyrs. In any case, the martyrs in the passiones never succeed in converting the judge, and are accordingly sentenced to torture (often described in excruciating, and sometimes absurd, detail) and execution. In most passiones, the bodies of the martyrs are recovered by pious Christians and buried in identifiable shrines (usually in suburban cemeteries).
Michael Lapidge
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198811367
- eISBN:
- 9780191848391
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198811367.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
The Roman Martyrs contains translations of forty Latin passiones of saints who were martyred in Rome or its near environs, during the period before the ‘peace of the Church’ (c. 312). Some of these ...
More
The Roman Martyrs contains translations of forty Latin passiones of saints who were martyred in Rome or its near environs, during the period before the ‘peace of the Church’ (c. 312). Some of these Roman martyrs are universally known — SS. Agnes, Sebastian or Laurence, for example — but others are scarcely known outside the ecclesiastical landscape of Rome itself. Each of the translated passiones, which vary in length from a few paragraphs to over ninety, is accompanied by an individual introduction and commentary; the translations are preceded by an Introduction which describes the principal features of this little-known genre of Christian literature. The Roman passiones martyrum have never previously been collected together, and have never been translated into a modern language. They were mostly composed during the period 425 x 675, by anonymous authors who who were presumably clerics of the Roman churches or cemeteries which housed the martyrs’ remains. It is clear that they were composed in response to the huge explosion of pilgrim traffic to martyrial shrines from the late fourth century onwards, at a time when authentic records (protocols) of their trials and executions had long since vanished, and the authors of the passiones were obliged to imagine the circumstances in which martyrs were tried and executed. The passiones are works of pure fiction; and because they abound in ludicrous errors of chronology, they have been largely ignored by historians of the early Church. But although they cannot be used as evidence for the original martyrdoms, they nevertheless allow a fascinating glimpse of the concerns which animated Christians during the period in question: for example, the preservation of virginity, or the ever-present threat posed by pagan practices. And because certain aspects of Roman life will have changed little between (say) the second century and the fifth, the passiones throw valuable light on many aspects of Roman society, not least the nature of a trial before an urban prefect, and the horrendous tortures which were a central feature of such trials. Above all, perhaps, the passiones are an indispensable resource for understanding the topography of late antique Rome and its environs, since they characteristically contain detailed reference to the places where the martyrs were tried, executed, and buried. The book contains five Appendices containing translations of texts relevant to the study of Roman martyrs: the Depositio martyrum of A.D. 354 (Appendix I); the epigrammata of Pope Damasus d. 384) which pertain to Roman martyrs treated in the passiones (II); entries pertaining to Roman martyrs in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum (III); entries in seventh-century pilgrim itineraries pertaining to shrines of Roman martyrs in suburban cemeteries (IV); and entries commemorating these martyrs in early Roman liturgical books (V).Less
The Roman Martyrs contains translations of forty Latin passiones of saints who were martyred in Rome or its near environs, during the period before the ‘peace of the Church’ (c. 312). Some of these Roman martyrs are universally known — SS. Agnes, Sebastian or Laurence, for example — but others are scarcely known outside the ecclesiastical landscape of Rome itself. Each of the translated passiones, which vary in length from a few paragraphs to over ninety, is accompanied by an individual introduction and commentary; the translations are preceded by an Introduction which describes the principal features of this little-known genre of Christian literature. The Roman passiones martyrum have never previously been collected together, and have never been translated into a modern language. They were mostly composed during the period 425 x 675, by anonymous authors who who were presumably clerics of the Roman churches or cemeteries which housed the martyrs’ remains. It is clear that they were composed in response to the huge explosion of pilgrim traffic to martyrial shrines from the late fourth century onwards, at a time when authentic records (protocols) of their trials and executions had long since vanished, and the authors of the passiones were obliged to imagine the circumstances in which martyrs were tried and executed. The passiones are works of pure fiction; and because they abound in ludicrous errors of chronology, they have been largely ignored by historians of the early Church. But although they cannot be used as evidence for the original martyrdoms, they nevertheless allow a fascinating glimpse of the concerns which animated Christians during the period in question: for example, the preservation of virginity, or the ever-present threat posed by pagan practices. And because certain aspects of Roman life will have changed little between (say) the second century and the fifth, the passiones throw valuable light on many aspects of Roman society, not least the nature of a trial before an urban prefect, and the horrendous tortures which were a central feature of such trials. Above all, perhaps, the passiones are an indispensable resource for understanding the topography of late antique Rome and its environs, since they characteristically contain detailed reference to the places where the martyrs were tried, executed, and buried. The book contains five Appendices containing translations of texts relevant to the study of Roman martyrs: the Depositio martyrum of A.D. 354 (Appendix I); the epigrammata of Pope Damasus d. 384) which pertain to Roman martyrs treated in the passiones (II); entries pertaining to Roman martyrs in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum (III); entries in seventh-century pilgrim itineraries pertaining to shrines of Roman martyrs in suburban cemeteries (IV); and entries commemorating these martyrs in early Roman liturgical books (V).
