First group
Severus (or Secundius), Severian(us), Carpophorus, and Victorinus were martyred at Rome or Castra Albana, according to Christian tradition. [2]
According to the Passion of Saint Sebastian, the four saints were soldiers (specifically cornicularii , or clerks, in charge of all the regiment's records and paperwork) who refused to sacrifice to Aesculapius, and therefore were killed by order of Emperor Diocletian (284–305), two years after the death of the five sculptors, mentioned below. The bodies of the martyrs were buried in the cemetery of Santi Marcellino e Pietro on the fourth mile of the Via Labicana by Pope Miltiades and Saint Sebastian (whose skull is preserved in the church).
Second group
The second group, according to Christian tradition, were sculptors from Sirmium who were killed in Pannonia. They refused to fashion a pagan statue for the Emperor Diocletian or to offer sacrifice to the Roman gods. The Emperor ordered them to be placed alive in lead coffins and thrown into the Sava River in about 287. Simplicius was killed with them. [1] According to the Catholic Encyclopedia ,
[T]he Acts of these martyrs, written by a revenue officer named Porphyrius probably in the fourth century, relates of the five sculptors that, although they raised no objections to executing such profane images as Victoria, Cupid, and the Chariot of the Sun, they refused to make a statue of Æsculapius for a heathen temple. For this they were condemned to death as Christians. They were put into leaden caskets and drowned in the River Save. This happened towards the end of 305. [3]
The references in the text of the martyrs' passio to porphyry quarrying and masonry located at the 'porphyritic mountain' indicate that the story's setting is misplaced; there are no porphyry quarries in Pannonia and the only porphyry quarry worked in the ancient world is in Egypt. Mons Porphyrites was quarried to supply the rare and expensive imperial porphyry for the emperor's building works and statuary, for which it was exclusively set aside. Mons Porphyrites is in the Thebaid, which was a centre of Christian erimiticism in Late Antiquity. Emperor Diocletian did indeed commission the extensive use of porphyry in his many building projects. Diocletian also visited the Thebaid during his reign, though he was more usually associated with the Balkans, which might explain why the story's location was transposed to Pannonia over time. [4]
Joint veneration
When the names of the first group were learned, it was decreed that they should be commemorated with the second group. [1] The bodies of the first group were interred by St. Sebastian and Pope Melchiades (Miltiades) at the fourth milestone on the Via Labicana, in a sandpit where there rested the remains of other executed Christians.
It is unclear where the names of the second group actually come from. The tradition states that Melchiades asked that the saints be commemorated as Claudius, Nicostratus, Simpronian, and Castorius. These same names actually are identical to names shared by converts of Polycarp the priest, in the legend of St. Sebastian. [5] According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, however, "this report has no historic foundation. It is merely a tentative explanation of the name Quatuor Coronati, a name given to a group of really authenticated martyrs who were buried and venerated in the Catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Pietro, the real origin of which, however, is not known. They were classed with the five martyrs of Pannonia in a purely external relationship." [3]
The bodies of the martyrs are kept in four ancient sarcophagi in the crypt of Santi Marcellino e Pietro. According to a lapid dated 1123, the head of one of the four martyrs is buried in Santa Maria in Cosmedin.
Confusion and conclusions
The rather confusing story of the four crowned martyrs was well known in Renaissance Florence, principally as told in the thirteenth-century Golden Legend by Jacopo da Voragine. It appears that the original four martyrs were beaten to death by order of Emperor Diocletian (r. AD 284–305). Their story became conflated with that of a group of five stonecarvers, also martyred by Diocletian for refusing to carve the image of a roman god. Due to their profession as sculptors, the five early Christian martyrs were an obvious choice for the guild of stonemasons, but their number seems often to have been understood to be four, as in this case. [6]
Problems arise with determining the historicity of these martyrs because one group contains five names instead of four. Alban Butler believed that the four names of group one, which the Roman Martyrology and the Breviary say were revealed as those of the Four Crowned Martyrs, were borrowed from the martyrology of the Diocese of Albano Laziale, which kept their feast on August 8, not November 8. [5] These four "borrowed" martyrs were not buried in Rome, but in the catacomb of Albano; their feast was celebrated on August 7 or August 8, the date under which is cited in the Roman Calendar of Feasts of 354. [3] The Catholic Encyclopedia wrote that the "martyrs of Albano have no connection with the Roman martyrs". [3]
The double tradition may have arisen because a second passio had to be written. It was written to account for the fact that there were five saints in group two rather than four. Thus, the story concerning group one was simply invented, and the story describes the death of four martyrs, who were soldiers from Rome rather than Pannonian stonemasons. The Bollandist Hippolyte Delehaye calls this invented tradition "l'opprobre de l'hagiographie" (the disgrace of hagiography). [5]
Delehaye, after extensive research, determined that there was actually only one group of martyrs – the stonemasons of group two – whose relics were taken to Rome. [5] One scholar has written that "the latest research tends to agree" with Delehaye's conclusion. [5]
The Roman Martyrology gives the stonemasons Simpronianus, Claudius, Nicostratus, Castorius and Simplicius as the martyrs celebrated on November 8, and the Albano martyrs Secundus, Carpophorus, Victorinus and Severianus as celebrated on August 8. [7]
The Passio sanctorum quatuor coronatorum
The translation of the Four Crowned Martyrs to the church on the Caelian Hill is recorded in the Liber Pontificalis of Pope Leo IV (847–855). The main biographical source is the Latin Passio sanctorum quatuor coronatorum (Passion of the Four Crowned Martyrs), mentioned in the martyrology of Ado of Vienne (d. 875) and then in the more concise version of Usuard (d. 876/877). [9] The latter was the most widely circulated in subsequent centuries, and contributed to the spread of the martyrs' veneration during the Middle Ages. [9] Usuard referred to two sets of saint martyrs: the Quattuor Coronatorum and the set with Claudius, Nicostratus, Simpronianus, Castorius and Simplicius. [9]
In the 10th century, Archbishop of Naples Peter published a Passio which was historically remarkable for a similar structure and textual style, and for some differences with regard to the content. The Abbacy of Saint Mary of Grottaferrata preserved a Greek manuscript of the Passio which had some concerns with the Neapolitan document. In 1910, the philologist Hippolyte Delehaye published a commentary of the Four Crowned Martyrs' Passio in his work titled Acta Sanctorum . The Passio had been also studied by the mediaevalists Wilhelm Wattenbach and Giovanni Battista De Rossi. [9]
Pope Marcellinus was the bishop of Rome from 30 June 296 to his death in 304. A historical accusation was levelled at him by some sources to the effect that he might have renounced Christianity during Emperor Diocletian's persecution of Christians before repenting afterwards, which would explain why he is omitted from lists of martyrs. The accusation is rejected, among others, by Augustine of Hippo. He is today venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church and in the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Sebastian was an early Christian saint and martyr. According to traditional belief, he was killed during the Diocletianic Persecution of Christians. He was initially tied to a post or tree and shot with arrows, though this did not kill him. He was, according to tradition, rescued and healed by Irene of Rome, which became a popular subject in 17th-century painting. In all versions of the story, shortly after his recovery he went to Diocletian to warn him about his sins, and as a result was clubbed to death. He is venerated in the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.
Saints Faith, Hope, and Charity, are a group of Christian martyred saints who are venerated together with their mother, Sophia ("Wisdom").
Saint Apollonius the Apologist or Saint Apollonius of Rome was a 2nd-century Christian martyr and apologist who was martyred in 185 under the Emperor Commodus (161-192).
Santi Quattro Coronati is an ancient basilica in Rome, Italy. The church dates back to the fourth or fifth century, and is devoted to four anonymous saints and martyrs. The complex of the basilica with its two courtyards, the fortified Cardinal Palace with the Saint Silvester Chapel, and the monastery with its cosmatesque cloister is built in a silent and green part of Rome, between the Colosseum and San Giovanni in Laterano, in an out-of-time setting.
Saints Simplicius, Faustinus and Beatrix were siblings martyred in Rome during the Diocletian persecution.
Saint Gabinus is the title given to two personages.
Acts of the Martyrs are accounts of the suffering and death of a Christian martyr or group of martyrs. These accounts were collected and used in church liturgies from early times as attested by Saint Augustine.
Martinian and Processus were Christian martyrs of ancient Rome. Neither the years they lived nor the circumstances of their deaths are known. They are currently buried in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Mark and Marcellian are martyrs venerated as saints by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Their cult is sometimes associated with that of Saints Tranquillinus, Martia, Nicostratus, Zoe, Castulus, and Tiburtius, though not in the official liturgical books of the Church, which mention only Mark and Marcellianus among the saints for 18 June. Their mention in the General Roman Calendar on that date from before the time of the Tridentine calendar was removed in the 1969 revision, because nothing is known about them except their names, the fact of their martyrdom, and that they were buried on 18 June in the cemetery of Santa Balbina on the Via Ardeatina.
Susanna of Rome was a Christian martyr of the Diocletianic Persecution. Her existing hagiography, written between about 450 and 500 AD, is of no historical value and the relations it attributes to Susanna are entirely fictitious. It is probable that a real martyr named Susanna lies behind the literary invention.
Symphorosa is venerated as a saint of the Catholic Church. According to tradition, she was martyred with her seven sons at Tibur toward the end of the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (117–38).
This page is an index of lists of people considered martyrs. A martyr is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, refusing to renounce, or refusing to advocate a belief or cause as demanded by an external party. This refusal to comply with the presented demands results in the punishment or execution of the martyr by the oppressor.
Saints Victor and Corona are two Christian martyrs. Victor was a Roman soldier who was tortured and killed; Corona was killed for comforting him. Corona is invoked as a patron of causes involving money; she was not historically associated with pandemics or disease, but has been invoked against the coronavirus pandemic.
Saints Marcellinus and Peter are venerated within the Catholic Church as martyrs who were beheaded. Hagiographies place them in 4th century Rome. They are generally represented as men in middle age, with tonsures and palms of martyrdom; sometimes they hold a crown each.
Saints Felinus and Gratian(us) (sometimes Gratinian(us)) (d. 250 AD) are venerated as martyrs by the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. They are patron saints of Arona, near Milan, where their relics were enshrined.
Simplicius, Constantius and Victorinus are venerated as Christian martyrs of the 2nd century. Simplicius, was, according to tradition, a Christian of the Abruzzi region who was executed along with his two sons, Constantius and Victorian, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Their Passio contains all of the tropes of the genre. It is believed that the martyrdoms are genuine but that the three martyrs were not necessarily related to one another, but were executed together at Marsica.
Saint Theodotus of Ancyra was a fourth-century Christian martyr.
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