19 The first martyrs and saints

No study of the origins of feasts, fasts and seasons in early Christianity would be complete without attention to one of the most significant early developments in Christian liturgical celebration, namely, the cult of martyrs and, later, of other saints, combining to make up eventually a sanctorale, or sanctoral cycle, in the liturgical calendars, a cycle of saints’ feasts to be distinguished from the temporal cycle, to which this book has been dedicated up until now. It has often been the case among liturgical scholars, with some notable exceptions,1 that the sanctorale was treated as but an appendage or extended footnote to what was perceived to be the more important focus of the major feasts and seasons. For example, Talley in The Origins of the Liturgical Year did not deal with the origins and development of the sanctorale at all. Indeed, part of the reason the sanctoral cycle has not always received the attention that it should, we suspect, is that theologians, historians and, perhaps especially, liturgiologists have tended to denigrate or even dismiss, albeit unconsciously, what is often (even pejoratively) called ‘popular religion’ as but ‘superstition’, vestiges of ‘paganism’, or as reflecting somehow a ‘lower’ form of belief and practice among the ‘unenlightened’ than the ‘official religion’ of the elite, and it is certainly the case that the cult of martyrs and saints, on one level at least, is part and parcel of what may be called ‘popular religion’.

More recent scholarship, however, has been willing to embrace a much broader view of the whole, including the religious lives and practices of the poor, women and others as theological and liturgical ‘sources’. For our purposes here, Peter Brown’s important 1981 work, The Cult of the Saints, represents a significant scholarly shift in this context. Here, in particular, Brown argues convincingly that the real history of the early Church is to be read, precisely, in the development of the ‘popular’ practices and beliefs associated with the cult of the martyrs and later saints at their shrines in the overall shaping of late antique culture, religion and society, practices shared by both the intellectually elite and others in the Church, in spite of their differing intellectual facilities. That is, such practices must be seen as a basic, rather than peripheral, expression of Christian faith and piety in general within this period.2

On a similar note, Robert Taft has written of the turn in this direction that his own work has taken, saying:

In so doing I have, in a sense, been responding to my own appeal, made years ago, that we ‘integrate into our work the methods of the relatively recent pietà popolare or annales schools of Christian history in Europe’ and study liturgy not just from the top down, i.e., in its official or semi-official texts, but also from the bottom up, ‘as something real people did’.3

And Ramsay MacMullen has argued in his 2009 study, The Second Church, based largely on archaeological evidence, that of the Christian populations in ancient urban centres, perhaps 5 per cent of that population (the elite) participated regularly in the Church’s official worship, while the other 95 per cent constituted the ‘second church’, whose Christian identity and practice was shaped by and focused on the cult of the martyrs in cemeteries and tombs.4 So important and formative was this martyr cult in antiquity, according to Candida Moss, that, based on various written Acts of the martyrs,5 which present the martyr(s) as another Christ in his Passion, the Acts themselves functioned, along with canonical sources, in the development of popular Christology, even to the point at times with the martyrs threatening to replace Christ, an issue with which certainly Augustine will deal in North Africa. Moss argues further that, in the first three centuries at least, Christian discipleship, especially as a literal ‘imitation of Christ’, was conceived of primarily as martyrdom.6 Robin Darling Young, too, offers an excellent overview of the early role of the cult of the martyrs:

Of all early Christian practices, the veneration of the martyr-saints was the most popular and accessible. With a unanimity that eluded them in other matters of belief, Christians repeatedly gave three reasons for honouring these men and women as the most admirable and intensely exemplary of believers. First, the imitation of Christ enjoined on all believers appeared most visibly in their triumphant deaths. Second, in reward for their faithfulness, the martyrs now in heaven possessed special powers. And third, when Christians praised and supplicated them, the martyrs would return the favor of visible assistance. This complex rationale appears either implicitly or explicitly in numerous forms of literature attesting to early Christian martyrdom.7

Given the importance that the cult of the saints was to have in the development of Christianity in both East and West, it is disappointing to find minimal written documentary evidence from within the time frame of the first three centuries. What evidence we do have, however, underscores that the cult of the martyrs was local and associated directly with the martyrs’ burial places. What most scholars refer to as our earliest evidence is the account of the martyrdom of Polycarp of Smyrna, traditionally dated to 23 February 155/6, with the account itself, actually a letter from the church at Smyrna, traditionally dated to the year following the event. The relevant portion of this account reads:

Accordingly, we afterwards took up his bones, as being more precious than the most exquisite jewels, and more purified than gold, and deposited them in a fitting place, whither, being gathered together, as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and rejoicing, the Lord shall grant us to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom, both in memory of those who have already finished their course, and for the exercising and preparation of those yet to walk in their steps.8

While this account may still reflect a mid-second-century date, Moss has challenged this assumption, arguing that its ‘sophisticated and nuanced view on martyrdom’, as well as the fact that it appears to have had no literary impact before the second half of the third century, makes it difficult to date before the third century.9 But whether mid second century or third, this account still provides us with a picture of what such martyr anniversary celebrations contained before the time of Constantine, namely, a local gathering of the Christian community at the martyr’s tomb on the anniversary of his or her death, the date now viewed as the martyr’s natale, or heavenly birthday, with the reading of the martyr’s Acts (account of martyrdom), and, consistent with their pagan neighbours, the sharing of a meal, the refrigerium (refreshment), which in a Christian context would come to include the Eucharist. At the same time, MacMullen has shown, based again on archaeological evidence of tombs, including that of St Peter in Rome and St Paul in Ostia, such refrigeria seem also to have included the pouring of a libation of wine into prepared holes with tubes in the actual tomb of the deceased as a way of communing with them as part of the celebration.10 Such funerary practices seem to be behind the 22 February Roman feast called the Cathedra Petri, the Chair of Peter. In pre-Christian Rome 13–22 February was a time for commemorating deceased friends and family members and at these gatherings an empty cathedra would be placed for particular departed ones. By the middle of the fourth century, at least, 22 February became the natale of St Peter and, in time, the cathedra associated with the feast was to become reinterpreted as the very cathedra on which Peter sat as Bishop of Rome.11

Clear evidence that within the third century, at least, Christian communities were keeping local lists of martyrs and celebrating the Eucharist at their tombs on their anniversary days is provided by Cyprian of Carthage in two of his letters. In one he notes:

His [Celerinus’] grandmother, Celerina, was some time since crowned with martyrdom. Moreover, his paternal and maternal uncles, Laurentius and Egnatius, who themselves also were once warring in the camps of the world, but were true and spiritual soldiers of God, casting down the devil by the confession of Christ, merited palms and crowns from the Lord by their illustrious passion. We always offer sacrifices for them, as you remember, as often as we celebrate the passions and days of the martyrs in the annual commemoration.12

In the other, while exhorting the clergy to attend to the needs of confessors in prisons, he adds:

Finally, also, take note of their days on which they depart, that we may celebrate their commemoration among the memorials of the martyrs, although Tertullus, our most faithful and devoted brother, who, in addition to the other solicitude and care which he shows to the brethren in all service of labour, is not wanting besides in that respect in any care of their bodies, has written, and does write and intimate to me the days, in which our blessed brethren in prison pass by the gate of a glorious death to their immortality; and there are celebrated here by us oblations and sacrifices for their commemorations, which things, with the Lord’s protection, we shall soon celebrate with you.13

This local connection between the martyrs, their places of burial and the Christian community’s annual celebration of their natale is reflected at fourth-century Rome in the depositio martyrum within the Chronograph of 354, a document so important, as we have seen, in relationship to the origins of Christmas.14 Not only does this depositio martyrum list the dates of the anniversaries (see Table 19.1 overleaf) but it provides the location for those anniversary celebrations in the various cemeteries within Rome.

Table 19.1: Depositio Martyrum

25 December	Christ born in Bethlehem of Judaea
20 January	Fabian (in Callixtus)
	Sebastian (in cemetery called Catacumbas)
21 January	Agnes (on the Via Nomentana)
22 February	Chair of Peter
7 March	Perpetua and Felicity (Africans)
19 May	Parthenius and Calocerus (in San Callixtus), in the Ninth Year of Diocletian and the Eighth Year of Maximianus [304]
29 June	Peter (Catacumbas) and Paul (Ostia), moved during the consulate of Tuscus and Bassus [258]
10 July	Felician and Filippa (in Priscilla), Vitalis and Alexander (in Iordanorum Martialis), Silanus and Novatus (in Maximus), and Januarius (Prætextatus)
30 July	Abdon and Sennen (Cemetery of Pontianus)
6 August	Sixtus (in Callixtus), Felicissimus, and Agapitus (in Prætextatus)
8 August	Secundus, Carpophorus, Victor, and Severus (in Albano); Cyricacus, Largus, Crescentianus, Memmia, Juliana, and Smaragdus (in Ostia at the seventh milestone)
9 August	Laurence (on the Via Tiburtina)
13 August	Hippolytus (on the Via Tiburtina) and Pontian (in Callixtus)
22 August	Timothy (Ostia)
29 August	Hermes (in Basilla on the Old Via Salaria)
5 September	Acontus (on the Via Portunensis), Nonnus, and Herculanus and Taurinus
9 September	Gorgonius (on the Via Labicana)
11 September	Protus and Jacintus (in Basilla)
14 September	Cyprian (African) (celebrated in Rome at Callixtus)
22 September	Basilla (on the Old Via Salaria), in the Ninth Year of Diocletian and the Eighth Year of Maximianus [304]
14 October	Callixtus (on the Via Aurelia at the third milestone)
9 November	Clement, Sempronianus, Claudius, and Nicostratus, companions
29 November	Saturninus (in Trasonis)15

Theologically as well, it is important to attend to the eucharistic imagery and connotations of martyrdom not only with regard to the celebration of the Eucharist on the martyrs’ natale but within the descriptions and interpretations of the act of martyrdom itself. In the martyrdom of Polycarp, for example, the text shows us Polycarp offering a eucharistic-type prayer in which, clearly more consistent with a mid-third-century date in both theology and prayer structure than the second, he offers himself in sacrifice rather than the bread and cup as the eucharistic oblation:

They did not nail him [Polycarp] then, but simply bound him. And he, placing his hands behind him, and being bound like a distinguished ram [taken] out of a great flock for sacrifice, and prepared to be an acceptable burnt-offering unto God, looked up to heaven, and said, ‘O Lord God Almighty, the Father of thy beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the knowledge of thee, the God of angels and powers, and of every creature, and of the whole race of the righteous who live before thee, I give thee thanks that thou hast counted me, worthy of this day and this hour, that I should have a part in the number of thy martyrs, in the cup of thy Christ, to the resurrection of eternal life, both of soul and body, through the incorruption [imparted] by the Holy Ghost. Among whom may I be accepted this day before thee as a fat and acceptable sacrifice, according as thou, the ever-truthful God, hast foreordained, hast revealed beforehand to me, and now hast fulfilled. Wherefore also I praise thee for all things, I bless thee, I glorify thee, along with the everlasting and heavenly Jesus Christ, thy beloved Son, with whom, to thee, and the Holy Ghost, be glory both now and to all coming ages. Amen.’

Following this prayer the eucharistic symbolism of ‘bread baking’ is unmistakable in describing Polycarp’s execution:

When he had pronounced this amen, and so finished his prayer, those who were appointed for the purpose kindled the fire. And as the flame blazed forth in great fury, we, to whom it was given to witness it, beheld a great miracle, and have been preserved that we might report to others what then took place. For the fire, shaping itself into the form of an arch, like the sail of a ship when filled with the wind, encompassed as by a circle the body of the martyr. And he appeared within not like flesh which is burnt, but as bread that is baked, or as gold and silver glowing in a furnace. Moreover, we perceived such a sweet odour [coming from the pile], as if frankincense or some such precious spices had been smoking there.16

Similar eucharistic symbolism is already present in the late-first- or early-second-century letters of Ignatius of Antioch, especially in his letter to the Romans, as he tries to convince the Roman Christians not to interfere in his forthcoming martyrdom:

For if ye are silent concerning me, I shall become God’s; but if you show your love to my flesh, I shall again have to run my race. Pray, then, do not seek to confer any greater favour upon me than that I be sacrificed to God while the altar is still prepared; that, being gathered together in love, ye may sing praise to the Father, through Christ Jesus, that God has deemed me, the bishop of Syria, worthy to be sent for from the east unto the west. It is good to set from the world unto God, that I may rise again to him.17

Suffer me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. Rather entice the wild beasts, that they may become my tomb, and may leave nothing of my body; so that when I have fallen asleep [in death], I may be no trouble to any one. Then shall I truly be a disciple of Christ, when the world shall not see so much as my body. Entreat Christ for me, that by these instruments I may be found a sacrifice.18

I have no delight in corruptible food, nor in the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became afterwards of the seed of David and Abraham; and I desire the drink of God, namely his blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life.19

Such language of Eucharist, sacrifice and libation (e.g., Ignatius’ request that he be ‘poured out to God’) on the part of the martyrs leads Robin Darling Young to view martyrdom, in the words of Origen’s Exhortation to Martyrdom, as a going ‘in procession before the world’, a public ritual and liturgy in antiquity. Martyrdom, she writes,

functioned as a public liturgical sacrifice in which the word of Jesus and his kingdom was confessed and acted out, and an offering made that repeated his own. If the Eucharist of the early Christians was a kind of substitute sacrifice, then the martyrs’ was an imitative one. When the Eucharist was still private, not open to non-Christian view, the martyrs’ sacrifice was public and dramatic … Martyrdom was also a ritual, in all likelihood imagined ahead of time and understood as both a repetition of baptism or a substitute for it, and a sacrifice parallel and similar to Christ’s passion and the Eucharist, that is to say, as a redemptive sacrifice. It was the instantiation of the Temple’s new presence among Christians, who saw themselves as true Israel and spiritual temples. Inasmuch as it generated a priesthood and spiritual gifts, it occasioned the desire of Christians to conduct and regulate its benefits; this was the commerce that authority and orthodoxy, especially episcopal orthodoxy, could bring about. Not only the point of encounter between the church and the world, and furthermore between heaven and earth, martyrdom was also the locus of an economic exchange between these last two; an offering went up, and upon acceptance, benefits came down. To put it crudely, martyrdom was a bargain for Christian communities. One member of the community died faithfully and many investors were rewarded.20

So strong is this connection between the martyr and the Eucharist that the bodies – or other remains (relics) – of the martyrs would become viewed and venerated as ‘eucharistized’, consecrated or holy (bones ‘more valuable than gold’), with which and with whom some form of communion at their tombs would be sought.21

The martyrs were not only commemorated at their tombs on their anniversaries, but as those who had already been exalted to heaven with Christ they were appealed to increasingly by prayer and supplication. In an article some years ago, Cyrille Vogel noted that up until the middle of the second century ancient burial inscriptions reveal that Christians prayed both for and to deceased Christians, whether they were martyrs or not, a point underscored by Taft in a more recent essay as well.22 Such prayer for deceased baptized Christians as part of the communio sanctorum, of course, is highly consistent with some of the classic eucharistic prayers of antiquity. In the Anaphora of St John Chrysostom, for example, prayer is made even for (πέρ) the Theotokos and the saints,23 and in the Armenian version of the Anaphora of St Basil the Theotokos and the saints are simply commemorated at the Eucharist.24 Also of note is that the Roman canon missae is rather striking in this regard since in its Communicantes the assembly merely prays in ‘communion’ with and ‘venerating the memory’ (et memoriam venerantes) of Mary, the twelve apostles and sainted martyrs and bishops, and the Nobis quoque peccatoribus merely asks for our admission into the company of the apostles and martyrs, with a list of Roman and North African martyrs provided.25

By the end of the second century, however, prayer to deceased Christians, or, at least, asking the martyrs in particular for their intercession, even with regard to exercising the office of the keys, was becoming a rather common Christian practice. So, for example, the famous late-second- or early-third-century North African Passion of St Perpetua and Felicitas describes a vision of the martyr Saturus, who sees Perpetua and himself after their martyrdoms being appealed to by his bishop Optatus and a presbyter Aspasius. This vision is well summarized by Frederick Klawiter:

In a vision Saturus saw himself and the other martyrs transported to paradise after death. They were carried by angels to a place whose walls were made of light. Upon entering they heard voices chanting endlessly in unison, making but one sound: ‘Holy, holy, holy.’ As the martyrs stood before a throne, angels lifted them up to kiss an aged man of youthful countenance, who touched their faces with his hand. Then they were commanded to go and play. They went out before the gates and saw their bishop Optatus and the presbyter Aspasius approaching them. Optatus and Aspasius were apart from one another and very sad. Throwing themselves at the feet of Perpetua and Saturus, they said: ‘Make peace between us, for you departed and left us thus.’ Perpetua and Saturus embraced them and began to talk to them; however, they were interrupted by angels who scolded the bishop and presbyter, instructing them to settle their own quarrels and advising the bishop about shepherding his flock. The angels thought that Perpetua and Saturus should be allowed to rest (refrigerare), and, in addition, it was time to close the gates (claudere portas).26

While this vision may be interpreted as offering a statement against the invocation of martyrs that they might exercise the office of the keys after death, Klawiter is certainly correct in noting that the text says that ‘Saturus and Perpetua “were very moved and embraced” (moti et conplexi sunt) the bishop and presbyter. Evidently, they were not displeased that the two had come to them for a resolution.’27 He adds: ‘The reasonable view is that Perpetua and Saturus had departed by death before Aspasius and Optatus were able to approach them in order to receive peace. Thus, this situation compelled the bishop and presbyter to approach them through prayer after Perpetua and Saturus had died.’28 Similarly, in his De oratione Origen himself not only witnesses to but actually advocates prayer to the saints, saying:

[I]t is not foolish to offer supplication, intercession, and thanksgiving also to the saints. Moreover, two of them, I mean intercession and thanksgiving, may be addressed not only to the saints but also to other people, while supplication may be addressed only to the saints if someone is found to be a Paul or a Peter so as to help us by making us worthy of receiving the authority given them to forgive sins.29

Similarly, the fragmentary prayer called the Strasbourg Papyrus, quite possibly a eucharistic prayer, sometimes dated as early as second-century Egypt, already contains the following invocation: ‘… grant us to have a part and lot with the fair … of your holy prophets, apostles, and martyrs. Receive(?) [through] their entreaties [these prayers].’30

Whatever the extent of such invocation and supplication to the martyrs in the first three centuries, there is no question but that from after the Peace of Constantine (312) onwards, such devotion will be a major characteristic of Christian piety. On the one hand, anniversary celebrations at the martyrs’ tombs became more elaborate and buildings known as martyria began to be erected over the tombs to house the bodies of the saints inside. But it would be a mistake to think that what went on in these places was simply or only some kind of official public liturgical worship. Dennis Trout provides a tantalizing description of what took place in the late-fourth-century shrine of St Felix of Nola, Italy (14 January), based on the poems of its famous bishop Paulinus:

Paulinus’ writings suggest, even if indirectly, many of the aims and expectations of the visitors, petitioners, and fairgoers who came to venerate Felix at his Nolan tomb and, in some cases, to see Paulinus as well. Aristocratic friends and travellers, such as the family of Melania the Elder of Nicetas, bishop of distant Remesiana, might stop for a time at Nola, and Paulinus’ public verses often praised their faith and ascetic virtues. Yet the anonymous characters who populate Paulinus’ natalicia better represent the Shrine’s role in regional society, just as they also foreshadow later accounts of the activity that swirled around the grave of a renowned saint. For such humbler folk, the holy tomb appears as a place of comfort and protection where holy power becomes manifest in awe-inspiring ways. Here the sick and insane are healed or cleansed of their demons. They return home with holy oil charged with curative power through contact with Felix’s coffin. They appeal to Felix for the protection of their fields and herds and well-being of their families. At the fair associated with Felix’s midwinter festival, peasants present the saint with gifts of pigs and cattle. Echoing old patterns of behavior, they fulfil vows by butchering their livestock and, at Paulinus’ urging, sharing the meat with the poor who have gathered at the shrine. Such practices Paulinus encouraged, while simultaneously working to reform those ‘rustics’ who came to Nola looking simply to fill their bellies with food and late-night wine.31

On the other hand, if martyria were being erected in cemeteries over the tombs of the martyrs, it is also the case that the bodies of martyrs were increasingly being removed from cemeteries into church buildings elsewhere, a process known either as translatio, the re-burial or re-housing of remains, or even of dismemberatio, that is, dividing up the remains into various fragments and distributing them to multiple churches and individuals at the same time.32 So begins the great spread of the cult of the saints beyond their local celebrations as churches – and individuals – will increasingly trade such ‘relics’ back and forth, including the feast days themselves, thus contributing to a universalizing of various martyrs. It may well have been the case that translatio and dismemberatio were more common practices in the Christian East since Roman law, at least until the seventh century, forbade the opening or re-siting of a grave, in order to protect the peace of the dead. Thus, for example, in 365–6 at Constantinople the Emperor Constantius ordered the relics of Timothy, the apostle Andrew, and the evangelist Luke to be brought to Constantinople, an event accomplished with great solemnity. In the West generally, secondary relics, or ‘contact relics’, were more common and included items such as linen cloths (brandea or palliola), which had been touched to the saints’ body or grave, as well as clothing, oil, instruments of the martyrs’ torture, or even scrapings from the tomb or the locale around it. According to G. J. C. Snoek, ‘these types of relics – and occasionally corporeal relics – were, like the Eucharistic bread, kept at home to provide protection, were worn around the neck as a substitute for the pagan amulet and taken into the grave in the hopes of resurrection with the martyr in question’.33 Here, as well, might be noted the practice of burial ad sanctos,34 that is, burial near the graves of the martyrs and later in churches near to their tombs and/or relics, as well as the practice called ‘incubation’, that is, sleeping in martyrs’ tombs or sanctuaries in supplication for particular needs.35

It should not be assumed uncritically, however, that Christians in the West, unlike their Eastern counterparts in the first seven centuries, did not from time to time also practise translatio and dismemberatio of the martyrs. If dismemberatio was widely discouraged, the welcome acceptance of such dismembered saints’ relics from the East into the West was, nonetheless, certainly known. And there is plenty of evidence in the West for the translatio of saints’ remains, though it is true that it only becomes common at Rome itself from the early seventh century onwards, where on 13 May 609, for the dedication of the Pantheon as a Christian church, renamed as Santa Maria ad martyres, Pope Boniface IV had 28 wagonloads of the bones of the martyrs brought to this basilica from the various cemeteries,36 with 13 May becoming, as a result, one of the earliest dates for the Western celebration of what eventually will become the feast of All Saints.37

One of our earliest witnesses in the West to the practice of translatio is Ambrose of Milan and the translatio of the popular saints Gervasius and Protasius into Ambrose’s cathedral of Milan. While Ambrose had been critical of Monica’s North African cemetery rituals in Milan,38 he certainly cherished having these particular relics. Writing to his sister, Ambrose describes the discovery of their intact bodies, their translation to his basilica, and what he said to the church at Milan on this occasion:

2. Why should I use many words? God favoured us, for even the clergy were afraid who were bidden to clear away the earth from the spot before the chancel screen of SS. Felix and Nabor. I found the fitting signs, and on bringing in some on whom hands were to be laid, the power of the holy martyrs became so manifest, that even whilst I was still silent, one was seized and thrown prostrate at the holy burial-place. We found two men of marvellous stature, such as those of ancient days. All the bones were perfect, and there was much blood. During the whole of those two days there was an enormous concourse of people. Briefly we arranged the whole in order, and as evening was now coming on transferred them to the basilica of Fausta, where watch was kept during the night, and some received the laying on of hands. On the following day we translated the relics to the basilica called Ambrosian. During the translation a blind man was healed …
    9… . Not without reason do many call this the resurrection of the martyrs. I do not say whether they have risen for themselves, for us certainly the martyrs have risen. You know – nay, you have yourselves seen – that many are cleansed from evil spirits, that very many also, having touched with their hands the robe of the saints, are freed from those ailments which oppressed them; you see that the miracles of old time are renewed, when through the coming of the Lord Jesus grace was more largely shed forth upon the earth, and that many bodies are healed as it were by the shadow of the holy bodies. How many napkins are passed about! how many garments, laid upon the holy relics and endowed with healing power, are claimed! All are glad to touch even the outside thread, and whosoever touches will be made whole …
    12. The glorious relics are taken out of an ignoble burying-place, the trophies are displayed under heaven. The tomb is wet with blood. The marks of the bloody triumph are present, the relics are found undisturbed in their order, the head separated from the body …
    13. Let these triumphant victims be brought to the place where Christ is the victim. But He upon the altar, Who suffered for all; they beneath the altar, who were redeemed by His Passion. I had destined this place for myself, for it is fitting that the priest should rest there where he has been wont to offer, but I yield the right hand portion to the sacred victims; that place was due to the martyrs. Let us, then, deposit the sacred relics, and lay them up in a worthy resting-place, and let us celebrate the whole day with faithful devotion.39

Augustine of Hippo himself, who was, incidentally, in attendance at the above event narrated by Ambrose,40 was generally critical of the popular celebrations accompanying the martyr cult in North Africa, criticizing not only the raucous behaviour of people at such events, including drinking and dancing, but beyond this, his fear of superstition as well as perceived competition and popular confusion on the part of the faithful between the martyrs and Christ.41 After 415, at which point Hippo acquired some prestigious relics of St Stephen the Protomartyr, Augustine developed a different view and became, like Ambrose, a staunch defender of the martyrs and the miracles associated with their cult and relics. In his City of God, Augustine writes of several miracles at the shrines of martyrs in North Africa. What follows are his comments related to healings in proximity to the relics of St Stephen:

It is not yet two years since these relics were first brought to Hippo-regius, and though many of the miracles which have been wrought by it have not, as I have the most certain means of knowing, been recorded, those which have been published amount to almost seventy at the hour at which I write …

One miracle was wrought among ourselves, which, though no greater than those I have mentioned, was yet so signal and conspicuous, that I suppose there is no inhabitant of Hippo who did not either see or hear of it, none who could possibly forget it. There were seven brothers and three sisters of a noble family of the Cappadocian Cæsarea, who were cursed by their mother, a new-made widow, on account of some wrong they had done her, and which she bitterly resented, and who were visited with so severe a punishment from Heaven, that all of them were seized with a hideous shaking in all their limbs. Unable, while presenting this loathsome appearance, to endure the eyes of their fellow-citizens, they wandered over almost the whole Roman world, each following his own direction. Two of them came to Hippo, a brother and a sister, Paulus and Palladia, already known in many other places by the fame of their wretched lot. Now it was about fifteen days before Easter when they came, and they came daily to church, and specially to the relics of the most glorious Stephen, praying that God might now be appeased, and restore their former health. There, and wherever they went, they attracted the attention of every one. Some who had seen them elsewhere, and knew the cause of their trembling, told others as occasion offered. Easter arrived, and on the Lord’s day, in the morning, when there was now a large crowd present, and the young man was holding the bars of the holy place where the relics were, and praying, suddenly he fell down, and lay precisely as if asleep, but not trembling as he was wont to do even in sleep. All present were astonished. Some were alarmed, some were moved with pity; and while some were for lifting him up, others prevented them, and said they should rather wait and see what would result. And behold! he rose up, and trembled no more, for he was healed, and stood quite well, scanning those who were scanning him. Who then refrained himself from praising God? The whole church was filled with the voices of those who were shouting and congratulating him. Then they came running to me, where I was sitting ready to come into the church. One after another they throng in, the last comer telling me as news what the first had told me already; and while I rejoiced and inwardly gave God thanks, the young man himself also enters, with a number of others, falls at my knees, is raised up to receive my kiss. We go in to the congregation: the church was full, and ringing with the shouts of joy, ‘Thanks to God! Praised be God!’ every one joining and shouting on all sides, ‘I have healed the people,’ and then with still louder voice shouting again. Silence being at last obtained, the customary lessons of the divine Scriptures were read. And when I came to my sermon, I made a few remarks suitable to the occasion and the happy and joyful feeling, not desiring them to listen to me, but rather to consider the eloquence of God in this divine work. The man dined with us, and gave us a careful account of his own, his mother’s, and his family’s calamity. Accordingly, on the following day, after delivering my sermon, I promised that next day I would read his narrative to the people. And when I did so, the third day after Easter Sunday, I made the brother and sister both stand on the steps of the raised place from which I used to speak; and while they stood there their pamphlet was read. The whole congregation, men and women alike, saw the one standing without any unnatural movement, the other trembling in all her limbs; so that those who had not before seen the man himself saw in his sister what the divine compassion had removed from him. In him they saw matter of congratulation, in her subject for prayer. Meanwhile, their pamphlet being finished, I instructed them to withdraw from the gaze of the people; and I had begun to discuss the whole matter somewhat more carefully, when lo! as I was proceeding, other voices are heard from the tomb of the martyr, shouting new congratulations. My audience turned round, and began to run to the tomb. The young woman, when she had come down from the steps where she had been standing, went to pray at the holy relics, and no sooner had she touched the bars than she, in the same way as her brother, collapsed, as if falling asleep, and rose up cured. While, then, we were asking what had happened, and what occasioned this noise of joy, they came into the basilica where we were, leading her from the martyr’s tomb in perfect health. Then, indeed, such a shout of wonder rose from men and women together, that the exclamations and the tears seemed like never to come to an end. She was led to the place where she had a little before stood trembling. They now rejoiced that she was like her brother, as before they had mourned that she remained unlike him; and as they had not yet uttered their prayers in her behalf, they perceived that their intention of doing so had been speedily heard. They shouted God’s praises without words, but with such a noise that our ears could scarcely bear it. What was there in the hearts of these exultant people but the faith of Christ, for which Stephen had shed his blood?42

As Peter Brown has noted with regard to the discovery and translatio of martyrs’ relics in the ancient Christian world:

The discovery of a relic … was far more than an act of pious archaeology, and its transfer far more than a strange new form of Christian connoisseurship: both actions made plain, at a particular time and place, the immensity of God’s mercy. They announced moments of amnesty. They brought a sense of deliverance and pardon int >the present … A sense of the mercy of God lies at the root of the discovery, translation, and installation of relics. In such a mood, the relic itself may not have been as important as the invisible gesture of God’s forgiveness that had made it available in the first place; and so its power in the community was very much the condensation of the determination of that community to believe that it had been judged by God to have deserved the praesentia of the saint.43

Together with the saint’s praesentia via his or her relics comes the healing availability of the saint’s potentia at that very place and in that very basilica or shrine.44

It is during the fourth century that other categories of ‘saint’ will become added to the Church’s annual anniversary celebrations, and so begins what Lawrence Cunningham refers to as the ‘age of the ascetics and monks’.45 But even before them came the category of ‘confessors’, that is, those who had confessed the faith and been imprisoned and tortured and so given their ‘witness’, but had not become martyrs in the strict sense that the word had now come to mean. Nevertheless, as the addition of names like the non-martyrs but confessors Pontian and Hippolytus (whose names appear above on 13 August in the Chronograph of 354) and others were made to local lists of commemorations, the same liturgical and popular honours accorded to the martyrs themselves will now be given to them.46 In a sense, confessors become incorporated into the cult of saints as ‘martyrs by extension’.

The same is true of the ascetics and monks. That the theology of martyrdom still controlled the development of whom to commemorate is made clear by the fact that the ascetics themselves were viewed as embracing a new form of martyrdom, the martyrdom of mortification and self-denial. Philippe Rouillard summarizes this transition:

Since persecutions had ended, one could no longer be a martyr by shedding one’s blood, but one could be a martyr by practicing ascetism. Monks succeeded martyrs in their renunciation of the world, their resolve to follow Christ, and their battle against the powers of evil. They also succeeded martyrs in popular devotion. At the time of his death, St. Antony of Egypt ordered his disciples to hide his burial place to prevent the construction of a martyrium. A few bishops who had spent long years in monastic life were also part of this group; they owed their renown more to their asceticism than to their episcopal function. Such was the case with St Basil of Caesarea († 375) and his brother St Peter of Sebaste († 391), both venerated before 395, and in the West, St Martin of Tours († ca. 397), who became the object of cult immediately after his death.47

Within early Christianity, still within the fourth century, the same honours will be accorded to the various illustrious bishops and other leaders, intimately associated either with the apostolic foundations or the continued growth of various churches or with the fame of those churches and leaders throughout the world. And like the cult of the martyrs, so also the cult of these local bishops, along with their relics, will spread. As Rouillard notes, ‘about 380, Constantinople celebrated St Athanasius of Alexandria and St Cyprian of Carthage. Similarly, the anniversary of the deacon and martyr Vincent of Saragossa (304) was celebrated in the whole world.’48

Together with the depositio martyrum in the Chronograph of 354, our earliest calendars, which reflect the late fourth century, already show the development we have just noted with regard to confessors, ascetics and bishops. In fact, the Chronograph of 354 also includes a depositio episcoporum with death date, anniversary date, and burial location (see Table 19.2).

Table 19.2: Depositio episcoporum

26 December	Dionysius (in Callixtus)	(d. 268)
30 December	Felix (in Callixtus)	(d. 274)
31 December	Sylvester (in Priscilla)	(d. 335)
10 January	Miltiades (in Callixtus)	(d. 314)
15 January	Marcellinus (in Priscilla)	(d. 304)
4 March	Lucius (in Callixtus)	(d. 254)
22 April	Gaius (in Callixtus)	(d. 296)
2 August	Stephen (in Callixtus)	(d. 257)
21 October	Eusebius (in Callixtus)	(d. 310/311)
7 December	Eutychian (in Callixtus)	(d. 283)
7 October	Mark (in Balbina)	(d. 336)
12 April	Julius (on Via Aurelia, at the third milestone, in Callixtus)	(d. 352)50

Given this parallel construction with the depositio martyrum, even though these bishops are non-martyrs, Pierre Jounel is certainly correct here in suggesting ‘the difference between these two types of anniversaries must have been rather vague in practice’.49

Two other lists from roughly this time period need brief consideration. First, the fifth-century Armenian Lectionary, which we have encountered before in this study, provides us with an overview of a rudimentary sanctoral cycle urth-century Jerusalem (see Table 19.3), though certainly after t e of both Cyril of Jerusalem’s and his successor John’s episcopate th ince both of these bishops are included. In addition to these bishops and the monk Antony on 17 January, of significance also is that here we see the 15 August feast of Mary Theotokos, a commemoration of the emperors Constantine and Theodosius I, the 14 September feast of the Cross in connection with the anniversary of the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the listing of Old Testament figures (which will become common in the East but not the West), and, not least, the clustering of Stephen the Protomartyr and the apostles James and John together in late December, prior it should be noted to the acceptance of the 25 December date for Christmas. That is, if the feast of the Holy Innocents is related conceptually and chronologically to Christmas, those of Stephen and John are not.

Table 19.3: Armenian Lectionary sanctoral cycle

Date	Feast	Station	Type
6–13 January	Epiphany	(various)	commemoration
11 January	Peter and Abisolom		commemoration
17 January	Antony	Anastasis	commemoration
19 January	Theodosius	Anastasis
14 February	40th after Nativity	Martyrium	commemoration
9 March	40 Martyrs	St Stephen	commemoration
18 March	Cyril of Jerusalem		commemoration
29 March	John II of Jerusalem		commemoration
	Lent–Easter Week	(various)
1 May	Prophet Jeremiah	Anatoth	commemoration
7 May	Apparition of the Cross	Golgotha
9–18 May	Holy Innocents	Bethlehem
22 May	Constantine	Martyrium	commemoration
10 June	Prophet Zachariah		depositio
14 June	Prophet Elisha
2 July	Ark of Covenant	Kiriathiaram
6 July	Prophet Isaiah		depositio
1 August	Maccabees
15 August	Mary Theotokos	3rd mile from Bethlehem
23/24 August	Apostle Thomas	Bethphage
29 August	John the Baptist
13/14 September	Encaenia	Anastasis
14 September	Cross
15 November	Apostle Philip
30 November	Apostle Andrew
25 December	James and David	Sion
27 December	Stephen
28 December	Peter and Paul
29 December	Apostles James and Evangelist John51

Second, a similar cycle of feasts is present in Cappadocia in roughly the same time period (see Table 19.4). While no calendar actually exists for Cappadocia, Jill Burnett Comings’ study of the homilies of the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus)52 together with other documents, most notably the Syriac Martyrology of 41153 and the later so-called Hieronymian Martyrology,54 reveals that at least the feasts listed were celebrated there already in the late fourth century. In many cases, however, for Cappadocia specifically, the dates for the feasts must remain tentative. Nevertheless, we see some parallels with Jerusalem above, including the same clustering of the apostles in late December, and already Athanasius of Alexandria has an anniversary on 2 May, where he is still commemorated today both in East and West.

Table 19.4: Cappadocian sanctoral cycle

3 January	Gordius (martyr)
1 February (or 21 September or 22 July)	Phocas
9 March	40 Martyrs of Sebaste
26 March	Peter of Sebaste
2 May	Athanasius
8 June	Theodore
3 July (?)	Orestes (martyr)
	Euphemia (or 16 September, 16 May or 11 July)
15 July	Julitta
2 September (?)	Mamas (martyr)
7 September	Eupsychius (martyr)
29 September	Holy Martyrs
2 or 4 October	Cyprian (of Antioch?)
26 December	Stephen
27 December	James and John
28 December	Peter and Paul

Finally, although this goes somewhat beyond our time period, a calendar (see Table 19.5, page 194), based on the Chronograph of 354 and the so-called Hieronymian Martyrology, was reconstructed many years ago by Walter Frere55 in an attempt to provide a picture of the sanctorale in the West towards the end of the patristic period.56 While this should not be taken as exhaustive, it does still function as a helpful summary of the early development of what we have seen above, namely, a calendar of commemorations dominated by the martyrs but gradually expanding to include other ‘saints’ in the process, an expansion that will continue unabated at Rome until the attempts at calendar reform by Pope Gregory VII in the eleventh century.

Table 19.5: Walter Frere’s reconstructed Roman sanctorale

Date	Name	Date	Description	Place	Notes
14 Jan.	Felix	c. 260	no evidence of martyrdom	Nola
16	Marcellus	c. 309	pope, not martyr	Rome	D
20	Fabian	250	pope and martyr	Rome	T
	Sebastian	?	martyr	Rome	T
21, 28	Agnes	c. 304	martyr	Rome	CT
5 Feb.	Agatha	3rd cent.	martyr	Sicily	CDT
14	Valentine	?	martyr	?
14 April	Tiburtius, Valerian and Maximus	?	martyrs	Rome
28	Vitalis	?	martyr	Rome	D
1 May	Philip and James	1st cent.	apostles and martyrs	(biblical)	CT
12	Nereus and Achilleus	?	martyrs	Rome	T
	Pancras	304?	martyr	Rome	T
2 June	Peter and Marcellinus	c. 304	martyrs	Rome	CDT
18	Mark and Marcellian	?	martyrs	Rome
19	Gervasius and Protasius	?	martyrs	Milan	D
23, 24	John the Baptist	1st cent.	martyr	(biblical)	CT
26	John and Paul	?	martyrs	?	CD
28, 29, 30, 6 July	Peter and Paul	1st cent.	apostles and martyrs	(biblical)	CDT
10	The Seven Brothers	?	martyrs	Rome	C
21	Praxedis	?	?	?	D
30	Abdon and Sennen	?	martyrs	Rome
2 August	Stephen	1st cent.	protomartyr	(biblical)	CDT
	Stephen	255	pope and martyr	Rome
6	Sixtus, Felicissimus and Agapitus	258	martyrs	Rome	DT
8	Cyriacus	?	martyr	Rome	D
9, 10, 17	Lawrence	258	martyr	Rome	CDT
11	Tiburtius	?	martyr	Rome
	Susanna	?	martyr	Rome	D
13	Hippolytus	c. 235	martyr	Rome	C
18	Agapitus	?	martyr	Palestrina
28	Hermes	?	martyr	Rome
14 Sept.	Cornelius and	c. 258	pope and martyr	Rome	CT
	Cyprian		martyr	Carthage
16	Euphemia, Lucy and Geminian	?	martyrs	Chalcedon
29	Michael		Archangel		CT
7 Oct.	Mark	336	pope, not martyr	Rome	D
14	Callistus	c. 222	pope and martyr	Rome	T
1 Nov.	Caesarius	?	martyr	Terracina
8	The Four Crowned Ones	306?	martyrs	Rome	D
21	Cecilia	?	martyr	Rome	CDT
23	Clement	1st cent.	pope and martyr	Rome	CT
	Felicitas	?	martyr	Rome	C57
24	Chrysogonus	304?	martyr	Aquileia	CD
29	Saturninus	?	martyr	Rome
29, 30	Andrew	1st cent.	apostle and martyr	(biblical)	CT
13 Dec.	Lucy	304?	martyr	Syracuse	CT
27	John	1st cent.	apostle	(biblical)	CDT
28	The Holy Innocents	1st cent.	martyrs	(biblical)	T

C: named in the Roman canon

D: patron saint of one of the earliest Roman churches

T: still named in the Roman calendar today, though not necessarily on the same date

The liturgical and popular celebration of feasts in early Christianity was, in large part, the celebration of the feasts of the saints. As we have seen, the roots of these celebrations were as ancient as the celebration of Easter in most communities and the celebration of their local heroes generally appealed much more strongly to Christian congregations than some of the newer feasts that ecclesiastical authorities later attempted to introduce. In a very real sense, therefore, saints’ days rather than festivals of Christ tended to form the heart of the annual calendar for most ordinary worshippers and to excite their devotion and attendance at church and related events.

–––––––––––––––––––––

1 Adolph Adam, The Liturgical Year: Its History and Meaning after the Reform of the Liturgy (New York: Pueblo 1981), pp. 199–272; Pierre Jounel, ‘The Year’ in A. G. Martimort et al. (eds), The Church at Prayer 4 (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press 1986), pp. 108–29.

2 Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1981), pp. 12ff. See also Dennis Trout, ‘Saints, Identity, and the City’, and Kimberly Bowes, ‘Personal Devotions and Private Chapels’, in Vi Burrus (ed.), Late Ancient Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2005), pp. 165–87, 188–210.

3 Robert F. Taft, ‘The Order and Place of Lay Communion in the Late-Antique and Byzantine East’ in M. E. Johnson and L. E. Phillips (eds), Studia Liturgica Diversa: Essays in Honor of Paul F. Bradshaw (Portland: The Pastoral Press 2004), pp. 129–49, here at p. 130.

4 Ramsay MacMullen, The Second Church: Popular Christianity A.D. 200–400 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2009).

5 The standard collection of these Acts in Greek and Latin with English translation remains Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1972).

6 Candida Moss, The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom (New York/London: Oxford University Press 2010), passim.

7 Robin Darling Young, ‘Martyrdom as Exaltation’ in Burrus, Late Ancient Christianity, pp. 70–92, here at pp. 74–5.

8 The Martyrdom of Polycarp 18; ET from ANF 1, p. 43.

9 Moss, The Other Christs, pp. 196–7.

10 MacMullen, The Second Church, pp. 77ff.

11 Adam, The Liturgical Year, p. 241.

12 Cyprian, Ep. 33.3; ET from ANF 5, p. 312 (emphasis added).

13 Cyprian, Ep. 36.2; ET from ANF 5, p. 315 (emphasis added).

14 See above, p. 123.

15 Latin text in Theodore Mommsen, ‘Chronographus anni CCCLIIII’ in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctorum Antiquissimorum 9/1 (Berlin 1892 = Munich 1982), pp. 71–2.

16 Martyrdom of Polycarp 14–15; ET from ANF 1, p. 42.

17 Ignatius, Romans 2.2; ET from ANF 1, p. 74.

18 Ignatius, Romans 4.1–2 (ANF 1, p. 75).

19 Ignatius, Romans 7.3 (ANF 1, p. 77).

20 Robin Darling Young, In Procession before the World: Martyrdom as Public Liturgy in Early Christianity, The Père Marquette Lecture in Theology, 2001 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press 2001), pp. 11–12. For a similar approach, but focused on the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, see Frederick C. Klawiter, ‘The Eucharist and Sacramental Realism in the thought of St. Ignatius of Antioch’, SL 37 (2007), pp. 129–63.

21 See Albertus G. A. Horsting, ‘Transfiguration of Flesh: Literary and Theological Connections between Martyrdom Accounts and Eucharistic Prayers’ in Maxwell E. Johnson (ed.), Issues in Eucharistic Praying (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, forthcoming).

22 Cyrille Vogel, ‘Prière ou intercession? Une ambiguïté dans le culte paléochrétien des martyrs’, in Communio Sanctorum: Mélanges offerts à J.J. von Allmen (Geneva: Labor et Fides 1982), pp. 284–9; Robert Taft, ‘Prayer to or for the Saints? A Note on the Sanctoral Intercessions/Commemorations in the Anaphora’ in Ab Oriente et Occidente (Mt 8, 11): Kirche aus Ost und West: Gedankschrift für Wilhelm Nyssen (St Ottilien: Eos Verlag 1996), pp. 439–55. See also Michael Kunzler, ‘Insbesondere für unsere allheilige Herrin …’ in A. Heinz and H. Rennings (eds), Gratias Agamus: Studien zum eucharistischen Hochgebet (Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder 1992), pp. 227–40.

23 For text, see R. C. D. Jasper and G. J. Cuming (eds), Prayers of the Eucharist: Early and Reformed (3rd edn, New York: Pueblo 1987), pp. 133–4.

24 See Gabriele Winkler, Die Basilius-Anaphora, Anaphorae Orientales 2: Anaphoricae Armeniacae 2 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute 2005), pp. 250–1.

25 For text, see Jasper and Cuming, Prayers of the Eucharist, pp. 164–6.

26 Frederick C. Klawiter, ‘The Role of Martyrdom and Persecution in Developing the Priestly Authority of Women in Early Christianity: A Case Study of Montanism’, Church History 49 (1980), pp. 258–9. The text in question is Passio SS. Perpetuae et Felicitatis 12–13.

27 Klawiter, ‘The Role of Martyrdom and Persecution’, p. 259.

28 Klawiter, ‘The Role of Martyrdom and Persecution’, p. 259, n. 29 (emphasis added).

29 Origen, De oratione 14.6; ET from The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press 1979), pp. 111–12.

30 ET from Jasper and Cuming, Prayers of the Eucharist, p. 54.

31 Trout, ‘Saints, Identity, and the City’, p. 169.

32 This section is dependent upon G. J. C. Snoek, Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist (Leiden: Brill 1995), pp. 9–16. See also John Crook, The Architectural Setting of the Cult of the Saints in the Early Christian West (New York/London: Oxford University Press 2000); Victor Saxer, Morts, martyrs, reliques en Afrique chrétienne aux premiers siècles, Théologie Historique 55 (Paris: Beauchesne 1980).

33 Snoek, Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist, p. 9.

34 See MacMullen, The Second Church, pp. 28, 42–4; Crook, The Architectural Setting of the Cult of the Saints in the Early Christian West, pp. 14ff.

35 See Johan Leemans, Wendy Mayer, Pauline Allen and Boudewijn Dehandschutter, ‘Let Us Die That We May Live’: Greek Homilies on Christian Martyrs from Asia Minor, Palestine and Syria (c. AD 350-AD 450) (New York: Routledge 2003).

36 Adam, The Liturgical Year, p. 229.

37 See Thomas Talley, ‘The Feasts of All Saints’ in Thomas Talley, Worship: Reforming Tradition (Washington, DC: The Pastoral Press 1990), pp. 113–23.

38 Augustine, Confessions 6.2.

39 Ambrose of Milan, Ep. 22; ET from NPNF 2nd Series 10, pp. 437–8.

40 See Augustine, City of God 8.

41 On this, see Moss, The Other Christs, pp. 166–9; MacMullen, The Second Church, pp. 58–9, 108–9.

42 Augustine, City of God 22.8; ET from NPNF 1st Series 2, pp. 489–91.

43 Brown, The Cult of the Saints, p. 92.

44 See Brown, The Cult of the Saints, chs 5 and 6.

45 Lawrence Cunningham, A Brief History of Saints (Oxford: Blackwell 2005), p. 19.

46 See Jounel, ‘The Year’, p. 111.

47 Philippe Rouillard, ‘The Cult of the Saints in the East and the West’ in Anscar Chupungco (ed.), Handbook for Liturgical Studies 5 (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press 2000), p. 302.

48 Rouillard, ‘The Cult of the Saints in the East and the West’, p. 303.

49 Jounel, ‘The Year’, p. 113.

50 Latin text in Mommsen, ‘Chronographus anni CCCLIIII’, p. 70.

51 Adapted from Walter Ray, ‘August 15 and the Jerusalem Calendar’ (PhD dissertation, University of Notre Dame 2000), p. 3.

52 Jill Burnett Comings, Aspects of the Liturgical Year in Cappadocia (325–430), Patristic Studies 7 (New York: Lang 2005).

53 Bonaventura Mariani (ed.), Breviarium Syriacum, Rerum Ecclesiasticarum Documenta, Series minor, Subsidia studiorum 3 (Rome: Herder 1956), pp. 27–56.

54 H. Quentin (ed.), Les Martyrologes historiques du moyen âge (Aalen: Scientia Verlag 1969).

55 W. H. Frere, Studies in Early Roman Liturgy: I The Kalendar, ACC 28 (London: SPCK 1930).

56 The list itself in this form was constructed from Frere’s work by Michael Perham, The Communion of Saints, ACC 62 (London: SPCK 1980), pp. 18–19.

57 Although Frere did not list this Felicitas as part of the Roman Canon, it is probably this martyr and not the Felicity usually associated with Perpetua who is actually intended. On this, see V. L. Kennedy, The Saints of the Canon of the Mass, 2nd edn, Studi di Antichità Cristiana 14 (Vatican City: Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana 1963), pp. 98–100.