Claudius the Martyr
Acta Sanctorum, May 14
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://actasanctorum.org/may/day-14/claudius-the-martyr.html
----------------------------------------

ON S. CLAUDIUS THE MARTYR
TRANSLATED FROM ROME TO ANTWERP.

[Commentary]

Claudius, Martyr, translated from Rome to Antwerp (S.)

D. P.

[The body with the body of S. Pontianus the Martyr] The temple of our Society at Antwerp, in the year
MDCLV, was augmented with notable splendor;
the walls surrounding it, in the part where, from
the cabinet-maker's work above the confessionals, they were bare
up to the first paneling,
being clothed with white and black marble; which, at certain intervals
receding inward, displays fourteen thrones, destined to receive
as many bodies of Saints. On the
day therefore the XXV of July a solemn procession through the city was instituted,
which from the Cathedral temple into ours brought thirteen reliquaries,
to be described elsewhere more opportunely. There was still vacant
the fourteenth place; which observing, R. P. William
de Wael, before twice Provost of this Flanders-Belgian Province,
from whom we had not so long before received the body of S. Pontianus the Roman Martyr,
wished to complete his benefit,
and to adjoin to the rest the body of S. Claudius which in the year MDCL likewise
he had received from Rome. [extracted in the year 1650 from the Cemetery of Calepodius] Both had been sent by the Procurator of the German
Assistancy, P. Lawrence Koler, obtained
from the most Illustrious Vicegerent of Innocent X the Roman Pontiff,
Alexander Bishop of Aletrium, who testified that he had extracted them from the Cemetery of Calepodius,
by letters signed the IX of September.
These when again the most Illustrious Bishop
of Antwerp Fr. Ambrose Capello had seen, just as on the XXX day of April
of the said year MDCLV he had judged the sacred bones of S. Pontianus
to be of a true Martyr, and so by all to be venerated;
as will be said on the XIX of July; so in the following year, on the day

XXIII of June he approved those things which, under the name of S. Claudius, [translated in 1656.]
duly sealed, had been exhibited to him; decreeing that his Translation
should be observed among us yearly on the IV Sunday after Easter;
and proposing forty days' Indulgences to all,
who on such a day, visiting the said church, should pray in it.
But since the aforesaid Sunday, in the very year in which we received that treasure,
MDCLVI, had fallen on this XIV of May,
it pleased to affix the memory of this translation in our domestic
Heortologium to such a day, by which the Priests might be admonished,
to recur to one of the immediately preceding or following
Sundays for celebrating the feast of this Martyr.
