Aurelianus
Acta Sanctorum, May 22
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://actasanctorum.org/may/day-22/aurelianus.html
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ON ST. AURELIANUS,

ROMAN MARTYR, TRANSLATED TO PAVIA.

UNDER THE EMPEROR DECIUS.

CRITICAL COMMENTARY.

In which is set forth and weighed a compendium of the Acts, imprudently woven concerning him.

Aurelianus, Roman Martyr, translated to Pavia (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

[1] Ferrarius in the general Catalogue at the second day
of February in the first place celebrates S.
Aurelianus, Martyr at Rome under
Decius. [Sacred memory.] Then in the Notes he cites Galesinius,
who calls him Laurelianus. But in the Tables
of the Church of Pavia, which has his body, and venerates
him on May XXII, he is named Aurelianus. Concerning him
James Gualla in the Sanctuary of the Church of Pavia,
and Stephen Breventanus in the History of the same city
book 3, nay 4, as will be cited below. These things there Ferrarius: who
again at this XXII of May recalls S. Aurelianus the Martyr
under Decius, and ascribes him to Pavia, and it is noted from
the Tables of the Church of Pavia, that he suffered at Rome and his Body
was translated to Pavia. [Gualla writes of him.] The same Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints
of Italy published a certain elogium of his martyrdom, from James
Gualla book 3 of the Sanctuary chapter 9. To which although we think no great
faith is to be given, yet we here give it, that
the reader may by himself be able to estimate the fairness of our judgment concerning it.

[2] Aurelianus the renowned Martyr, while Decius the Emperor
was reigning (when at Rome so savage a persecution raged against
the Christians, [that, rebuking the idolaters, he was seized:] that those confessing Christ either
were beheaded with the sword, or were burned with fire,
or were handed over to be torn by beasts, or were sent into
the mine) with a little son, by name Maximus, religiously
brought up, who afterward, crowned with martyrdom together with him,
is received into heaven, finding a great
multitude of men who worshiped foul idols, began to cry out:
O foolish and blind men, why do ye sacrifice to stone gods, dumb and
deaf, than whom ye yourselves are far better?
Whereupon at once, by the command of the Prefect Hilas, he is seized,
and is dragged to worship the images of the idols. But Aurelianus,
most steadfast in the faith, cries out: Your idols
I do not worship: I adore only Christ the immortal true
God, whom I serve. Then the Prefect: Unless
thou shalt worship our Gods with us, thou shalt be subjected to dire tortures.
And while all were bending their knees to the idols, Aurelianus
prayed thus to heaven with a loud voice, weeping:
God almighty, Creator of heaven and earth and of all things,
as Thou hast said: If ye shall have faith and shall say to the mountain,
that it should transfer itself from one place to another, so
shall it be done; over these and their gods show Thy power,
that they may understand Thee alone the true God, immortal
and to be feared. [Matt. 17, 19.] [that by prayer he transferred the idols:] But when his little son
had answered, Amen; at once those images of the idols
were miraculously carried to another place, with the head
turned to the ground and the feet on high. But Hilas
the Prefect, who by the manifest judgment of God grew wholly stiff,
and could not move himself, cries out: Aurelianus, servant
of God, if I shall be freed by thy prayer, I adore Christ.
He being freed by the prayer of Aurelianus, more rabid
he threatens Aurelianus, that, unless he restore his gods to their former
place, he shall perish by dire torments. To whom
the man of God: If thy gods have helped thee, let them go where they will on their own
feet. Then the Prefect sent him bound to Decius:
and on the way he freed a certain matron from an incurable
disease: [he healed a sick woman,] who afterward with all her household was converted to
the faith.

[3] But being led to Decius, while he despised
the worship of the Gods, and called Decius foolish,
because he worshiped stone and wooden gods; he is beaten with great
torments: yet joyful, invoking the divine
aid, he prayed thus: God, attend unto my help:
O Lord, make haste to help me. [the daughter of the Emperor Decius is freed from a demon,] Meanwhile
the daughter of Decius, gnashing her teeth, is vexed by a demon often
crying out: Only by the command of Aurelianus the servant of God
shall I be compelled to depart: another can in no wise drive me out.
Which Decius seeing says to Aurelianus: If thou shalt
free my daughter, I will exalt thee with great honors and
riches. But he: Why do thy gods not free her? But
if I shall free her, wilt thou believe in Christ the omnipotent
God? I will believe, says Decius. To him Aurelianus:
Great is the perfidy of thy hardened heart: nevertheless
that I may make whole this people standing by, and
that they may see the wonders of God, and believe; behold in the name of Christ
I free her. She being freed, the people cry out:
True and great is the God of Aurelianus. But the perfidious
Decius himself asserted that these things were done by magic art: and orders
Aurelianus to be beheaded with a bloody sword, unless he worship his gods.
Aurelianus says, Lead me to them. [and the idols being destroyed] To whom
when he had drawn near, they all fell down before his feet,
and vanished into dust. Then Decius, kindled with fury,
caused the tongue of the man of God to be cut off: who nevertheless
spoke as before. To whom the daughter of Decius hastening,
who had been possessed by a demon, was made a Christian.

[4] [his tongue cut off, he spoke:] At last when Aurelianus had declared that he could not
die, unless he were beheaded, by command of Decius he is led
to the Capitol, and with his little son Maximus
is slaughtered by the bloody slaughter of the sword. Whose soul indeed
seemed to go forth from the body in the likeness of a white dove. [that he was beheaded with S. Maximus his son.]
For their bodies were devoutly buried by the faithful weeping together.
At Rome, in the crypt of Callistus
outside the city at the third milestone, while the above-mentioned
impious Decius was reigning, with Hylla and Gelascus as Consuls,
on the second day of February. [the body translated to Pavia,] Afterward the venerable body
of the same Aurelianus was translated to Ticinum, and
laid in the oratory of the sacred Virgins of the monastery
of Senator, by the most illustrious Duke Senator:
and there it is now venerated, to the praise of the eternal
King Jesus Christ the blessed: to whom be praise, honor, and
glory forever.

[5] Thus far James Gualla, a man esteemed in his time for singular
learning and virtue, and who died in the year
MDV, who declares that he wrote the Sanctuary of Pavia according to
sacred histories, left in a very ancient writing, and thence
took the clear truth. [it is kept in the Benedictine monastery.] The same things are extant in Italian
in Stephen Breventanus book 4 of the History of Pavia
printed in the year MDLXX chapter 3. He says the aforesaid oratory
of the sacred Virgins is of the Benedictine Order, but
that monastery is called of Senator from a certain Senator
its founder, and that the Body of S. Aurelianus
was translated from Rome to Pavia by a certain Roman
Senator. Another sufficiently accurate compendium is read in
the above-indicated Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy,
published about the year MDCXIII. And those indeed in good
faith are to be believed to have transcribed the Passion, such as they had found
among the Nuns. This however does not suffice for us,
to believe [where the Acts seem first to have been composed] that its first Author, whom it is allowable to presume
to have been one of the Confessors of that monastery, really
had any more ancient Acts, brought together with the sacred body:
but rather, by the excessive simplicity of the middle age, thinking such things
not unlawfully feigned, for the incitement of public devotion,
that he wrote at his own discretion what he believed could be read with some
appearance of truth.

[6] He could not divine that the Fasti of the ancient
Consuls would one day come forth, most certainly to teach who in what years
held that Magistracy; otherwise he would have known to act more
cautiously, and would rather have named no Consuls, than
Hylla and Gelasius; who, since they never existed,
much less under the Emperor Decius, make manifest the
imposture of the author's invention. The same I believe the catalogue
of the Prefects of the City would do, if that which alone we now have edited by
Bucherius, [Consuls being imprudently added,] beginning from Lollianus (who under Valerian II and
Gallienus as Consuls, that is in the year of the common era CCLIV, was Prefect of the City)
were begun six years earlier, doubtless giving another Prefect
of the City, than Hilas here named.
But as out of his own brain he feigned those, so he could also at
his pleasure have chosen Decius, under whom he might bid
Aurelianus be believed to have suffered; and the very torments endured and miracles wrought,
such as he had perhaps read in the Passions of other Martyrs,
with the prodigy of the soul flying forth from the body under the appearance of a
dove. And because he had read in the Martyrology of Ado or Notker,
at October XVIII concerning S. Triphonia the wife of Decius
Caesar, with Cyrilla the daughter of Decius, baptized by Justin the Presbyter;
he could thence have taken occasion of introducing
some daughter of Decius, who was freed by Aurelianus.
More easily shall I believe, that this holy body was extracted from
the cemetery of Callistus: for such, and almost no other notice,
is wont to be transmitted with the sacred bodies from Rome. Thence however
it does not follow that Aurelianus first suffered after the times of Decius:
because Callistus the Pope was not the founder, but only
the restorer of the said cemetery; if indeed there were anciently
buried, and not afterward translated thither, SS. Anicetus
and Soter the Roman Pontiffs, as is said at their
Acts April XVIII and XXII.

[7] [Cult January 31 and February 2.] On the XXXI day of January is referred in Greven or the Carthusians
of Cologne in the Auctarium of Usuard S. Aurelianus
the Martyr: and we suspected him to be the same of whom we here treat:
certainly it was not worth our while, from so slight and recent
an indication, to make then a special memory of him as of a different one.
Also on the second day of February, on which he is here said to have suffered,
besides Ferrarius and Galesinius mentioned above, he is mentioned
by Felicius, and by him who published Usuard more fully at Paris
in the year MDXXXIII, as we then said at the Passed Over and
deferred to other days. But on no day do we find any memory
of S. Maximus the little boy, son of S. Aurelianus, of whom so
celebrated a mention is made above in the Acts: yet we should have set him in the title,
as to be commemorated this day with his father,
if either at Pavia or elsewhere there were kept Relics, under that name
translated from Rome. Now, because his whole history is to us
suspect of gratuitous fiction, we dare not under that name, as
of a true Martyr, increase the number of the Saints of this day.
