SEPTEMBER XI

SS. PROTUS AND HYACINTHUS, MARTYRS

THE saints whose victory the Church commemorates on this day are honored among the most illustrious martyrs that ennobled Rome with their blood, when the emperors of the world attempted, with the whole weight of their power, to crush the little flock of Christ. Their epitaph, among the works of pope Damasus, calls them brothers, and informs us, that Hyacinthus sustained the first conflict, but that Protus obtained his crown before him. They are said, in the Acts of St. Eugenia, to have been eunuchs and retainers to that virtuous lady and martyr, who is honored on the 25th of December. Their martyrdom, and that of Eugenia, is placed in these acts under Valerian, in 257, but the Liberian Calendar assures us, that St. Basilla, who seems to have been a companion of St. Eugenia, received her crown on the 22d of September, in the persecution of Dioclesian, in 304, and was buried on the Salarian Way. St. Avitus of Vienne, about the year 500, Fortunatus, and others, make mention of St. Eugenia among the most celebrated virgins and martyrs.1 The ancient calendar, drawn up in the pontificate of Liberius, mentions the festival of SS. Protus and Hyacinthus on the 11th of September, as celebrated at their tomb on the old Salarian Way, in the cemetery of Basilla, who lay buried at some distance. Her name ought rather to be written Bassilla, as it is in the Liberian Calendar; for it is derived from Bassus. This cemetery was afterward comprised under that of St. Priscilla, who was buried not far off on the new Salarian Way.2 Saints Protus and Hyacinthus are honored in the sacramentary of St. Gregory, in the ancient Martyrology, published by F. Fronto, and in those of Bede, Usuard, Vandelbert, &c. Pope Damasus, in 366, removed the earth which hid the tomb of these two martyrs from the view of the faithful; and, during his pontificate, a priest named Theodorus built over it a church, as appears from an ancient epitaph published by Baronius. Anastasius relates, that pope Symmachus afterward adorned it with plates and vessels of silver. Pope Clement VIII., in 1592, caused the sacred remains of SS. Protus and Hyacinthus to be removed from this church into the city, and to be deposited in the church of St. John Baptist, belonging to the Florentines; of which translation an account is given us by Sarazanius, an eye-witness, in his notes on the poems of pope Damasus. A considerable part of their relics was given to the Benedictin abbey at Mulinheim, now called Saligunstat (i. e. seat of the blessed), in the diocess of Mentz, in 829, as Eginhard and others relate; part to the church of St. Vincent at Metz, about the year 972, &c. See Perier the Bollandist, t. 2, Sept. p. 758. Pope Damasus’s poems, carm. 27, p. 74. Tillemont, Persecut. de Valerien, art. 6.

What words can we find sufficiently to extol the heroic virtue and invincible fortitude of the martyrs! They stood out against the fury of those tyrants whose arms had subdued the most distant nations; to whose yoke almost the whole known world was subject, and whose power both kings and people revered. They, standing alone, without any preparation of war, appeared undaunted in the presence of those proud conquerors, who seemed to think that the very earth ought to bend under their feet. Armed with virtue and divine grace, they were an over-match for all the powers of the world and hell; they fought with wild beasts, fires, and swords; with intrepidity and wonderful cheerfulness they braved the most cruel torments, and by humility, patience, meekness, and constancy, baffled all enemies, and triumphed over men and devils. How glorious was the victory of such an invincible virtue! Having before our eyes the examples of so many holy saints, are we yet so dastardly as to shrink under temptations, or to lose patience under the most ordinary trials?

ST. PAPHNUTIUS, B. C.

THE holy confessor Paphnutius was an Egyptian, and after having spent several years in the desert, under the direction of the great St. Antony, was made bishop in Upper Thebais. He was one of those confessors who, under the tyrant Maximin Daia, lost their right eye, and were afterwards sent to work in the mines. Sozomen and Theodoret add, that his left ham was cut; by which we are to understand that the sinews were cut so as to render the left leg entirely useless. Eusebius takes notice, that this punishment was inflicted on many Christians in that bloody reign. Peace being restored to the Church, Paphnutius returned to his flock, bearing all the rest of his life the glorious marks of his sufferings for the name of his crucified master. The Arian heresy being broached in Egypt, he was one of the most zealous in defending the Catholic faith, and for his eminent sanctity, and the glorious title of confessor (or one who had confessed the faith before the persecutors, and under torments), was highly considered in the great council of Nice. Constantine the Great, during the celebration of that synod, sometimes conferred privately with him in his palace, and never dismissed him without kissing respectfully the place where the eye he had lost for the faith was once situated.
The fathers of the council of Nice, in the third canon, strictly forbid all clergymen to entertain in their houses any women, except a mother, aunt, sister, or such as could leave no room for suspicion.* Socrates1 and Sozomen2 relate, that the bishops were for making a general law, forbidding all bishops, priests, deacons, and subdeacons, to live with wives whom they had married before their ordination; but that the confessor Paphnutius rose up in the midst of the assembly and opposed the motion, saying, that it was enough to conform to the ancient tradition of the Church, which forbade the clergy marrying after their ordination. These authors add, that the whole council came into his way of thinking, and made no new law on that point. On account of the silence of other writers, and on the testimonies of St. Jerom, St. Epiphanius, and others, Bellarmin and Orsi3 suspect that Socrates and Sozomen were misinformed in this story.* There is, however, nothing repugnant in the narration; for it might seem unadvisable to make too severe a law, at that time, against some married men, who, in certain obscure churches, might have been ordained without such a condition. St. Paphnutius remained always in a close union with St. Athanasius, and the other Catholic prelates. He and St. Potamon, bishop of Heraclea, with forty-seven other Egyptian bishops, accompanied their holy patriarch to the council of Tyre, in 335, where they found much the greater part of the members who composed that assembly to be professed Arians. Paphnutius seeing Maximus, bishop of Jerusalem, among them, and full of concern to find an orthodox prelate who had suffered in the late persecution, in such bad company, took him by the hand, led him out, and told him, he could not see that one who bore the same marks as he in defence of the faith, should be seduced and imposed upon by persons that were resolved to oppress the most strenuous asserter of its fundamental article. He then let him into the whole plot of the Arians, which, till that moment, had been a secret to the good bishop of Jerusalem, who by this means was put upon his guard against the crafty insinuations of hypocrites, and fixed forever in the communion of St. Athanasius. We have no particular account of the death of St. Paphnutius; but his name stands in the Roman Martyrology on the 11th of September. See Stilting, p. 778.

SAINT PATIENS, ARCHBISHOP OF LYONS, C.

GOD, by an admirable effect of his holy providence, was pleased to raise up this holy prelate for the comfort and support of his servants in Gaul, under the calamities with which that country was afflicted during great part of the fifth century. For his extraordinary virtues he was placed in the archiepiscopal chair of Lyons some time before the year 470: many think soon after the death of St. Eucherius in 450.1 By the dignity of his see he was metropolitan of the province called the Second of Lyons; but he diffused the effects of his boundless charity over all the provinces of Gaul. Providence wonderfully multiplied his revenues in his hands, to furnish him with abundant supplies to build a great number of rich and stately churches, to repair, adorn, and embellish many old ones, and to feed the poor in the greatest part of the towns in Gaul, as Apollinaris Sidonius assures us.2 That illustrious contemporary prelate and friend of our saint declares, that he knew not which to admire and praise more in him, his zeal for the divine honor or his charity for the poor. By his pastoral solicitude and assiduous sermons many heretics were converted to the faith, and the Catholic Church every day enlarged its pale. A great field was opened to the holy prelate for the exercise of his zeal; for the Burgundians, who were at that time masters of the city of Lyons, were a brutish and savage nation, and infected with the heresies of the Arians and Photinians. St. Patiens found the secret first to gain their hearts, and afterward to open their understandings, convince them of the truth, and draw them out of the abyss of their errors.
The forty-eighth sermon among those attributed to Eusebius of Emisa, which is ascribed by the learned to our saint, is a confutation of the Photinian and Arian heresies.* By order of St. Patiens, Constantius, a priest among his clergy, wrote the life of St. Germanus of Auxerre, which work he dedicated to our saint, and to Censurius of Auxerre. All pastoral virtues shone in an eminent degree in this apostolic bishop, says St. Apollinaris Sidonius. Like another Ambrose, he knew how to join severity with compassion, and activity with prudence and discretion. He seems to have died about the year 480.3 His name is honored on the 11th of September in the Roman Martyrology. See Apollinaris Sidonius, Tillemont, Dom. Rivet, Hist. Littér. de la France, t. 2, p. 504.

Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 3, pp. 641–644). New York: P. J. Kenedy.