OCTOBER XXX
ST. MARCELLUS THE CENTURION, MARTYR
From the authentic acts of his martyrdom in Baronius and Surius, and most correctly in Ruinart, who has published with them the short acts of St. Cassian, p. 312; Tillem. t. 4, p. 575.
A. D. 298.
THE birthday of the emperor Maximian Herculeus was celebrated in the year 298, with extraordinary feasting and solemnity. Pompous sacrifices to the Roman gods made a considerable part of this solemnity. Marcellus, a Christian centurion or captain in the legion of Trajan, then posted in Spain, not to define himself with taking part in those impious abominations, cast away his military belt at the head of his company, declaring aloud that he was a soldier of Jesus Christ, the eternal King. He also threw down his arms and the vine-branch, which was the mark of his post of centurion; for the Roman officers were forbid to strike a soldier with any instrument except a vine-branch, which the centurions usually carried in their hands. The soldiers informed Anastasius Fortunatus, prefect of the legion, by whose order Marcellus was committed to prison. When the festival was over, this judge ordered Marcellus to be brought before him, and asked him what he meant by his late proceedings. Marcellus said, “When you celebrated the emperor’s festival on the 12th before the calends of August, (the day on which Maximian had been declared Csar,) I said aloud that I was a Christian, and could serve no other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Fortunatus told him that it was not in his power to connive at his rashness, and that he was obliged to lay his case before the emperor Maximian and Constantius Csar. Spain was immediately subject to Constantius, who was at that time Csar, and most favorable to the Christians. But Marcellus was sent under a strong guard to Aurelian Agricolaus, vicar to the prefect of the prtorium, who was then at Tangier, in Africa. Agricolaus asked him whether he had really done as the judge’s letter set forth: and, upon his confessing the fact, the vicar passed sentence of death upon him for desertion and impiety, as he called his action. St. Marcellus was forthwith led to execution and beheaded, on the 30th of October. His relics were afterwards translated from Tangier to Leon in Spain, and are kept in a rich shrine in the chief parish church in that city, of which he is the titular saint.
Cassian, the secretary or notary of the court, refused to write the sentence which the vicar pronounced against the martyr, and threw his pencil and table-book on the ground. Agricolaus, rising in a rage from his seat, asked him why he behaved in that manner. “Because,” said Cassian, “the sentence which you have dictated is unjust.” He was immediately hurried to prison, and examined again about a month after. The firmness with which he defended his former answer procured him the crown of martyrdom. He was beheaded on the 3d of December. These two martyrs are mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on their respective days.
We justly honor the martyrs, whom God himself honors. Martyrdom is the most heroic act of divine love, and the most perfect and entire sacrifice man can make of himself to God. Of all the goods of this life, man has nothing more precious and dear than his life and honor. And what stronger proof can he give of his fidelity to the law of God than to embrace with joy an ignominious and cruel death rather than consent to sin? Nor does any thing require a more heroic degree of courage and firmness than to suffer torments at the very thought of which nature shudders. God proportions his rewards and crowns to the measure of our sufferings and love for him. How great, then, is the glory, how abundant the recompence which attends the martyrs! They rejoiced to see their torments redoubled manifold, because they had before their eyes the incomparably greater increase of grace, divine love, and eternal glory. If we shrink under the least sufferings, it is plain our faith and our idea of everlasting bliss must be very weak, and our love faint and imperfect.
ST. GERMANUS, BISHOP OF CAPUA, C.
THIS holy prelate was sent by pope Hormisdas legate to the emperor Justin, in 519, to engage the Orientals to put an end to the schism which had continued forty years; had been fomented by the emperors Zeno and Anastasius, both favorers of heretics, and by Acacius and other patriarchs of Constantinople. The embassy was attended with the desired success, the heretics were condemned, and the schism entirely abolished. In it St. Germanus and his fellow legates suffered much from the heretics, but escaped out of their hands. St. Gregory the Great relates that this saint saw Paschasius, the deacon of Rome, long after his death, in the flames of purgatory, for having adhered to the schism of Laurence against Symmachus,* and that he was delivered by the prayers of this holy bishop.1 Also that St. Bennet at Mount Cassino saw in a vision the soul of St. Germanus, at the hour of his departure, carried by the ministry of angels to eternal bliss.2 His death happened about the year 540. See Baron. ad ann. 519, &c.; St. Greg. Dial. l. 2, et 4.
ST. ASTERIUS, BISHOP OF AMASEA IN PONTUS
FATHER OF THE CHURCH.
WE learn from the writings of this holy prelate that, in his youth, he applied himself to the study of eloquence and the law, and pleaded for some time at the bar. But the love of God ceased not to raise an interior voice in his soul which seemed continually to exhort him to devote himself wholly to the spiritual service of his neighbor. In obedience to this call he renounced his profession and preferments in the world, and entered himself among the clergy. Upon the death of Eulalius, archbishop of Amasea, he was unanimously placed in that metropolitical see. Always zealous for the purity of the Catholic faith, he taught its most holy maxims, and labored assiduously to inspire his flock with its perfect spirit. He appeared in the midst of his people as a vessel filled with that spirit, and communicating the same from the overflowing fulness of his own heart, as St. Gregory describes the good pastor. For it is a vain and foolish presumption and a scandalous profanation for a man to set up for a doctor of penance, patience, humility and holy charity, who is himself a stranger to those virtues. St. Asterius in his sermons recommends alms-deeds with an energy which shows charity to the poor to be his favorite virtue. Avarice, luxury, and all other vices he paints in colors which set their deformity in a true light, and inspire men with abhorrence. He lived to a very advanced age; speaks of the persecution of Julian as an eye-witness,1 and survived the year 400. For, in his sermon against the calends, which he preached on New-Year’s day, he says that Eutropius was consul the foregoing year, which was in 399. He loudly exerts his zeal against the riots of that day, derived from paganism, and declaims against the noise and tumultuous wishes of a happy new year from door to door, in which idle employ many lose that time which they ought rather to employ in dedicating to God the first-fruits of the year by prayer. He says that the church then kept the feasts of Christ’s birth, resurrection, and epiphany, or of lights; likewise the feasts of martyrs. But asks, “What is the festival which Christians keep on the calends and in riots?” The ancients style St. Asterius blessed, and a divine doctor who, as a bright star, diffused his light upon all hearts.2
We have extant several sermons of St. Asterius,* which, though few, are an immortal monument of his masterly eloquence and genius no less than of his piety. His reflections are just and solid, and the __EXPRESSION__ natural, elegant, and animated; he abounds in lively images and descriptions both of persons and things, which he always beautifies by masterly strokes. In these he discovers a great strength of imagination, and a commanding genius, and moves the inmost springs of the soul. His homily on Daniel and Susanna is a masterpiece. In that on SS. Peter and Paul he teaches and often repeats the prerogative of jurisdiction which St. Peter received over all Christians from the East to the West: and says that Christ made him his vicar, and left him the father, pastor, and master of all those who should embrace the faith.3 In his panegyric of St. Phocas, the martyr at Sinope,4 he established manifestly the invocation of saints, the honoring of their relics, pilgrimages to pray before them, and miracles wrought by them.5 In the following sermon, On the Holy Martyrs, he says, “We keep through every age their bodies decently enshrined, as most precious pledges; vessels of benediction, the organs of their blessed souls, the tabernacles of their holy minds. We put ourselves under their protection. The martyrs defend the church, as soldiers guard a citadel. The people flock in crowds from all quarters, and keep great festivals to honor their tombs. All who labor under the heavy load of afflictions fly to them for refuge. We employ them as intercessors in our prayers and suffrages. In these refuges the hardships of poverty are eased, diseases cured, the threats of princes appeased. A parent, taking a sick child in his arms, postpones physicians, and runs to some one of the martyrs, offering by him his prayer to the Lord, and addressing him whom he employs for his mediator in such word as these. You who have suffered for Christ, intercede for one who suffers by sickness. By that great power and confidence you have, offer a prayer in behalf of fellow-servants. Though you are now removed from us, you know what men on earth feel in their sufferings and diseases. You formerly prayed to martyrs, before you was yourself a martyr. You then obtained your request by asking; now you are possessed of what you asked, in your turn assist me. By your crown ask what may be our advancement. If another is going to be married, he begins his undertaking by soliciting the prayers of the martyrs. Who, putting to sea, weighs anchor before he has invoked the Lord of the sea by the martyrs?”6 The saint describes with what magnificence and concourse of people the feasts of martyrs were celebrated over the whole world. He says, the Gentiles and the Eunomian heretics, whom he calls New Jews, condemned the honors paid to martyrs, and their relics; to whom he answers: “We by no means adore the martyrs, but we honor them as the true adorers of God. We lay their bodies in rich shrines and sepulchres, and erect stately tabernacles of their repose, that we may be stirred up to an emulation of their honors. Nor is our devotion to them without its recompense; for we enjoy their patronage with God,” &c. He says the New Jews, or Eunomians, do not honor the martyrs, because they blaspheme the King of martyrs, making Christ unequal to his Father. He tells them that they ought at least to respect the voice of the devils, who are forced to confess the power of the martyrs. “Those,” says he, “whom we have seen bark like dogs, and who were seized with phrensy, and are now come to their senses, prove by their cure how effectual the intercession of martyrs is.” He closes this sermon with a devout and confident address to the martyrs. See Photius, Biblioth. Cod. 271; St. Austerius’s fourteen homilies, published by F. Combefis, in Auctar. Bibl. Patr. t. 1, p. 1, with extracts from several others in Photius, loc. cit., and seven homilies on the Psalms, published by Cotelier, Mon. Grc. vol. 2, p. 1. See also Tillem. t. 10; Du Pin, vol. 3, p. 53; Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. l. 5, c. 28, NAK 8, vol. 8, p. 607; Oudin, t. 1, p. 892; Ceillier, &c.
BUTLER, A., The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (New York 1903) IV, 312-315.
OCTOBER XXX ST. MARCELLUS THE CENTURION, MARTYR 
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