J. Patout Burns
Version: 12 June 1998
The cult of the martyrs in Roman Africa is attested in the literary evidence in the second century by the Acts of the martyrs of Scillium;(1) indeed the genre is so well established that Perpetua provided a first-person account of the witness of her group of companions at the beginning of the third century.(2) These texts must certainly have had some commemorative function and been used in a liturgical context. We do not know more, however, about the rituals of the cult.
Tertullian provides evidence that the faithful sought specific spiritual favors from the martyrs. In de pudicitia, he objected to the claims that the martyrs have the power to win the forgiveness of sins committed directly against God, sins such as idolatry and murder, which are thought to be beyond the power of the church.(3) He provides no evidence of appeals to the intercessory power of the martyrs to obtain other favors, such as healings.
In Cyprian's day, the practice of the cult can be delineated more fully. Cyprian, for example, is able to name the martyr progenitors of the confessor Celerinus.(4) He instructed his clergy to carefully note the days of death of the martyrs, so that they might be commemorated annually.(5) Some stories of wonders performed by the martyrs, such as the prophecy of victory by Mappalicus, are recorded in Cyprian's letters.(6) As Graeme Clarke has pointed out, he made provision for the circulation of the narrative of his own confession.(7) We may suspect that he made similar arrangements for the events of his second trial and martyrdom to be recorded and published.(8) Although Cyprian was careful to secure the proper burial of the martyrs, his correspondence betrays no interest in the veneration of their bodies or the elaboration of their grave sites.(9) His own practice of treating the martyrs like the ordinary dead, by celebrating the eucharist and praying for them, was perhaps part of his polemic against their special authority.(10)
The popular cult of confessors and martyrs presented a major obstacle to Cyprian and his clergy. The first group of confessors to be released from prison apparently believed that their salvation had been secured by confessing Christ before the authorities. They violated the most basic moral standards of the community and could be finally reined in only through the combined forces of the clergy and their fellow confessors.(11) More dangerous still were the martyrs who had promised to win the forgiveness of the sin of idolatry. The faithful firmly believed that the martyrs ascended immediately into the presence of Christ and could win from him the pardon of any sin not only for themselves but for any they had promised to patronize.(12) Once the death of the martyr had validated the letters of peace the penitents sought readmission to communion without going through the onerous process of public penance. The popular belief in the intercessory power of the martyrs was so firmly established that the bishops had to compromise on the issue.(13) Indeed, the Novatianist church which firmly rejected the authority of the martyrs to forgive sins never established itself in Africa. Cyprian recognized the power of martyrs to intercede for sinners but assigned that pleading to the final judgment upon Christ's return in glory.(14) Thus the martyrs were excluded from influencing the decisions of the bishops and their churches; the lapsed were required to submit to penance in order to be readmitted to the communion of the church, itself a condition for appearing before the tribunal of Christ.(15)
At the beginning of the fourth century, evidence may be found for both burial next to the tomb of a martyr and for the use of pieces of their bodies as cult objects.(16) The famous altercation between Caecilian and Lucilla over the bone of the martyr which she kissed before taking the eucharist may have been focused on the authenticity of the martyr rather than the practice of venerating the relic itself.(17) By the end of the century, however, the cult of the bodies of the martyrs had attracted imperial displeasure. A letter of 381 forbade burials within the city of Rome at the tombs of the apostles and martyrs.(18) Five years later, an imperial directive forbade the division and selling of the bodies of martyrs, even as it allowed additions to tombs already in place at the martyria to accommodate fresh burials.(19) In 401, Augustine criticized vagabond monks of trading in pieces of the bodies of martyrs(20). The purpose of such veneration, however, remains uncertain.
The Donatists had taken a particular interest in the cult and even imitation of the martyrs, making this heritage a characteristic of their communion. Augustine reported that signs and wonders were performed at the tombs of Donatus and Pontius; he did not question the evidence itself but denied that it proved the justice of the Donatist cause.(21) Augustine also reported that the Donatists venerated their adherents who died in armed resistance against the imperial power and even those who caused their own deaths by jumping from precipices.(22) Their bodies were venerated at shrines spread throughout the countryside which the Catholic bishops were powerless to suppress, or even to prevent their own faithful frequenting.(23) This same spirit of witness to Christ by resistance to the imperial power may have motivated the threat of Gaudentius of Timgad to incinerate himself and his congregation rather than turn over his basilica to the Catholics, as required by the imperial decision.(24)
The cult of the martyrs by the Catholic communion, as the fifth century opened, also remained focused on their religious value. The celebrations themselves, however, had grown increasingly elaborate. Augustine complained regularly of the amount of eating and drinking by which the faithful feted--or as he preferred, persecuted--the martyrs.(25) The vigil of Cyprian at Carthage was apparently notorious for his carnival like atmosphere: drinking, dancing, lewd songs, and all in the presence of the body of the martyr.(26) Aurelius finally stepped in to suppress the celebration and, after a tumult, replace it with a three-hour vigil of prayers, hymns and preaching.(27) The more ordinary martyrs had their feasts celebrated by the celebration of the eucharist--at their shrines if there were in the locale(28)--with the reading of their acta, appropriate scriptural passages, and a sermon commending their exploits.(29) The names of the martyrs were regularly recited as part of the eucharistic prayer but separated from the ordinary dead to make it clear that the church was seeking their intercession rather than presuming to pray for their salvation.(30) We have no indication of the selection of names used on a regular basis.
Augustine's many sermons on the feasts of the martyrs reflect both popular interests and the concerns of the pastor.(31) Appealing to that desire to imitate the martyrs which was operative among the Donatists, Augustine suggested ways in which the opportunity for a public witness to Christ was still available. In certain instances, particularly in preaching on Cyprian, Vincent and Stephen, Augustine elaborated the narrative of the martyrdom to bring out contemporary parallels. Cyprian had withdrawn rather than provoke his arrest but he had not hesitated to speak out against the idols.(32) Stephen first stood to commend his spirit to Christ and then knelt to intercede for the forgiveness of his persecutors. The growing rage of Vincent's judge clearly indicated the demonic spirit which was being frustrated in him and thus proclaimed the martyr's victory.(33) These narratives, Augustine asserted, served as spectacles for the Christians, ones in which they could hope to emulate the performers.(34) While every movement of passion offered the Christian the opportunity to engage and overcome the devil, certain public temptations provided a chance to testify as the martyrs had.(35) Like Cyprian challenging the idols, contemporary Catholics could criticize the false martyrdoms of the Donatist and perhaps suffer the consequences.(36) When the traditional polytheists mocked Christian converts by describing the church as an assembly of old ladies, the faithful should rise to their defense rather than slinking off in gratitude that the abuse was not directed at them.(37) When a friend offered an amulet or charm against illness, the true Christian should proclaim a willingness to die rather than to retain life and health through recourse to demons.(38) Finally, he reminded his hearers that each of the martyrs had struggled silently against fear and temptation within before the public triumph.(39) That battle and victory could be faced each day by every Christian.
To strengthen his flock, Augustine observed that some of the martyrs were of the social classes from whom heroic action was not ordinarily expected: uneducated country people, women and young boys. These could serve as models for those who considered Christ and the great men of the faith beyond their horizon of emulation.(40) In guarding against Pelagian appeals to the martyrs as evidence for the strength of human nature and the achievements of free choice, Augustine asserted that the divine assistance by which the martyrs had triumphed was itself available to every Christian. The feats of the martyrs were within the grasp of all.(41)
Throughout the second decade of the fifth century, the Catholic Christians in Africa did not seek miracles and healings at the shrines of the martyrs.(42) Augustine, for example, did not know an African saint who could be counted on to prevent a false oath or make a demon declare itself, as Felix could at Nola.(43) The Africans, he remarked, did not cultivate the deacon Lawrence, who could be counted on to deliver temporal favors at his shrine in Rome.(44) Nor might the Africans have been surprised that Peter and Paul did not protect the city of Rome from the Goths just because their bodies were venerated there.(45) When, moreover, Augustine urged the faithful to witness to Christ by refusing to use demonic charms and remedies, he did not suggest recourse to their own martyrs as an alternative profession of faith.(46) The introduction of the relics of Stephen into Africa in 418 changed the Catholic attitude dramatically. Unlike the African martyrs, Stephen had the power to win bodily healing for his supplicants.
The relics of Stephen were discovered in Palestine in December 415. A friend who participated in the translation of the remains to Jerusalem commissioned Paul Orosius to deliver some small fragments of bone, dried blood and dust from the saint's flesh to his own bishop in Spain. Thanks to the Vandal invasions of Spain, which prevented Paul's return, the relics ended up on Minorca and at Uzalis in Africa. Evodius built a sanctuary to house the prized gift, whose coming had been announced through prophetic dreams. Almost immediately, healings began at the shrine. Possidius, another bishop of Augustine's circle of friends and disciples, brought some of the relics to Calama and then shared them with two other bishops in the region.(47) In each case, healing miracles began immediately and even unexpectedly. How the relics reached Hippo remains unclear. Perler conjectures that Augustine brought them from Uzalis himself in the winter of 424-25.(48) In any case, he dedicated a sanctuary for them during the summer of 425.(49) Again, healing miracles began to occur. Within six months, Augustine had set up a hostel for pilgrims, some of whom remained for months seeking a cure. Augustine or Possidius instituted the practice of recording accounts of the miracles performed through the saint. By the time two years had passed, Augustine could claim some seventy instances of bodily cure worked through the shrine in Hippo and admitted that the ledger at Calama was several times as long. The record from Uzalis, the sole survivor of the three, records some twenty miracles, the majority of them bodily healings.(50) Augustine selected some of these for recounting in his sermons and in the twenty-second book of On the City of God.
Augustine's sermons at the time of the healing of Paul and Palladia, who had been led from Caesarea in Cappadocia to Hippo through a series of revelations, as well as the record of the miracles of Uzalis, indicate that the healings themselves were celebrated liturgically by the reading of the narratives, the presentation of the beneficiary, the demonstration of the soundness of the restored limbs, all to the applause of the faithful. Thus the healing narratives were added to the acta of the martyrdoms as records of God's great works through his saints.(51)
Despite his support of the cult of the martyrs, Augustine was much less enthusiastic for the relics themselves. He recognized that God did intend that the bodies of the martyrs should be venerated by the faithful. Many of the discoveries of relics had been through divine interventions, such as the floating of the body of Vincent despite the large rock to which it had been tied when it was cast into the sea, or the signs which led Ambrose to the bodies of Gervase and Protase, or the revelations which led Lucian to the relics of Stephen.(52) He noted, moreover, that the shrine of Stephen at Ancona, which preserved one of the rocks used to stone him, had begun to produce healings only after the discovery of the body itself in Palestine.(53) Yet Augustine steadfastly refrained from assigning healing power to the relics themselves. Instead he spoke of the prayers of the saint winning the action of God, or of God using the soul of the saint or the spirit of an angel as an agent in working the cure.(54) This was, of course, compatible with his theory of miracles as possibilities folded into the natural world at creation.(55) The faithful made no such distinctions. They sought bodily contact with the relics of Stephen as a means of gaining the healing. Limbs were thrust into the opening in the shrine which housed the relics; the box containing them was applied to the affected limb; the dead infant was placed right on the shrine while his mother begged for his life; diseased or even deceased persons were wrapped in robes which had been draped over the shrine; flowers from the shrine were placed around the head of a dying man; the bishop carrying the relics on his lap in procession was found to be cured of an ulcer.(56) The faithful had no doubt of the efficacy of the relics themselves.
The power of the relics of Stephen to work miracles which had not been performed by the bodies of the African martyrs might be correlated with the cult of a different type of relic. Augustine indicates that both Catholics and Donatists imported earth from the Holy Land. In one instance, he reports that this dirt was instrumental first in driving the demons out of a haunted estate and then in curing a paralytic once it had been placed in an oratory.(57) May it have been the relics from the Holy Land could do in Africa what the bodies of Lawrence could do in Rome and Felix could accomplish in Nola?
The cult of the saints in the period after Augustine is attested by two documents: a canon of a church council and the liturgical calendar of the church of Carthage. Both indicate that the festivals of the saints were not to be celebrated during the Lenten fast.(58) Indeed, the feast of Perpetua and Felicity does not appear on the list, though Augustine had regularly preached on that feast, 7 March, during the prior century.(59) The calendar of Carthage also indicates the extension of the practice of celebrating the deaths of important bishops. Augustine preached on the festival of Leontius, the founder of the church at Hippo.(60) The calendar of Carthage includes the commemoration of the death of some seven non-martyr bishops, among them both Aurelius and Augustine.
The phenomenon of healing miracles at the shrines of Stephen in the fifth century ought, perhaps, to be considered a abberation in the cult of the martyrs by the African Church. The cult of Stephen seems to have been confined to five shrines, four of them grouped together in Numidia and one at Uzalis, to the northwest of Carthage. In most places, the celebration of the martyrs' feasts went on as they had before, as a glorification of the Christian people through its heroes. We have no reason to believe that Aurelius succeeded in suppressing all the eating and drinking at the tombs and we have every reason to believe that the acta continued to be read and elaborated in sermons. Under the Vandals, new martyrs were added to the lists. When their reign had been overthrown by the Reconquest, new shrines were established, the ranks of pilgrims filing past the tombs continued to grow. The exclusion of saints days from the Lenten fast might indicate that the celebrations were once again filled with eating, drinking, singing and dancing.
1. See H. Musurillo, Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford, 1972), 86-89.
3. De pudicitia 22, CCSL 2:1328
7. See the paper in this session.
8. These survive in the form of direct quotations in the Acta Proconsularia, Musurillo, 168-175.
10. Ep. 12.2.1 is ambiguous but ep. 39.2.4 makes clear that the sacrifice is offered for them.
12. For immediate entrance into glory see Ep. 12.2.1, 31.3, 58.3.1 and Ad Fort. 13. For the use of this privileged position see epp. 15.4, 16.3.2, 18.1.2, 21.3.2-4.1, 27.1.1-2.
13. Epp. 55.17.2-3, 57.2.2-5.2.
16. For burial ad sanctos, see the Acta of Maximilian, 3. Musurillo 248.17-21. The collection of the blood of the martyr is attested already in Perpetua and Felicity 21 and in Acta Proconsularia 5.
17. For the account of the incident itself, Optatus of Milevis, C. Parm. 1.16. See Saxer, Morts, martyrs, reliques, (Paris, 1980), 233, for the explanation that the identify of the martyrs rather the gesture of veneration was objectionable.
20. de opere monachorum 28.36.
21. Ep. ad cath. de secta Don. 19.49, tract. in ev. Ioh. 13.17, c. litt. Pet. 2.92.205.
22. Sermon Guelfr 28 (Hill:313E).5. On a number of occasions, he insisted that the cause, not the punishment, makes the martyr: serm 328.7, 331.2, 335.2, Lambot 2 (Hill:335C).5, Lambot 15 (Hill:335G).2. In particular, he used the contrast of the two thieves executed with Christ to prove that the same penalty could have very different results: serm 328.7.
23. Reg. Carth. C. 83, CC 149: 204-205.
25. Sermons 259.8, 295.8, Denis 13 (Hill 305A).4, Guelfer 28 (Hill:313E).5, 326.1, 328.8, Lambot 6 (Hill:335D).2; also see the ep. 22 and legislation **.
27. Augustine, En ps 32.2 serm. 1.5 refers to the vigil, at which he is then preaching. In en ps. 69.9, he said that the service was three hours long and in Serm Denis 11 (Hill 308A).7 that it began at lamp-lighting. Serm 311.5 credits the change to Aurelius.
28. A number of Augustine's sermons are preached at the tombs of martyrs, particularly Cyprian (for example, en ps 32.s.1). In Civ.dei. 8.27 he refers to the altars built over the tombs of martyrs at which the eucharist is offered but to God, not the martyr.
29. On the reading of the acts: sermons 259.2,6, 274.1, 275.1, 280.1-4, 301.2, 309. The stories of the Maccabees, the young men in the fiery furnace, John the Baptist and Stephen were all read from scripture. Matthew 10.28, on confessing Christ, seems to have been used on occasion as well (sermon 65.1). The reading of the acta was formally sanctioned by the Council of Hippo of 393, c. 5 and the Council of Carthage of 397, c. 36b.
30. Sermons 159.1, 259.7, 284.5, 285.5, 297.3.
31. See C. Lambot, "Les sermons de saints Augustin pour les fêtes de martyrs," Revue Benedictine 79 (1969):82-97.
32. Serm. Denis 14 (Hill:313A).3, Guelfer 28 (Hill:313E).7.
33. Vincent of Saragosa apparently drove his persecutor into a fury with his calm replies: serm. 275.2, 276.3. But Augustine could also check the rage of the Catholics by pointing out that their real enemy was not the human but the demonic persecutor: serm. Lambot 6 (Hill:335D).3.
34. Serm. Denis 14 (Hill: 313A).5.
35. Serm. Lambot 21 (Hill:335K).6.
36. Serm Guelfer 28 (Hill:313E).7 Augustine apparently considered his own life to be in danger as a consequence of his public denunciation of the Donatist suicides.
37. Serm. Denis 18 (Hill:306B).6-7.
38. Serm. 318.3, 328.8, Lambot 6 (Hill:335D).3-4.
39. Serm. Lambot 29 (Hill:335J).2-3.
40. Serm 325.1; thus they made better models than Christ, or even Peter and Paul.
41. Serm 283.4, 284.3, 285.1, 315.5,6,8, 317.5, 318.1, 331.1, 333.5, Guelfer. 31 (Hill:335B).4, Lambot 2 (Hill:335C).4, Lambot 29 (Hill:335J).4.
42. Such a reference is made in serm. 286.7.
43. Ep 78.3. He was witness to a similarly forced confession of a lie in Milan, also brought on by the body of a saint.
46. He did suggest that Christ would protect his witness in the combat but did not promise healing: serm Lambot 6 (Hill:335D).3.
47. For an account of the finding and translation, with full references to the primary sources, see Saxer, Morts, martyrs, reliques, 245-262.
48. O. Perler, Les voyages de saint Augustin, (Paris, 1969):380.
50. De miraculis sancta Stephani protomartyris, PL 41:833-854.
51. Thus the account of the curing of Paul in Hippo in serm. 322, as well as the ritual of presenting the cured person and the story of the cure at Uzalis, de miracluis sancti Stephani, 2.1.
52. Serm. 275.3, 277.1 for Vincent; Conf. 9.7.16, serm 286.4, and civ. dei 22.8 for Gervase and Protase; for Stephen, Serm. 318.1 and the epistola Luciani (PL 41:808-818).
54. Thus for Vincent in Serm 275.3 and for Stephen in serm 319.6-7. The fuller treatment is in civ. dei 22.9.
55. And also compatible with the power of the demons (and the traditional gods) to work wonders, civ. dei 18.16-18, 22.10. On this point, see P. DeVooght, "Les miracles dans la vie de saint Augustin," Recherches de théologie ancienne et mediévale, 11 (1939)5-16.
56. All these are recounted in civ. dei 22.8.
58. Ferrand, Brev c. 209; CC 149:304; Calender of Carthage, DACL 8:644-645.
59. Thus serm. 280-282. The other saints on whom Augustine preached but whose names do not appear in this calendar tend to be from the region of Hippo: the Eight Martyrs (serm. Morin 2; Hill 313G, serm 356.10), Felix (Enn in ps 127.6), and the Twenty Martyrs (serm 325). None of their feasts would normally have fallen during the Lenten fast.