apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

514 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
persons, but they indicate that in the earlier forms of the story they were not represented
as sons of Felicitas, or even as brothers one of another. The separation into four
groups in the Liberian list, and the four different places of sepulture, suggest that they
had no other connexion with one another, except the day of their martyrdom, and
the link of Christian brotherhood. They may not even have suffered in the same
year.
An easy explanation offers itself of the independent martyrdom of so many
persons on the same day of the same month. This day, vi Id. Jul., was the accession
of Antoninus Pius. As such, it would naturally be the day on which M. Aurelius
was associated in the honours of the imperial dignity. Thus during the reign of the
former certainly, and during that of the latter very probably, it would be kept as a
day of festivity (see Fronto Epist. p. 167, Naber). But these imperial anniversaries
were especially fatal to the Christians. There was a double reason for this. On
the one hand the festivity demanded victims for the arena, and thus whetted
the appetite of the people for the blood of the 'atheists'. On the other the occasion
suggested a test — the worship of the 'genius' of the emperor — with which a
Christian could not conscientiously comply, and thus it
supplied the victims which the
festival required. It seems not improbable also (though here the evidence is more
scanty) that Felicitas likewise was a real person, and she may even have had a son or
sons who were martyred. But the legend, as we have it, has fitted her martyrdom
into a framework adopted from the Maccabcean story ;
while names for her sons— thus
made seven in number— have been borrowed from the July Martyrs. How this
conjunction was effected, it would be impossible to say. Perhaps it was suggested by
the fact that one of these martyrs, Silanus, was laid in the same cemetery with
Felicitas herself. Nor again is it
easy to say what was the original nucleus, and what
are the later accretions, in the existing Acts of Felicitas, as published by Ruinart.
Reasons have been given above (p. 513) for suspecting that the gesta emeudatiora,
known to Gregory the Great, did not contain the names of the July Martyrs ; but, if
this suspicion be correct, we are still unable to say what relation they bore to the
existing Acts.
It still remains to enquire at what date these martyrs may have suffered. And
here we first interrogate the Acts. But their evidence on this point has been differently
interpreted. Ruinart assigns the martyrdoms to the reign of Antoninus
Pius, about a.d. 150; De Rossi, Borghesi, Doulcet, and others, to the joint sovereignty
of M. Aurelius and L. Verus, A.D. 162 ; Aube, to that of Severus and Caracalla, A.D.
198 — 203.
The reigning and acting sovereign is mentioned in various ways; 'Antonini Imperatoris',
'Antonino Augusto', 'Imperator Antoninus', 'Dominus noster Imperator
Antoninus', 'Imperatori', 'Antoninus'. But elsewhere a plural is used ; 'Dominorum
nostronim jussa', 'amicus Augustorum', 'Augustorum instituta'. These last expressions
imply a divided sovereignty; for, though we might perhaps explain 'Augustorum
instituta ' '
of the decrees of successive sovereigns, amicus Augustorum ' resists
this interpretation. The reign of Antoninus Pius therefore is eliminated; and we have
only to consider the other two alternatives.
The objection to the latter of the two, the joint rule of Severus and Antoninus
(Caracalla), is the prominence given to Caracalla, then a boy from 10 to 15 years old*.
Nor indeed is it
easy to find a time when he would be in Rome and alone within
the possible limits of date. Severus was in the East nearly the whole time, and
*
He was born April 4, a.d. 188; see Hiifner Septimiiis Severus p. 44.