medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (24. February) is the feast day of:
1) Sergius "of Caesarea in Cappadocia" (d. ca. 306, supposedly). The (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology has an entry under today's date (VI. Kal. Mart.) for a saint whose name appears in the genitive either as _Syrgi_ or, in some witnesses as _Georgi_. Delehaye thought, probably rightly, that this entry erroneously duplicated the (ps.-)HM's entry under 2. March (VI. Non. Mart.) for St. George of Caesarea of Cappadocia, whose own entry on this date D. showed to be a transcriptional error for the St. Gordius of Caesarea in Cappadocia attested in the fourth-century Syriac Martyrology.
At some time prior to the ninth century a fictional Passio (BHL 7598) of S. of Caesarea of Cappadocia, martyred on this day, was written for a cult of a St. Sergius at Úbeda (anciently, Betula) in Andalucia. This made S. (who is unknown to late antique and medieval Greek hagiography) a former magistrate of Caesarea who during the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian pointed out to the town that the superiority of the Christian religion explained the sudden extinguishing of sacrificial fires at which the local Christians had been assembled in order to make heathen sacrifice or suffer the consequences of refusal. The local governor, no slouch when it came to spotting dangerous troublemakers, gave S. a summary hearing and had him executed forthwith. His remains were later translated to Úbeda.
S. of Cappadocia entered the the RM via entries for him under this day in Florus, Ado, and Usuard. Today's S. is really a local saint of Úbeda, just as the recently celebrated Juliana "of Nicomedia" is really a local saint of Cuma in coastal Campania.
2) Modestus of Trier (d. late 5th cent.). M. was a bishop of Trier who seems to have been in office when that city was incorporated into the Frankish kingdom. His cult, first attested from the twelfth century, is associated with Trier's Benedictine abbey of Sts. Eucharius and St. Matthias, whence it got into a late medieval expanded Usuard used by Baronio for the RM.
The abbey of Sts. Eucharius and Matthias at Trier was secularized in 1802 and reopened in 1922 as the Abtei St. Matthias (the Apostle M., who supposed relics were found here in 1127). An exterior view of its originally twelfth-century church (1127-60; consecrated, 1148) is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2lbkc6
and an interior one is here:
http://tinyurl.com/37qhns
Best,
John Dillon
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