June 4

ST QUIRINUS, BISHOP OF SISCIA, MARTYR A.D. 308

Of the many martyrs who suffered in the Danubian provinces during the reign of Diocletian, one of the most celebrated was Quirinus whose praises have been sounded by St Jerome, by Prudentius and by Fortunatus. The "acts" which record his trial, sufferings and death are substantially genuine, although they have undergone amplification and interpolations at the hands of later copyists. He was bishop of Siscia, now Sisak in Croatia [formerly Sziszek of Hungary]. As he had been informed that orders were out for his arrest, he left the city, but was pursued, captured and brought before the magistrate Maximus. Questioned with regard to his attempted escape he replied that he was only obeying his Master, Jesus Christ, the true God, who had said: "When they persecute you in one city, fly to another." "Do you not know that the emperor's orders would find you anywhere?" asked the magistrate. "He whom you call the true God cannot help you when you are caught -- as you must now realize to your cost." "God is always with us and can help us," declared the bishop. "He was with me when I was taken and He is with me now. He it is who strengthens me and speaks through my lips." "You talk a great deal", observed Maximus, "and by talking you postpone obeying the commands of our sovereigns: read the edicts and do as they bid you!" Quirinus protested that he could not consent to do what would be sacrilege: "The gods whom you serve are nothing!" he exclaimed. "My God, whom I serve, is in Heaven and earth, and in the sea and everywhere, but He is higher than all, because He contains all things in Himself: all things were created by Him, and by Him alone they subsist." "You must be in your second childhood to believe such fables!" declared the judge. "See, they are offering you incense: sacrifice and you shall be well rewarded; refuse and you will be tortured and put to a horrible death."

Quirinus replied that the threatened pains would be glory to him, and Maximus ordered him to be beaten. Even while the sentence was being carried out, he was urged to sacrifice and was told that if he did so he would be made a priest of Jupiter.

"I am exercising my priesthood here and now by offering myself up to God", cried the martyr undaunted. "I am glad to be beaten; it does not hurt me. I would willingly endure far worse treatment to encourage those over whom I have presided to follow me by a short road to eternal life." As Maximus had not the authority to pronounce a death-sentence, he arranged to send Quirinus to Amantius, the governor of Pannonia Prima. The bishop was taken through various towns on the Danube until he reached the town of Sabaria (now Szombathely in Hungary), destined a very few years later to be the birthplace of St Martin. Here he was bought up before Amantius who, after reading the report of the previous trial, asked him if it was correct. The saint answered in the affirmative and said, "I have confessed the true God at Siscia, I have never worshipped any other. Him I carry in my heart, and no man on earth shall succeed in separating me from Him." Amantius declared himself unwilling to torture and destroy one of his venerable age, and urged him to fulfil the conditions which would enable him to end his days in peace. Neither promises nor threats, however, could move the saint. The governor therefore had no option but to condemn him.

Quirinus was sentenced to death, and thrown into the river Raab, with a stone round his neck. He did not immediately sink and was heard to utter words of prayer or of exhortation before he disappeared from sight. His body, carried a little way down the stream, was rescued by Christians. In the early fifth century, refugees driven from Pannonia by the barbarians bore the relics to Rome, where they rested in the Catacomb of St Sebastian, until in 1140 they were translated to Santa Maria in Trastevere.

The text of the passio is printed by Ruinart, and in the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. i. Much interest has been taken in this St Quirinus since the researches of Mgr de Waal in the Platonia and its surroundings revealed the existence of a fragment of a great inscription engraved there in honour of the saint. See de Waal's monograph, Die Apostelgruft "ad Catacumbas", printed as a "Supplementheft" to the Römische Quartalschrift (1894); and also Duchesne, "La Memoria Apostolorum de la Via Appia", in Memorie della pontificia Accademia romana di Archeol., vol. i (1923), pp. 8-10; with CMH., p. 303.

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(Butler's Lives of the Saints, Christian Classics, 1995) wmaster@hcbc.hu