Felicitas of Rome

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Saint Felicitas of Rome
Image of Felicitas and her seven sons. From the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493).
Born
Died	165?
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Feast	July 10, formerly November 23
Attributes	woman in widow's weeds holding a palm; woman with a palm, book, and children at her feet; woman with Saint Andrew the Apostle; woman with seven sons
Patronage	parents who have lost a child in death; death of children; martyrs; sterility; to have male children; widows
Saints Portal

Felicitas (Felicity) of Rome (2nd century) is a Christian saint. Her historicity is certain, as there was indeed a widow named Felicity martyred in Rome on November 23 in an unknown year and buried in the cemetery of Maximus on the Salarian Way. However, a legend surrounding her and her seven sons has been grafted onto her life.[1] Her seven sons (called the Seven Brothers) are called Alexander, Vitalis, Martial, Januarius, Felix, Philip and Silvanus (Silanus).

The legend of Saint Symphorosa is very similar and their acts may have been confused. They may even be the same person.[2] Felicitas is not the same saint who was martyred with Perpetua.

1 Legend of Felicitas of Rome
2 Historicity
3 Veneration and relics
4 External links

[edit] Legend of Felicitas of Rome

Felicity is said to have been a rich widow who had seven sons. She devoted herself to charitable work and converted many to the Christian faith. Pagan priests lodged a complaint against her with Emperor Marcus Antoninus Pius. Felicity was brought before Publius, the prefect of Rome. He used various pleas and threats in an unsuccessful attempt to get her to worship the pagan gods and was equally unsuccessful with her seven sons who followed their mother's example.

Before the prefect Publius they adhered firmly to their religion, and were delivered over to four judges, who condemned them to various modes of death. Felicity was forced to watch as her children were murdered one by one; after each one she was given the chance to denouce her faith. She refused and was beheaded in 165 AD.

The division of the martyrs among four judges corresponds to the four places of their burial. St. Felicitas herself was buried in the catacomb of Maximus on the Via Salaria, beside Silvanus.

[edit] Historicity

The earliest list of the Roman feasts of martyrs, known as the Depositio Martyrum and dating from the time of Pope Liberius, in the middle of the fourth century, mentions seven martyrs whose feast was kept on 10 July. Their remains had been deposited in four different catacombs, viz. in three cemeteries on the Via Salaria and in one on the Via Appia. Two of the martyrs, Felix and Philip, reposed in the catacomb of Priscilla; Martial, Vitalis and Alexander, in the Coemeterium Jordanorum; Silanus (or Silvanus) in the catacomb of Maximus, and Januarius in that of Prætextatus. To the name of Silanus is added the statement that his body was stolen by the Novatians (hunc Silanum martyrem Novatiani furati sunt). In the Acts of these martyrs, that certainly existed in the sixth century, since Gregory the Great refers to them in his Homiliæ super Evangelia (Lib. I, hom. iii, in P.L., LXXVI, 1087), it is stated that all seven were sons of Felicitas, a noble Roman lady.

These Acts were regarded as genuine by Ruinart (op. cit., 72-74), and even distinguished modern archæologists have considered them, though not in their present form corresponding entirely to the original, yet in substance based on genuine contemporary records. Investigations by Führer, however (see below), have shown this opinion to be hardly tenable. The earliest recension of these Acts, edited by Ruinart, does not antedate the sixth century, and appears to be based not on a Roman, but on a Greek original. Moreover, apart from the present form of the Acts, various details have been called in question. Thus, if Felicitas were really the mother of the seven martyrs honoured on 10 July, it is strange that her name does not appear in the well-known fourth-century Roman calendar. Her feast is first mentioned in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, but on a different day (23 Nov.).

It is, however, historically certain that she, as well as the seven martyrs called her sons in the Acts suffered for the Christian Faith. From a very early date her feast was solemnly celebrated in the Roman Church on 23 November, for on that day Gregory the Great delivered a homily in the basilica that rose above her tomb. Her body then rested in the catacomb of Maximus; in that cemetery on the Via Salaria all Roman itineraries, or guides to the burial-places of martyrs, locate her burial-place, specifying that her tomb was in a church above this catacomb (De Rossi, Roma sotterranea, I, 176-77), and that the body of her son Silanus was also there. The crypt where Felicitas was laid to rest was later enlarged into a subterranean chapel, and was rediscovered in 1885.

A seventh-century fresco was visible on the rear wall of this chapel, representing in a group Felicitas and her seven sons, and overhead the figure of Christ bestowing upon them the eternal crown.

The seven sons of Felicitas.

Certain historical references to St. Felicitas and her sons antedate the aforesaid Acts, e.g. a fifth-century sermon of St. Peter Chrysologus (Sermo cxxxiv, in P.L., LII, 565) and a metrical epitaph either written by Pope Damasus (d. 384) or composed shortly after his time and suggested by his poem in praise of the martyr:

Discite quid meriti præstet pro rege feriri;

Femina non timuit gladium, cum natis obivit,

Confessa Christum meruit per sæcula nomen.

[Learn how meritorious it is to die for the King (Christ). This woman feared not the sword, but perished with her sons. She confessed Christ and merited an eternal renown.--Ihm, Damasi Epigrammata (Leipzig, 1895), p. 45.]

We possess, therefore, confirmation for an ancient Roman tradition, independent of the Acts, to the effect that the Felicitas who reposed in the catacomb of Maximus, and whose feast the Roman Church commemorated 23 Nov., suffered martyrdom with her sons; it does not record, however, any details concerning these sons. It may be recalled that the tomb of St. Silanus, one of the seven martyrs (10 July), adjoined that of St. Felicitas and was likewise honoured; it is quite possible, therefore, that tradition soon identified the sons of St. Felicitas with the seven martyrs, and that this formed the basis for the extant Acts. The tomb of St. Januarius in the catacomb of Prætextatus belongs to the end of the second century, to which period, therefore, the martyrdoms must belong, probably under Marcus Aurelius. If St. Felicitas did not suffer martyrdom on the same occasion we have no means of determining the time of her death.

[edit] Veneration and relics

Fresco detail depicting the martyrdom of St. Felicity, by Paris Noggia (1536-1601).

In an ancient Roman edifice near the ruins of the Baths of Titus there stood in early medieval times a chapel in honour of St. Felicitas. Some of her relics lie at the Capuchin church at Montefiascone, Tuscany. Others lie in the church of Santa Susanna in Rome.