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(1) Official reports of the interrogatories (acta, gesta). Those extant, like the "Acta Proconsulia' (Cyprian, " Ep. Ixxvii ") are few in number and have only come down to us in editions prepared with a view to the edification of the faithful. The "Passio C3rpriam" and "Acta Martyrum SdUitanorum" are typical of this class. Of these the former is a com- posite work of three separate documents showing the minimum of editorial additions in a few connecting phrases. The first document gives an account of the trial of C3rprian in 257. the second, his arrest and trial in 258, the third, ot his martyrdom.
(2) Non-official records made by eye-witnesses or at least by contemporaries recording the testimonv of eye-witnesses. Such are the "Blartyrium S. Poly- carpi", admitting thou^ it does much that may be due to the pious fancy of the eye-witnesses. The "Acta SS. rerpetuse et Felicitatis" is perhaps of all extant Acta the most beautiful and famous, for it includes the autograph notes of Perpetua and Saturus and an eye-witness's account of the martyrdom. And to these must be added the "Epistola Ecclesiarum Viennensis et Lugdunensis", tellmg the story of the martyrs of Lyons, and other Acta not so famous.
(3) Documents of a later date than the martyrdom based on Acta of the first or second <;lass, and therefore subjected to editorial manipulation of various kinds. It is this class which afforas the critic the greatest scope for his discernment. What distinguish^ these Acta from the subsequent classes is their literary basis. The editor was not constructing a story to smt oral tradition or to explain a monument, lie was editing a literaiy document according to his own taste and purpose. The class is numerous and its contents highly aebatable, for though additional study may raise any particidar Acta to a higher class, it is far more likely as a rule to reduce it.
Besides these three classes of more or less reliable documents, many others pass- under the name of Acta Martyrum, though their historicity is of little or no value. They are romances, either written around a few real facts which have been preserved in popular or literary tradition, or else pure works of the miagination, containing no real facts whatever. Among the historical romances we may instance the story m Felicitas and her seven sons, which in its present form seems to be a variation oi IV Maccabees^ viii, 1, though there can be no doubt of the underlying facts, one of which has actually been confirmed by De Rossi's discovery of the tomb of Januarius, the eldest son in the narrative. And according to such strict critics as M. Dufourcq (Etude sur les Gesta martyrum romains, Paris, 1900) and P. Delehaye (Analecta Bollandiana, XVI^ 235-248), the Roman ^* Legendarium " can claim no higher class than this; so that, apart from monu- mentalj liturgical, and topographical traditions, much of the hterary evidence for the great martyrs ot Rome is embeddecl in historical romances. It may be a matter for surprise that there should be such a class of Acta as the imaginative romances, which have no facts at all for their foundation. But they were the novels of those days which unfortunately came to be taken as history. Perhaps such is the case with the story of Genesius the Comedian who was suddenly converted while mimicking the Christian mysteries (Von der Lage, Studien s. Genesius Legende", Ber- lin, 1898-9). and the Acts of Didymus and Theodora, the latter ot whom was saved by the former, a Chris- tian soldier, from a punishment worse than death. And even less reputable than these so-called Acta are the story of Barlaam and Josaphat which is the Christian adaptation of the Buddha legend, the Faust- legend of Cyprian of Antioch, and the romance of the heroine who, under the various names of Pelagia. Marina, Eugenia, Margaret, or Apollinaria is admittea in man's dress to a monastery, convicted of miscon- duct, and posthumously i^habilitated. H%, liiberatu
also, the bearded lady who was nailed to a cross, is a
saint of fiction only, though the romance was probably
invented with the definite purpose of explaining the
draped fisure of a crucifix.
Still these two classes of romantic Acta can hardly be regarded as forgeries in the strict sense of that term. They are literary figments, but as they were written with the intention of ^ifying and not cieceiv- ing the reader, a special class must be reserved for hagiographical forgeries. To this must be relegated all those Acts, Passions, Lives, Legends, and Trans- lations which have been written with the express pur- pose of perverting history, such, for instance, as the legends and translations falsely attaching a saint's name to some special church or city. Their authors disgraced the name of hagiographer, and they would not merit mention were it not that conscious deceit has in consequence been attributed to those haeiog- raphers, who, having for their object to edify and not to instruct, have written Acta which were meant to be read as romances and not as history.
Besides these detached Acta Martyrum, there are other literary documents concerning the life and death of the martyrs which may be mentioned here. The Calendaria were lists of martyrs celebrated by the different Churches according to their different dates. The Martyrologies represent collections of different Calendaria and sometimes add details of the martyr- dom. The Itineraries are guide-books drawn up for the use of pilgrims to the sanctuaries of Rome; they are not without their utility in so far as they reveal, not only the resting places of the ^reat dead, but also the traditions which were current m the seventh century. The writings of the Fathers of the Church also embody many references to the martyrs, as, for instance, the sermons of St. Basil, Chrysostom, Augustine, Peter Chrysologus, and John Damascene.
Finally there are to be considered the collections of Lives, intended for public and private reading. Most important of all are the "Historia Ecclesiastica" of Eusebius (265-340), and his /'De Martyribus Pales- tine"; but unfortunately his ftapHfHop vvpaytay-ij or Collection of Acts of the ^uirtyrs, to which he refers in the preface of the fifth book of his ** Historia Ecclesias- tica , is no longer extant. The fourteen poems of Aureli^s Prudentius Clemens, published in 404 as the " Persitephanon liber", celebrated the praises of the martyrs of Spain and Italy; but as the author al- lowed himself the license of the poet with his material, he is not always reliable. The writers of the Middle Ages are responsible for a very large element of the fictitious in the stories of the martyrs; they did not even make a proper use of tJie material they had at their disposal. Gregory of Tours was the first of these medieval hanographers with his '^De virtutibus S. Martini", "Oe 0oria Confessorum", and "De vitis Sanctorum". Simeon Metaphrastes is even less re- liable; it has even been questioned whether he was not consciously deceitful. See, however, the article on Metaphrastes. But the most famous collection of the Middle Ages was the "Golden Legend" of Jacopo de Soragine, first printed in 1476. All these medieval writers include saints as well as martyrs in their collections. So do Mombritius rMilan, 1476), Lipomanus (Venice, 1551), and Surius (Cologne, 1570). J. Faber Stapulensis included only Martyrs in his "Martyrum agones antiquis ex monumentis genuine descnptos" (1525), and they are only the martyrs whose feasts are celebrated in the month of January. But an epoch was marked in the history of the martyrs by the " Acta primorum martyrum sincera et selecta " of the Benedictine Theo- dore Kuinart (Paris, 1689), and frequently reprinted (Ratisbon, 1858). Other collections of Acta, sub- sequent to Ruinart's are Ilbachius, " Acta Martyrum Vmdicata" ^ome, 1723). S. Assemai, "Acta SS. Martyrum onen^. et ooc," (Rome, 1748). T. Mama-
