On the other hand it is remarkable, that in the Roman "Chronograph" whose first edition was in 336, the name of this pope alone is missing, while all other popes from Lucius I onwards are forthcoming. In the MS. there is indeed under 16 Jan. (XVIII kal. Feb.) the name Marcellinus, but this is clearly a slip of the pen for "Marcellus"; for the feast of this pope is found both in the "Martyrologium Hieronymianum" and in the old liturgical Roman books under this date, while in the "Liber Pontificalis" and, in connection therewith, in the historical martyrologies of the ninth century, the feast of Marcellinus is transferred to 26 April (Acta SS., June, VII, 185). By certain investigators (Mommsen, de Smedt) the lack of Marcellinus's name was traced to the omission of a copyist, owing to the similarity of the names, and in the "Depositio Episcoporum" they claimed to supplement the "Chronograph": XVII kal. Febr. Marcelli in Priscillæ; VI kal. Maii Marcellini in Priscillæ (de Smedt, "Introductio in hist. eccl. critice tractandam", 512-13). But this hypothesis is not accepted. The dates of the death of the popes, as far as Sylvester in the list of successions, are identical with the days of the month on which their feasts are celebrated. Thus Marcellinus must come first after Gaius, whose name is quoted under the date X kal. Maii. Then Marcellinus is lacking not only in the "Chronograph", but also in the "Martyrologium Hieronymianum", and in all fifth and sixth century lists of popes. This omission is therefore not accidental, but intentional.

In connection with the above mentioned rumours and the narratives of apocryphal fragments, it must indeed be admitted that in certain circles at Rome the conduct of the pope during the Diocletian persecution was not approved. In this persecution we know of only two Roman clerics who were martyred: the priest Marcellinus and the exorcist Petrus. The Roman bishop and the other members of the higher clergy, except the above clerics, were able to elude the persecutors. How this happened we do not know. It is possible that Pope Marcellinus was able to hide himself in a safe place of concealment in due time, as many other bishops did. But it is also possible that at the publication of the edict he secured his own immunity; in Roman circles this would have been imputed to him as weakness, so that his memory suffered thereunder, and he was on that account omitted by the author of the "Depositio Episcoporum" from the "Chronograph", while he found a place in the "Catalogus Liberianus", which was almost contemporary. But his tomb was venerated by the Christians of Rome, and he was afterwards recognized as a martyr, as the "passio" shows. Marcellinus died in 304. The day of his death is not certain; in the "Liber Pontificalis" his burial is wrongly placed at 26 April, and this date is retained in the historical martyrologies of the ninth century, and from them, in the later martyrologies. But if we calculate the date of his death from the duration of his office given in the Liberian Catalogue, he would have died on 24 or 25 Oct., 304. His body was interred in the Catacomb of Priscilla on the Via Salaria, near the crypt where the martyr Crescentius found his resting-place. The Catacomb of Callistus, the official burial place of the Roman Church, where the predecssors of Marcellinus were buried during several decades, was evidently confiscated in the persecution, while the Catacomb of Priscilla, belonging to the Acilii Glabriones, was still at the disposal of the Christians.

The tomb of Marcellinus was venerated at a very early date by the Christians of Rome. The precise statements about its position, in the "Liber Pontificalis", indicate this. In one of the seventh century itineraries of the graves of the Roman martyrs, in the "Epitome de locis ss. martyrum", it is expressly mentioned among the sacred graves of the Catacomb of Priscilla (De Rossi, "Roma sotteranea", I, 176). In the excavations at this catacomb the crypt of St. Crescentius, beside which was the burial chamber of Marcellinus, was satisfactorily identified. But no monument was discovered which had reference to this pope. The precise position of the burial chamber is therefore still uncertain. The lost "passio" of Marcellinus written towards the end of the fifth century, which was utilized by the author of the "Liber Pontificalis", shows that he was honoured as a martyr at that time; nevertheless his name appears first in the "Martyrology" of Bede [English monk and historian (d. 735)], who drew his account from the "Liber Pontificalis" (Quentin, "Les martyrologes historiques", 103, sq.). This feast is on 26 April. The earlier Breviaries, which follow the account of the "Liber Pontificalis" concerning his lapse and his repentance, were altered in 1883.

Liber Pontificalis, ed. DUCHESNE, I, 6, 7, 162-163; cf. Introduction, LXXIV sq. XCIX; Acta Sanct., April, III, 412-415, 999-1001; DE CASTRO, Difesa della causa di S. Marcellino, I, Pont. Rom. (Rome, 1819); LANGEN, Geschichte der römischen Kirche, I, 370-372; ALLARD, Histoire des persécutions, IV, 376-379; DUCHESNE, Histoire ancienne de l'Eglise, II, 92 sq.; MARUCCHI, Il sepolcro del papa Marcellino nel cimitero di Priscilla in Nuovo Bull. di archeol. crist. (1907), 115 sq.

Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology. Bede, Usuardus, Ado, Notker, Hrabanus.J The history of pope S. Marcellinus has been so involved in interested fiction, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to discover how much of truth underlies the fable that obscures it For nearly a thousand years his fabulous history passed for truth along with the equally imaginary synod of Sinuessa, and has been much used by theologians and canonists in support of their theories.

At the beginning of the persecution under Diocletian [Roman emperor 284–305, who began the ‘Great Persecution’ of Christians in 303], so runs the fable, the pontifex of the Capitol represented to Pope Marcellinus that he might without scruple offer incense to the gods, for the three Wise Men from the East had done so, before the star led them to Christ Both agreed to let the point be decided by Diocletian, who was at that time in Persia, and he naturally ordered that the pope should sacrifice. Accordingly Marcellinus was conducted to the temple of Vesta, and offered there, in the presence of a crowd of Christian spectators, to Hercules, Jupiter, and Saturn. At the news of this defection from the faith, three hundred bishops left their sees, 1 and gathered together to hold a council, first in a cavern near Sinuessa, but, as this would not hold more than fifty, afterwards in the town itself. Along with them were thirty Roman priests. Several priests and deacons were deposed merely because they had gone away without protesting, when they saw the pope enter the temple. Marcellinus, on the other hand, they could not judge. “ Be thou the judge,” 1 A number quite Impossible for that country, especially in a time of persecution But Luitprand makes the number 180, a number adopted also by Platlna. In the revision of the Breviary by Clement VIII., the words In the lesson were altered to M many bishops.** said the bishops to him; “let thy condemnation be thine own, or thy justification thine own, only let it be in our presence. The first seat cannot be judged by any.” Marcellinus denied his guilt the first two days; but on the third day, being abjured in God's name to speak the truth, he threw himself on the ground, covered his head ( with ashes, and avowed his guilt Thereupon he denounced his own deposition, on the 23rd August, 303. After this, the bishops remained quietly at Sinuessa, until Diocletian, in Persia, having received intelligence of the synod, sent orders for the execution of many of the three hundred, and this was carried into effect; Marcellinus himself being among the number of sufferers. 1 Since the time of Baronius [Cardinal Baronius (d. 1607), church historian who edited the Roman Martyrology] not a single historian worth mentioning has renewed the attempt to maintain the authenticity of this synod of Sinuessa and its acts. Nevertheless, it has found its way into the Breviary. The Very Rev. Dom Gueranger, in his Liturgical Year, says, “ At the time when this lesson which is now in the Breviary was drawn up, the fall of Marcellinus was believed as a fact; later on it was called in question, and the arguments used against it are by no means to be despised; the Church, however, has not thought well to change the lesson as it first stood, 2 the more so as questions of this nature do not touch upon the Faith.”

Whether any residuum of truth, any actual lapse on the part of Marcellinus in the persecution, lies at the bottom of the fabrication, cannot now be stated with certainty. Contemporary writers says nothing on the subject, but then there may be this reason for their reticence, that they were 1 The forger of this story forgot that the persecution of Diocletian did not begin till after the Persian war, and the return of the emperor. •This lesson was inserted in the Roman Breviary in xj 4 a, and was finally and authoritatively sanctioned by Pius V.; the lesson used before that was simply ao account of the martyrdom of the pope.

S. Marcellinus. unwilling to perpetuate the memory of such a scandal. Later on, the Donatists, in the time of S. Augustine, professed to know that Marcellinus, and with him his successors, Melchiades, Marcellus, and Silvester, who were at that time priests, had delivered up the Scriptures, and had offered incense to the gods m the persecution. “S. Augustine treated the story as a Donatist fabrication,” says Dr. Dollinger. 1 But, says the J esuit Henschenius, S. Augustine in his book “ De Uno Baptismaic” c. 16, is opposing the Donatists who objected to their condemnation by Pope Melchiades, 8 on the ground that he had, as priest, become a renegade along with Pope Marcellinus. S. Augustine denies that Melchiades was thus guilty, but passes over the case of Marcellinus, or refuses to admit the guilt of the four, without evidence produced to substantiate it He is not concerned with the guilt of Marcellinus, and so does not treat of it at length. The words of S. Augustine are — “ What need is there for us to plead the innocence of these bishops of the Church of Rome, who are pursued with such incredible calumnies? Marcellinus and his priests Melchiades and Marcellus and Silvester are all charged with having surrendered the sacred Scriptures and with offering incense to the gods. But the conviction has not been brought home, so as to convince us of their guilt by certain documentary evidence. Petilianus says they were criminal and sacrilegious. I reply that they were innocent, and why should I labour to prove my assertion, when he makes no effort to substantiate his accusation?” And then he goes on at length to argue that when the charge was brought against Caecilian of Carthage, and tried by order of Constantine; no mention of Pope Melchiades was made, as >“Dle Papst-Fabeln des Mittelalters."

He became pope in 3x1; Marcellinus died in 304. The condemnation of the Donatists was in 3x3. certainly would have been the case, had he been guilty, for he was reigning at that very time, 31 1. The answer of S. Augustine is adroit, and the Bollandists [Jesuit scholars who since the 1600s have critically studied the lives of the saints] suspect that by bringing all his energy to bear on Melchiades, to demonstrate the falsity of the accusation brought against him; S. Augustine shows that he felt the case of Marcellinus was more difficult Henschenius says, “ There can be little question from the conduct of the Donatists, and the reply of Augustine, restricted to the defence of Melchiades, that the Donatists were convinced of the lapse of Marcellinus, and that this originated the calumny against Melchiades, whom they pretended had fallen along with the pope; as is the way with all slanderous fables, it was formed around a kernel of truth. And besides, it is incredible to me how so calumnious a fable, and that one so injurious to the see of Rome [a bishop’s “see” is his diocese, named from his seat (Latin sedes)], and one which Augustine in Africa would not believe, if it were destitute of any foundation could have been accepted by Roman writers, who had every opportunity of verifying or exploding it, and that moreover without discussion, and how they could have admitted it into their chronicles and the histories of the popes, and that too without mention of Melchiades, and his companions as offenders, against whom the slander had been raised.”

The oldest list of popes, reaching to 530, contains mention of the fall of the pope. The Catalogue of pontiffs of Rome, which was compiled about a.d. 1048 contains an account of the fall of Marcellinus, but says nothing about the council of Sinuessa, only “ He was led to sacrifice and to offer incense, and he did it And after a few days being led to repentance, he was executed and crowned with martyrdom.” This statement was in the ancient Breviaries, till unfortunately the myth of the council of Sinuessa was substituted for it by Pope Pius V. in 1542. There cannot remain a shadow of doubt as to the utterly April a6j, mythical character of that council 1 There can be no doubt it was a fiction deliberately composed for a definite purpose, between the years 498 and 514, in the pontificate of Symmachus. At that time the two parties of Laurentius and Symmachus stood opposed to each other in Rome. People, senate, and clergy were divided; they fought and murdered in the streets, and Laurentius maintained himself for several years in possession of part of the churches. Symmachus was accused by his opponents of grave offences. He must answer for himself at a synod, which King Theodoric had summoned. If he should be found guilty he must be deposed, cried the one party, while the other party maintained that for a pope there was no earthly tribunal This was the time at which Eunodius wrote his apology for Symmachus, and this was the occasion of the appearance of the forged acts of the mythical council of Sinuessa, and also of the “ Constitution of Silvester,” and the “ Acts of Xystus purging himself of an accusation made by Polychronius of Jerusalem.” All these forgeries were by the same hand, and were composed for the same purpose. As in the apology of Eunodius, so also in the “ Constitutions,” and the “Gesta Xysti,” and the “Acts of Sinuessa,” the principle is inculcated that a pope has no earthly judge over him. If he lies under grave suspicion, or if charges are brought against him, he must himself declare his own guilt, and pronounce his own deposition as Marcellinus, or he must clear himself by the simple asseveration of his own innocence, as did Xystus III.

1 Dupin says “ It is notorious among all learned men that the acts of the council of Sinuessa are fictitious, and that the story on which they are grounded is a fable which has no foundation in antiquity.*' Fleury ignores both the fall of the pope and the council) so does Natalis Alexander.