HERMES, Saint, Roman Martyr. - The legendary passio of St. E., inserted into that of Pope Alexander (109-16), makes him a Christian prefect of Rome, brother of a certain Teodora, martyred on 28 Aug. under Hadrian and buried on the Via Salaria vetus (BHL 3853). But no E. was prefect of the city, nor does the cemetery of Bassilla (v.) present such a remote antiquity.
In 1932, two fragments in Philocalian letters belonging to a Damasan carmen were identified in the above-ground area of that cemetery, handed down to us by the fourth sylloge Laureshamensis alone, which G. B. De Rossi published as coming from an uncertain location and held could belong to the Hippolytus of the Greek martyrs, noting however that Terribilini had suspected it referred to the E. of the Via Salaria vetus (Inscriptiones Christianae urbis Romae, II, Rome 1888, p. 108, n. 57). The discovery of 1932, to which a third small fragment was added, confirmed Terribilini's hypothesis. Damasus follows an oral tradition: «Iam dudum quod fama refert», that is, it concerns an event of the 3rd century, as in the cases of St. Agnes and St. Hippolytus; the martyr, whose name betrays a non-Roman origin, came to Rome from Greece: «Te Graecia misit» but «sanguine mutasti patriam, civemque fratrem fecit amor legis» (A. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana, Vatican City 1942, pp. 195-96).
The veneration of St. E. is attested on 28 Aug. by the Deponitio martyrum: «V Kal (endas) sept (embres) Hermetis in Bassillae, Salaria vetere»; by Damasus who, besides the carmen mentioned, decorated his tomb; A. Bosio (Roma sotterranea, Rome 1632, p. 560) recognized on the cemetery area a fragment of a marble epistyle containing on one side in Philocalian letters: Herme; on the other: iahavens (A. Ferrua, op. cit., pp. 196-97). Under the same date the martyr is indicated in the Hieronymian Martyrology, and in the Sacramentaries. Pope Pelagius II built, or rather enlarged, the Basilica erected over his tomb (579-90; Lib. Pont., I, p. 309); under St. Gregory (590-604), the oil of the lamps burning on his tomb was brought to Queen Theodelinda (R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti, Codice topografico della città di Roma, II, Rome 1942, p. 43). The pilgrims' itineraries point out the Basilica with his tomb «longe sub terra» (R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti, op. cit., pp. 75, 117, 143). Pope Hadrian (772-93) restored the Basilica (Lib. Pont., I, p. 309). Meanwhile a Benedictine monastery had been annexed to it, and a monk of St. E. was buried in S. Saba.
Once the Basilica had fallen into ruin, an oratory was built whose small apse was embellished with a painting that also contained the image of the martyr, represented in rich paludamentum (E. Josi, Scoperta d'un altare e di pitture nella basilica di S. Ermete, in Riv. di arch. crist., 17 [1940], p. 206, fig. 8). The monastery and the oratory remained until about 1200, because in the Turin catalogue one reads that «ecclesia sancti Hermetia extra muros non habet servitorem» (C. Huelsen, Le chiese di Roma nel medioevo, Florence 1927, p. 28, n. 34). Outside Rome, a sanctuary of St. E. is mentioned at Anzio in the biography of Pope Boniface I (418-22) (Lib. Pont., I, p. 27). St. Gregory in 598 sends «brandes» (v.) that have been on the tombs of St. E. and St. Hyacinth, to Crisanthus, bishop of Spoleto, for the church of S. Maria in Rieti (Gregori I papae registrum epistolarum, IX, 15, ed. P. Ewald and L. M. Hartmann, in MGH, Epistolae, II, Berlin 1899, p. 76); the same Pope in 590 gives consent for the erection in Naples of a church in honor of the martyrs E., Sebastian, Crisacus and Pancratius (loc. cit., p. 164). Again from the same Pope one learns of the existence at that time of a monastery of St. E. in Sicily (Registrum, VI, 39 and 47, ed. cit., I, pp. 415 and 422) and of another in Sardinia (Registrum, XIV, 2, ed. cit., II, p. 421). It is not known whether the St. E. whom the Hieronymian Martyrology indicates on 1 March as commemorated at Marseilles is the Roman one or the one of Heraclea or the other of Bologna in Moesia which the same Martyrology notes on 31 Dec., on 1 and 4 Jan. - See pl. XXXIX.
Bibliography5 works
Enrico Josi
ERMETE TRISMEGISTO (Ἐρμῆς γραμμένητος, Hermes Trismegistos): v. ERMETICI, LIBRI.