Felix and Adauctus, Saints, Martyrs

FELIX AND ADAUCTUS, Saints, Martyrs. - The oldest and most reliable notice concerning them is a Damasan poem from which it is gathered that a certain priest Verus prayed at their tombs. These are found in the cemetery of Commodilla, where the Hieronymian Martyrology also commemorates them on 30 August.

From the Damasan inscription, whose text as handed down by the codices is not, moreover, always reliable, it appears that F. and A. were brothers and that they were killed together. There exists a Passio of the 7th century, very legendary, according to which F. was a priest; during the persecution of Diocletian, after being tortured he was led onto the Via Ostiensis to be beheaded. Along the way a Christian joined him in the confession of the faith and in martyrdom, and since his name was not known, he was called A. by the brothers, "quod sancto Felici auctus sit ad coronam martyrii". Over their tombs, placed in a deep cleft of the ground, a basilica was built. The author of the Passio probably based himself on the scanty notices of the Damasan poem, which however he read and interpreted badly. The presence then in Rome "in Pincis" of a small church dedicated to St. Felix of Nola was the occasion for a further legendary confusion between this saint and our F.