Felicity, Saint, Martyr

FELICITY, Saint, Martyr. - She is commemorated in the Hieronymian Martyrology on 23 November as buried in the cemetery of Maximus on the Via Salaria Nuova. Over her tomb Pope Boniface I (418-22) had a basilica built, which also served as his own burial place. St. Gregory the Great delivered a homily in that basilica on the dies natalis of F. The martyr's tomb is also mentioned by all the itineraries of seventh-century pilgrims.

Between the end of the 4th century and the beginning of the 5th, a highly legendary Passio was composed, according to which F., during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, was accused by pagan priests and brought, together with her seven sons, before the tribunal of the prefect of Rome. He tried to persuade them to sacrifice, but they rejected every proposal; indeed F. exhorted her sons to remain strong in the faith. They were then entrusted to various judges, who put them all to death in different ways. They were buried in different cemeteries of Rome; F., together with her son Silanus, in that of Maximus. The whole account is evidently modeled on the episode of the seven Maccabean brothers (2 Macc. 7:1-51) without any historical truth. In fact, the names of F.'s seven sons are found in the Depositio martyrum on 10 July, but without any indication of kinship among them or with F.; that kinship was invented by the hagiographer. Nor does the painting discovered by De Rossi in 1883, depicting F. with the supposed seven sons, pose an obstacle, since it depends on the Passio, on which all the other later hagiographical documents depend.

For the cemetery of F., v. MASSIMO.

Agostino Amore

FELICITA, saint, martyr: v. PERPETUA e FELICITA, sante, martiri.