PROCESSUS AND MARTINIANUS, Saints, Martyrs. - According to P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, their supposed status as jailers of the apostles Peter and Paul, indicated in the legendary Passio, would have originated from a false interpretation of the well-known scene of the capture of St. Peter by two soldiers on Christian sarcophagi (v. illustrations, vol. IX, cols. 1415, 1478).
The Hieronymian Martyrology commemorates them on July 2 "in cimitero eorumdem, via Aurelia millario secundo." In the 7th century the itinerary known as the Notitia ecclesiarum indicates their burial sub terra and, on the other hand, a Lucina in superiori; in the itinerary inserted in the Gesta regum Anglorum they are pointed out in basilica (R. Valentini - G. Zucchetti, Codice topografico della città di Roma, II, Rome 1942, pp. 93 and 152). In the Praedestinatus (Haer. 96: PL 53, 616) it is related that a Tertullianist priest in the time of the emperor Eugenius (392-94) took possession of the church of Sts. P. and M. on the pretext that these Saints were from Phrygia, but he had to return the church and make amends at Carthage (cf. Cod. Theodos., XVI, 5, 40, a law issued on Feb. 2, 407). Gregory the Great delivered a homily there (PL 76, 1232). Paschal I (817-24) transferred their relics to St. Peter's, where he erected an oratory in their honor at the end of the south transept and enriched it with precious gifts (Lib. Pont., ed. Duchesne, II, p. 58), renewed by Leo IV (ibid., II, p. 114). Gregory III (731-41) rebuilt its roof (ibid., I, p. 419). The part of the roof above the oratory was repaired by Adrian IV (ibid., II, p. 395). The cemetery was plundered from 1672 onward; it extends beneath the Villa Pamphili, as E. Stevenson identified it in 1879 (G. B. De Rossi, Bull. arch. crist., 2nd series, 6 [1881], p. 104), who in 1889 discovered an ancient descensus leading into a cemetery region with large regular galleries. In the pavement of the basilica of S. Martino ai Monti a fragment of a poem was copied, which A. Silvagni has published; it was transcribed in the 16th century and commented on by G. B. De Rossi, who recognized in it the mention of the martyr Martinianus, the reference to a descensus and the record of a priest Marcianus.