PASSIONARIO. — P. (from passionarius or passionale) or legendary is the collection of booklets devoted to recounting the life, martyrdom, translations, and miracles of the saints. The two terms were used interchangeably, one for the other. In the twelfth century, however (cf. Beleth, De div. off., c. 60: PL. 202, 66), passionarius and legendarius were two distinct liturgical books and formed part of the normal furnishings of a good monastic community and of the more important churches; the p. contained the passiones martyrum, while the legendary contained the life, death, and miracles of the confessors, but only to the extent that these were read on the day of their feast during the Office. The distinction between the two categories (martyrs-confessors) is certainly much older than Beleth, since it is already found in the sixth century, although with a different purpose, in Gregory of Tours (Liber in gloria martyrum, in gloria confessorum). For liturgical use, compilers preferred a mixed genre, gathering passiones and vitae according to the natural course of the ecclesiastical year: an “hagiographical lectionary,” as opposed to a “biblical” and “homiletic lectionary.”
The liturgical purpose of the p. in manuscripts is evident when the narrative is divided into paragraphs corresponding to the lessons of the Office, marked by the Roman numerals I, II, III, etc., or by the expressions finis or fac finem (ms. lat. 11750, National Library of Paris). The material in the p. is arranged according to various criteria: generally either according to the calendar or according to the category of the eponymous figures (apostles, martyrs, holy virgins, etc.). Some p. present no order at all.
The intrinsic value of the collections varies according to their origin. The value of authentic collections, that is, those in which the compiler is also the redactor (such as St. Gregory of Tours and Eulogius), is one thing; another is their value when the redactor merely brought together the various hagiographical texts and copied them or had them copied; finally, their value is different when the compiler is at the same time the author, at least in part, insofar as he himself supplied the missing passiones or vitae. For the most part, p. are anonymous.
Unlike the martyrology, the p. was intended for (public) reading for the purpose of edification. Over time, the martyrologies, by expanding their skeletal data, drew closer to the passiones, from which they derived narrative elements (historical martyrologies); the passiones, on the other hand, through an opposite process and in order to make the reading less burdensome, stripped the account of superfluous elements.
I. HISTORY
The sole primitive source for reading in the liturgical synaxes was the codex Scripturarum, the Bible, from which the lector read prout tempus fert (Justin, Apologia, I, c. 65) a passage, taking it up at the point where it had been interrupted on the previous occasion (lectio continua). But already in the subapostolic period (2nd century, up to approximately 175) the practice was introduced of reading other writings, such as circular letters of great heroes of the faith and, on the anniversaries of martyrs, the account of their deeds (cf. martyrium Polycarpi, ca. 155, and the Acts of the martyrs of Lyons, a. 177).The anniversaries multiplied when, after the 4th century, confessores too were admitted, like the martyrs, to the honors of worship. Thus the number of panegyrics, passiones, and vitae of the saints increased. Cassiodorus (d. 575) prescribed to his monks: vitas Patrum, confessiones fidelium, passiones martyrum legite constanter (De Institut. divin. litter.; PL. 70, 1147). But the text certainly refers to spiritual reading. Rome, faithful to the canon of the scriptural books, did not look favorably upon these foreign compositions, all the more because, in the case of the martyrs, literary embellishments and the fantasies of uncontrolled writers, often anonymous, had been added to the acta sincera (for the most part monks or infideles seu idiotus, who not infrequently altered and falsified the historical data themselves); so much so that Gelasius I (492–96) issued the famous decree: «Gesta sanctorum martyrum... quia et eorum, qui conscripsere, nomina penitus ignorantur... ne vel levis subsannandi oriretur occasio, in sancta Romana Ecclesia non leguntur» (PL. 59, 160–61; Denz-U, n. 165). The East too was opposed (Council of Laodicea, can. 69) to the passiones, which, by contrast, were well received in Africa, at Milan, and in Gaul. S. Augustine refers several times in his sermons to the reading of the Passiones: «Modo legebatur Passio beati Cypriani» (cf. Misc. Agostiniana, I, Rome 1930, p. 67, 80; Serm., 273, c. 2: PL. 38, 1249). The practice was codified at the Council of Hippo in 393 (Mansi, IV, 924) and at the Fourth Council of Carthage in 397 (Ph. Labbé, Conc., II, Venice 1728, col. 1409). V. ATTI DEI MARTIRI.
At the beginning of the 5th century, in the monastery of virgins founded in Palestine by s. Melania iuniore, the liturgical Office contained three lessons, taken, as was customary in the East, from the Old and New Testaments. But in the last nocturnal Office recited by the Saint in honor of s. Stephen, on the night of 25–26 December 439, she added two further lessons: one recounted the Saint’s martyrdom, the other the invention of his relics: «quia consuetudo erat ei per vigilias sanctorum quinque legere lectiones» (M. Rampolla del Tindaro, S. Melania iuniore, Rome 1905, p. 265). Since neither in the East nor at Rome was the reading of the Acts of the martyrs admitted in the psalmody, Melania must therefore have learned the practice in Africa, in 415.
As regards Milan, the Passiones of s. Agnes, s. Cecilia, etc., are extensively used in the sermons of s. Ambrose, while for Gaul a text by Arnobius the Younger (mid-5th century) bears witness: «cotidie legitur in ecclesia in conspectu Dei, quanta mala fecerunt Christo, apostolis et martyribus» (PL. 53, 494), which Morin unquestionably interprets as referring to the passiones (Rev. bénéd., 28 [1911], p. 173). Gelasian rigidity seems to have been confined to the Eucharistic synaxis; in the Office there was greater leniency. Traces of this are found in the Rule of s. Benedict (chap. 14): «In sanctorum festivitatibus... lectiones ad ipsum diem pertinentes dicantur». It is probable that such lessons were collected in a special volume, an incipient p. to which s. Gregory the Great may have referred when, in 598, replying to Eulogius of Alexandria, who had requested «cunctorum martyrum gesta», he stated that the Archive of the Roman Church knew only «pauca quaedam in unius codicis volumine collecta» (cf. A. Dufourcq, Le pas-
sionnaire occidental du VIIe siècle, in Mélanges d’arch. et d’hist. de l’Ecole franç. de Rome, 26 [1906], pp. 27–65).
The initial intransigence gradually gave way to toleration and then to official recognition as the cult of the saints spread. Until the 9th century the passio was read only in the church where the Saint was venerated. Hadrian I (772–95) extended it also to S. Pietro, when their Office was celebrated there (this was the period of the great translations and of the spread of relics). This is attested by Ordo XII (between the end of the 8th century and the first half of the 9th), cf. M. Andrieu, Les Ordines Romani du haut moyen-âge, II, Louvain 1948, p. 466): «Passiones sanctorum vel gesta ipsorum usque ad Adriani tempora tantummodo ibi legebantur ubi ecclesia ipsius sancti vel titulus erat. Ipse vero tempore suo renovare iussit et in Ecclesia Sancti Petri legendas esse institut». Papal favor facilitated their diffusion and increase, to the point that within the Divine Office they became a threat to lectio divina itself.
The reading took place in choir, but when it was particularly lengthy it continued in the refectory, as noted in ms. lat. 798 of the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris (v. Leroquais [V. BIBLICA.], p. 11), or it was distributed over the days of the week (if the feast had an octave).
II. CLASSIFICATION
Among the p., some are particular or local, that is, they contain the passions of the martyrs of a region or diocese, or of those venerated in a church; others are general or universal, whether with regard to the category of saints or to the place of veneration. Types of particular p. are, for example, for Egypt the Vitae Patrum, for Gaul the Vitae of s. Gregorio di Tours, for Italy the Dialoghi of s. Gregorio Magno, for Spain the Memoriale sanctorum of Eulogio di Cordova, for Ireland the Codex Salmanticensis, for England the Sanctilogium Angliae of Giovanni di Tynemouth, and for Brabant the Hagiologium Brabantinorum. The universality of the p. depends on the number of saints, the limits of time, and so forth.The two oldest manuscripts of p. date from the seventh century and are found: one, the Codex Velseri, in the Munich Library (lat. 3514), the other in the Municipal Library of Montpellier (ms. 55). Manuscripts from the eighth century are more numerous. From the ninth century onward, p. multiplied everywhere and became increasingly voluminous. In the twelfth century, the sections were extracted from them—already marked in the codices by distinct paragraphs—for reading in the Divine Office. The first types of breviaries were in fact already taking shape, and the p. became the most frequent source of the historical lessons of the proprium sanctorum.
The texts of lessons and responsories for a number of ancient martyrs, such as s. Agata, s. Cecilia, s. Lucia, s. Clemente, and s. Lorenzo, whose authentic acts are not possessed, were taken from anonymous and legendary p. and still remain in the Office. Finally, around the middle of the thirteenth century, a final type of “abridged” legendary became widespread, intended to provide private devotion with edifying reading. It seems that the Dominicans distinguished themselves particularly in this respect.