A[nno] cxxviiio ¶Passa \est/ Maria uirgo in Gneocesarea ciuitate.

A[nno] cxxixo

A[nno] cxxxo

A[nno] cxxxio

A[nno] cxxxiio

A[nno] cxxxiiio

A[nno] cxxxiiiio ¶Secundum martyrologium tempore Adrian imperatoris passus est bea
tus Sixtus primusa papa, non sicut subtus scribitur tempore Antonii Pii.
A[nno] cxxxvo
¶Ierosolimorum primus ex gentibus constituitur episcopus Marcus, cessantibus his qui fue
rant ex Iudeis, qui sunt numero xv qui pręfuerant a passione Domini per annos centum.
A[nno] cxxxvio Helyo Adriano postquam regnauerat annis xxi succedit Antonius cognomento Pius, cum
filiis suis Aurelio & Lucio, cuius tempore Iustinus philosophus pro defensione ueritatis martyrium
passus est, sub Pio Romę episcopo. Hermes quoque librum scripsit qui Pastoris dicitur, in quo pręcep
tum angeli continetur, ut pascha die dominica celebraretur. Policarpus etiam Romam ueniens
multos ab heretica labe castigauit, qui Ualentini & Credonis fuerant nuper doctrina
A[nno] cxxxviio ¶corrupti.

A[nno] cxxxviiio
¶Beatę uirgines & \sorores/ Potenciana & Praxedis, & beatus Prudens
pater earum gloriose seculum ▬ uicerunt.
A[nno] cxxxixo

A[nno] cxlo ¶A’ librum pro relligione Christiana compositum Antonino tradi
dit benignumque eum erga Christianos fecit, qui non longe post, suscitante persecucionem percrescente1
A[nno] c\x/lio

A[nno] c\x/liio

A[nno] c\x/liiio Beatus Syxtus papa martyrium pro Christo passus est.

A[nno] cxliiiio

A[nno] cxlvo

A[nno] cxlvio
 

Notes

1 DB: Percrescente written as one word; see comment on translation.
In the 128th year ¶Mary, a virgin, suffered in the city of Geocaesarea.1

In the 129th year

In the 130th year

In the 131st year

In the 132nd year

In the 133rd year

In the 134th year ¶According to the Martyrology the blessed Pope Sixtus I suffered in the time of the emperor Hadrian, not as written below in the time of Antonius Pius.2
In the 135th year
¶Mark is the first bishop of Jerusalem to be appointed from the gentiles, bringing to an end those who were from the Jews, who were 15 in number, who were in charge for a hundred years3 from the Lord’s Passion.
In the 136th year, after Aelius Hadrian had reigned for 21 years Antonius surnamed Pius succeeded, with his sons Aurelius and Lucius, in whose time Justin the philosopher suffered martyrdom for the defence of truth, under Pius bishop of Rome.4 Also, Hermas wrote a book which is called the Shepherd, which contains the angel’s command that Easter should be celebrated on a Sunday. Also, Polycarp, coming to Rome, warned many against the stain of heresy who had recently been corrupted by the doctrine of Valentinus and ¶Credo.5
In the 137th year

In the 138th year
¶The blessed virgins and \sisters/ Potentiana and Praxedes, and their father the blessed Pudens,6 gloriously ▬ overcame the secular world.
In the 139th year

In the 140th year ¶A.7 presented to Antoninus the book [he had] composed in favour of the Christian religion, and [it] made him [Antoninus] well disposed towards Christians; [A.] not long after [was killed] after arousing extremely intensifying persecution.8
In the 141st year

In the 142nd year

In the 143rd year the blessed Pope Sixtus suffered martyrdom for Christ.

In the 144th year

In the 145th year

In the 146th year 

Notes

1 DB: Modern Niksar, in the province of Tokat, Türkiye (Turkey).
2 DB: According to the martyrology of Usuard, Pope Sixtus temporibus Adriani … libenter mortem sustinuit temporalem, ‘freely suffered worldly death in the time of Hadrian’ (6 April: ed. Dubois, 207). See AD 143 (below) for the alternative view that Sixtus was martyred in the time of Antonius Pius. In Hugh of St Victor’s chronology given earlier in the manuscript (f. 29r), Sixtus becomes pope in AD 128 and is succeeded in AD 139 by Telesphorus, a year before Antonius Pius succeeds Hadrian as emperor in AD 140.
3 DB: The sentence is in CM (ed. Mommsen, §319), but with ‘almost a hundred and seven years’ (annos fere centum et septem) instead of ‘a hundred years’.
4 DB: In CM (ed. Mommsen, §§321, 322) sub Pio Romę episcopo (‘under Pius bishop of Rome’) begins a new sentence, following the sentence on the martyrdom of Justin the philosopher (which is given only briefly in the Chronicle of Melrose). The punctuation in the manuscript (with enlarged H in Hermes following a punctus in the middle of the line, suggesting a longer pause), however, suggests that sub Pio Romę episcopo was understood to come at the end of the sentence on Justin’s martyrdom.
5 DB: CM (ed. Mommsen, §323) has the same sentence, but with Cerdonis (‘of Cerdo’) rather than Credonis. Cerdo (and Valentinus) are discussed as heretics by Eusebius (see Rufinus, trans. Amidon, 152–3).
6 DB: Prudens in the manuscript; the martyrology of Usuard (19 May, ed. Dubois, 232) has Pudens. According to the martyrology of Usuard, Pudens and Potentiana were martyred on the same day (19 May); Praxedes on 21 July (ed. Dubois, 270–1).
7 DB: CM (ed. Mommsen, §321) has the same sentence (up to ‘persecution’), but with Iustinus philosophus (‘The philosopher Justin’) instead of A. Eusebius’s history includes an account of Justin and his martyrdom because of Crescens the stoic (see Rufinus, trans. Amidon, 165–7).
8 DB: The translation reads oddly, partly because percrescente (translated here as ‘extremely intensifying’) is not a known word (it is in neither DMLBS or Lewis and Short), and partly because the material from CM here has been abbreviated so much that the sentence as it stands appears to be incomplete: perhaps the reader was expected to supply passus est (‘suffered’) or something similar so that ‘A.’s’ (i.e., Justin’s) martyrdom is inferred. In CM (Mommsen, §321), this passage reads: qui non longe post suscitante persecutionem Crescente cynico pro Christo sanguinem fudit, ‘who (i.e., Justin) not long after arousing persecution by the cynic Crescens, shed (his) blood for Christ’. Two stages of development from CM’s statement could explain how this passage became so awkward. The first is the addition of per (per Crescente, ‘by Crescens’, although per Crescentem would be expected grammatically); and then, perhaps because per Crescente is grammatically unusual, this could have been read as one word, percrescente (taking per to be an intensifier to crescere). Crescens is the name of an opponent of Justin who is noted in CM (derived ultimately from Eusebius) as Justin’s persecutor, leading to his martyrdom (see previous note).