CHRYSANTHUS AND DARIA, SS.

Martyrs; d. c. 300. Their passion, probably written in Rome in the sixth or seventh century, is anachronistic and has little historical value. According to it, Chrysanthus was a rich young man from Alexandria who came to Rome and was baptized. Daria, a priestess of Minerva, was sent to him, but he converted her and they entered a continent marriage and converted many pagans, including the tribune Claudius and 62 soldiers who were martyred and buried in an abandoned aqueduct. For their apostolate, Chrysanthus and Daria were buried alive in a sandpit on the Via Sataria. Christians visiting their tomb were sealed in on the orders of Numerianus (d. 284). gregory of tours, who knew of the last episode, said that Pope damasus composed for the crypt an epitaph; this, however, has not been discovered. A later inscription for Chrysanthus and Daria says that their shrine was restored after the goths devastated it in 539. These martyrs seem to be genuine, but their stories appear to have been brought together because they were buried in the Via Salaria or because they were listed together in martyrologies. Oil from the lamps of the shrine was brought to the Frankish Queen Theodelinda. Chrysanthus and Daria appear in sixth-century mosaics in ravenna, and their tomb is mentioned in itineraria of the seventh century. In 844 their relics were brought to prÜm and from there to Münstereifel, where they are still venerated. The martyrologies list them on various dates.

Feast: Oct. 25.

Bibliography: g. reitter, Sankt Chrysanthen: das alte Wahlfahrtsheiligtum in Osttirol u. seine europ. Kultzusammenhänge (Innsbruck 1976). p. allard, Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, ed. f. cabrol, h. leclercq, and h. i. marrou (Paris 1907–53) 3.1:1560–68. a. p. frutaz, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner (Freiburg 1957–65) 2:1192–93. j. dubois, Catholicisme 2:1112–13.

[m. j. costelloe]