THEIR Greek and Latin Acts agree that, after suffering many torments,
they were put to death, on three different days, at Apollonia, in
Phrygia, in the persecution of Decius. Sozomen tells us that Caesarius,
who had been prefect and consul, built at Constantinople a magnificent
church under the invocation of St. Thyrsus, with a portion of whose
relics it was enriched. Another church within the city bore his name, as
appears from the Menaea, on the 14th of December. In the cathedral of our
Lady at Sisteron, in a church at Limoges, &c., St. Thymus is one of the
patrons. Many churches in Spain bear his name. Silon, King of Oviedo and
Asturia, in a letter to Cyxilas, archbishop of Toledo in 777, says that
the queen had sent presents to the church of St. Thyrsus, which the
archbishop had built, viz. a silver chalice and paten, a basin to wash
the hands in, with a pipe and a diadem on the cover, to be used when the
blood of our Lord was distributed to the people.
Footnotes:
1. Cum suo naso. Du Cange, not understanding this word, substitutes
vaso. But nasus here signifies a silver pipe or quill to suck up the
blood of Christ at the communion, such as the pope sometimes uses.
Such a one is kept at St. Denys's, near Paris. The ancient Ordo
Romanus calls that _pugillar_ which is here called nasus, because it
sucks up as a nose draws up air. In the reign of Philip II., in
1595, in certain ruins near the cathedral of Toledo, this cover of
the chalice was discovered with the diadem. Chatelain, p. 440.