SS. JULIUS AND AARON, MM.

THESE saints were Britons, and seem to have taken, the one a Roman and the other a Hebrew name at their baptism. They glorified God by martyrdom at Caerleon upon Usk in Monmouthshire, in the persecution of Dioclesian, probably about the year 303. St. Gildas,2 St. Bede,3 and others, speak of their triumph as having been most illustrious. Leland and Bale say, SS. Julius and Aaron had travelled to Rome, and “there applied themselves to the sacred studies.” Bede adds, “very many others of both sexes, by unheard-of tortures, attained to the crown of heavenly glory.” Giraldus Cambrensis informs us, that their bodies were honored at Caerlton in the year 1200, when he wrote. Each of these martyrs had a titular church in that city; that of St. Julius, belonged to a nunnery, and that of St. Aaron to a monastery of canons. See Godwin De Episc. Landav. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Giraldus Canbrensis, Leland, and Tanner, Bibl. Britan. p.1.