Hymn to Saints Donatus and Hilary 1
46.
1.
We sing the glory of the bright triumph by which
Donatus sought the victory of heaven his
Companion Hilary at the same time both of the
Punishment and the crown.
2.
Those two lights shine as if they remove
Ugliness and the shadows of the world,
While they thunder words and redden with
Signs of wonders.
3.
Demons strip away the seized plunder,
Whom they torment with hard whips of prayer,
They renew to each strength to the ill and light
To the blind.
4.
Having been shut up for three months the woman
Produces buried money from the grave;
Alive in this way with a child (and) with a husband for a long time
He was not dead.
5.
A fragment rises up into the previous
Form of the broken jar, a little part being missing,
But no drop of liquid [spills] from there,
A new thing in the world!
6.
We, exalted nobles, beseech, at length:
We at the same time as your paternal prayers (that)
The right hand of Christ may raise up the fallen and
Make solid (that which) has been broken.
7.
Praise, honor to the father and also to the son…
47.
1.
Give, star of gold,
Martyr and child of a martyr,
But those whom you precede to faith,
You will go before to martyrdom.
2.
To us, outstanding prelate,
Glory and light of the church,
Feast to those worshiping you,
Aid (them) with holy prayers.
3.
You who gives to the three months dead
To produce living words,
Resurrected by the spirit,
(Who was) buried by a mass of crimes.
4.
The life monk Hilary shone
Also with character;
Having performed hospitality
Rightly he is made also a sharer of martyrdom.
5.
You bright lamps of the world
And stones of heaven alive,
We unhappy ones
With your merits admit us to the reward.
6.
Let there be praise to the unbegotten (son) of the father…
In fact, at the time of Damiani it was a widespread tradition that the city of Arezzo guarded the relics of seven martyrs: the bishop Donato, the hermit Llarian, the virgins Flora and Lucilla, the brothers Lamentino and Pergentino and, lastly, even the very famous bishop of Benevento, Gennaro.
The Monks of Ramsgate wrote in their Book of Saints (1921),
DONATUS and HILARY (SS.) MM. (Aug. 7)
(4th century) Saint Donatus, Bishop of Arezzo in Tuscany, is commemorated liturgically on August 7. He, with Hilary (or Hilarinus), a monk, was put to death for the Faith under Julian the Apostate (A.D. 361). Hilary was scourged to death; Donatus was beheaded. Saint Gregory and others relate the many miracles wrought by these holy men, among which the restoring as before a glass altar-chalice dashed in pieces by the Pagans.[1]
During a celebration of Mass, at the moment of the giving of Communion, in which a glass chalice was being administered, some pagans entered the church and shattered the chalice in question. Donatus, after intense prayer, collected all of the fragments and joined them together. There was a piece missing from the bottom of the cup; miraculously, however, nothing spilled from the cup. Astounded, seventy-nine pagans converted to Christianity.