[2] The expression Acta Martyrum generally applies to all narrative texts about the deaths of the martyrs, but it possesses a more precise and restricted meaning when referring, in technical terms, to the official records of the processes and convictions.
Once the distinction is made, the name of the act is reserved for the verbal processes (such as Acta Martyrum Scyllitanorum), while for references relating to the martyrs, the name of passio is applied in all of its diverse forms (Gesta, martyrium, Legenda).
According to what is known to date, there is no precise idea of the extent to which Christians transcribed the records of the processes; it is undoubtedly very likely that some of those who witnessed the development of stenography in their text, in the same manner as the notarius of the court, gave it to the community for preservation in the archives of the church.
Similarly, a classification based on extrinsic characteristics, such as the one that divides the hagiographic documents in Acta, Passiones, Vitae, Miracula, Translationes, etc., also lacks value, according to the object of the story.
Owing to the contemporary and direct nature of the information presented; the next two groupings contain stories that, in varying degrees, are based on at least partially reliable data.
Following the same criteria as Delehaye, the texts can be classified into three simpler groups: Except for the official records, all of the narrative documents mentioned above offer, from a literary point of view, common characters, since they are all the result of an elaboration and compositional process typical of hagiographic literature.
The phases of the procedure—arrest, appearance, interrogation, torture, judgment and torment—preserve and constitute the structure of the narrative; likewise, the protagonists, usually few in number, of the ancient records are preserved: the martyr, the judge or magistrate, and the executioner; in the second place, the Christian spectators who animate their companion; and, finally, the hostile mass of the pagans.
On a similar scheme, the evolutionary process of the passions develops (throughout the centuries IV to XX), with successive enrichments and formal improvements, including fantasies, common places, and errors, due to both ignorance and blind piety of the hagiographers.
These unsubstantiated relationships can be broken down like this: The same happened with the narrations of the pains and tortures, prolonged and multiplied without saving prodigies made by the martyr, adorned with the spectacular element provided by fantasy and legend.
In this transformation and development, negative from the critical point of view, several factors influenced to a considerable degree: the spread of the cult of the relics, with the inevitable abuses easily imaginable; veneration of the martyred saint, patron saint of the city, monastery or church, which obliged him to find or invent a living; the particularly religious and devout environment of the Middle Ages, favored by the monks who were among the most active writers of the hagiographic texts.
were made, which are still found in various codices of European libraries; others, on the other hand, were recast arbitrarily in other compilations later printed and translated in vulgar language; thus constituting a copious literature that reaches until the Renaissance.
[5] In 1882, Edmond-Frederic Le Blant had the idea to continue and complete the compilation of Ruinart and added another group of records, which he considered authentic by the adequacy of the narrative with the Roman legal phrases.
In recent years, a series of principles and norms of hagiographic criticism have been exposed in relation to the records by several specialists, such as H. Achelis, J. Geffken, and A. Harnack in Germany; P. Allard and J. Leclercq in France; the Jesuit F. Grossi-Gondi, Luigi Lanzoni, and Pio Franchi de 'Cavalieri in Italy.
He has contributed, in effect, the safest classification of the records; he has pointed out the various components of a martyr's dossier; he has reconstructed the iteration of the legend, underscoring the special function of the massa and local traditions; he has studied hagiographic documents parallel to the narrative texts, such as martyrologies and synaxes; and he has established the different value of literary, liturgical, and monumental sources, specifically establishing that of chronological and topographical data (doctrine of hagiographic coordinates).