ON ST. POLYCARP AND HIS COMPANIONS,
Martyrs at Alexandria.
UNDER MAXIMIAN.
CommentaryPolycarp, Martyr, at Alexandria (St.)
Companion Martyrs, at Alexandria (SS.)
G. H.
The sacred memory of St. Polycarp the Martyr is celebrated by
the Greeks in their Menaea and in Maximus
Bishop of Cythera ἐν
βίοις
Ἁγίων; and in the
Menaea they add this distich:
Τμηθεὶς
ὡς
κλῆμα
Πολύκαρπος
Κυρίου,
Πλείονα
καρπὸν
αὐτῷ
πολύχουν
φέρει. The cultus of St. Polycarp,
Allusion is made to the name of St. Polycarp, by which Much fruit
is signified; and in order that he might bear for Him greater and
manifold fruit, he himself had to be cut and pruned like a branch
of the Lord: namely, when he was beheaded — as is more fully explained in
the Menology of the Greeks, which was composed by order of Emperor Basil
Porphyrogenitus in the tenth century of Christ, in which
the Contest of the holy Martyr Polycarp is set forth for this II day
of April as follows:
[2] Eulogium of the Martyrdom The holy Martyr of Christ Polycarp lived under
the reign of the impious and wicked Maximian, from the city of
Alexandria. Since he was a Christian and burned with the greatest
zeal for divine worship and honor, and saw
each day those confessing the faith of Christ being thrown
into chains and afflicted with manifold torments,
he could no longer endure it. Seeing therefore the Prince who
presided, pouring out the blood of men as though
it were water, and standing before him,
he reproved him, saying: Why do you thus, O insatiable dog,
forget your human nature? when you are cutting down
as though they were logs men of one mind
and who share the same nature with you, for this reason alone, that
they confess and preach the true God, and detest the error
of idols: as I also do,
who am likewise a servant of Christ. When by these words he had
stirred up the President to wrath, he was soon bound and sharply
tortured, and thus, bearing Christ on his lips to the very end of his life,
he was beheaded. Thus far the text.
[3] A Greek MS. Synaxarium, which belongs to the College
of Clermont of the Society of Jesus at Paris, adds several companions
to him in these words: καὶ
ἄθλησις
τοῦ
ἁγίου
μάρτυρος
Πολυκάρπου
καὶ
τῆς
συνοδίας
αὐτοῦ. Companions. The same words are read
in the Parisian MS. of Cardinal Mazarin, and in the Milanese MS. of the Ambrosian
library marked with the letter O and number
148, likewise in an Arabic-Egyptian MS. Menology, which from
Arabic into Latin was translated for us by Gratia
Simonius, then a student at the Maronite College in Rome, in
which these words are read: Contest of St. Polycarp and
of his companions.