ON SAINT ULPIANUS,
MARTYR AT TYRE IN PHOENICIA.
IN THE YEAR 304
CommentaryUlpianus, Martyr, at Tyre in Phoenicia (Saint)
G. H.
Eusebius Pamphilus, in his book On the Martyrs of Palestine, inserts the martyrdom of Saint Ulpianus, although it took place not in Palestine, but in the contiguous Phoenicia; and indeed in the city of Tyre, close enough to Caesarea, where Saint Apphianus had suffered. Martyrdom from Eusebius When Eusebius had spoken of him in chapter 4, immediately in chapter 5 he subjoins these words concerning this Martyr: "About the same time, and on nearly the same days, in the city of Tyre, a certain youth, Ulpianus by name, after cruel blows and most bitter scourgings, together with a dog and an asp, was sewn up in a sack of raw ox-hide and cast into the sea." Therefore, along with the martyrdom of Apphianus, he seems rightly to be commemorated here by us. Saint Apphianus is venerated on April 2, to whom, on the next day, is joined in the Roman Martyrology, the reported Martyr with this encomium: and the Roman Martyrology: "At Tyre, of Saint Ulpianus, Martyr, who in the persecution of Maximian Galerius, sewn up in a sack with an asp and a dog, was drowned in the sea." The punishment of the sack. Where Baronius in the Notes treats at length of the punishment of the sack, which had been decreed for parricides, and shows that on account of its excessive atrocity it ceased to be used: whence also he bids us weigh the cruelty and fury of the Gentiles against the Christians, whom they forced to undergo punishments crueler than those of parricides. The time of the persecution we have set forth above in Saint Apphianus: which, although it happened under the Emperor Maximian Galerius, the time of the martyrdom, was carried out in Palestine and Phoenicia at the command of Maximin Caesar, in the fourth year of the persecution, of Christ 304: therefore Maximin rather than Maximian should be named in the Martyrology. Brautius, Bishop of Sarsina, in his Poetic Martyrology, adorns him with this distich:
"With a rabid dog and a horrible snake sewn up in a sack, The Martyr, drowned in the sea, meets his end."