ON ST. SABAS THE GOTH,
Martyr in Cappadocia.
IN THE YEAR 372.
PrefaceSabas the Goth, Martyr, in Cappadocia (St.)
BY D. P.
We set forth the numerous class of Gothic Martyrs, with the Presbyters Bathusius and Verca as leaders, on March 26; and we described their passion,
undergone during the reigns of Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, Before the persecutions which began to be moved in the year 370 we judged to belong to about the year of the Christian Era 370; inasmuch as the common empire of the two former began with Gratian in the year 367 (the printer wrongly made 64), and lasted until the year 375. That long before these, namely in the year 350, holy Sabas, himself also a Goth, had been crowned, by what error could have slipped into us there I do not know: yet it slipped in, although it is expressly held in the Acts that he was killed under the emperors Valens and Valentinian, and indeed on the Thursday of Easter week, which fell on April 12—which in the whole reign of Valens and Valentinian occurred never except once, and that in the year 372, in the very Consuls who are there named, Modestus and Arintheus, whom indeed all the Fasti hold only for this year. May the reader pardon this error, wherever it was born, to those voluntarily confessing it, and either correct or expunge in the place already indicated that part of the first and second number, where this Sabas is treated, in the meantime while we give here the history of the Gothic persecution composed more clearly and distinctly.
[2] After the Emperor Constantine, having won a notable victory against the Scythians dwelling beyond the Ister, around the year 319, The Christian cause sufficiently flourished in Gothia from the year 319. deigned to soften the sense of the received disaster by ratifying treaties with them as with unharmed peoples; the propagation of the Christian faith had such successful progress in Gothia (for that the Scythians in their vernacular tongue are called Goths, the author in Theophanes is the Patrician Trajan), that in the sixth year after the aforesaid victory, Theophilus, Bishop of the metropolis of Gothia, is found to have come to Nicaea and to have subscribed to the decrees of the Council held there. whose metropolitan Theophilus subscribed to the first Nicene Synod. But if there was a metropolis in Gothia, there were certainly also other Episcopal Sees, suffragan to the metropolis, and therefore also many Bishops: with a series perhaps not interrupted from the very time of the holy Apostle Andrew, to whom in the casting of lots of the provinces Scythia is believed by the Church in common tradition to have fallen. Concerning this, whatever may be the case, at least it seems cannot be controverted, that by the cruel persecutions of the Roman Emperors, and the last most grievous of all begun by Diocletian, it came about that from Thrace into neighboring Gothia many Christians fled, to profess their faith more safely among the barbarians than among the citizens, with great fruit from the natives; although the rulers themselves and nobles of the Goths, and the greater part of the people, remained involved in Gentile superstitions and rites.
[3] To the aforesaid Bishop Theophilus succeeded Ulphilas, and indeed immediately, after him Bishop Audius established monasteries, if what Philostorgius the Arian asserts about him is true—his countryman and contemporary, being born in the year 368—that Ulphilas was in such esteem with Constantine the Great, that he was often called by him "the Moses of our times." But then he must have come to a quite remarkable and wonderfully green old age: since beyond the year 337 Constantine did not persevere among the living, and Ulphilas in the year 369 came to Valens at Constantinople as a legate. Meanwhile both he himself, and a certain Audaeus, an exiled Bishop, and perhaps several others, vehemently increased the name of Christian among the Goths. And by Audaeus indeed, as Epiphanius writes in heresy 70, even monasteries were made in Gothia, Ulphilas translated the Scripture into Gothic. and a way of life was established, and virginity, and no common exercise of piety. And by Ulphilas, as Philostorgius says, almost the whole of sacred Scripture was translated into the Gothic tongue, from which a good part of the four Gospels, somehow preserved to this day in a very old codex of silver letters, with the Anglo-Saxon version of the same four Gospels, and fitting commentaries on both languages, not many years ago we have printed at Dordrecht in Holland, by the zeal of the most illustrious Franciscus Junius.
[4] With things so well established, and with some of the leading men also added to the populace, already for the greater part Christian; [but when Athanaric, the Pagan King, was enraged by the disaster received from the Romans,] a dissension arose among the Goths, and disturbed everything, some following King Fritigern, others King Athanaric. For Fritigern, having been defeated in battle, had necessarily to seek auxiliaries from the Roman Emperor Valens, making the pact that he himself also would become Christian; but Athanaric, worn down by a heavy disaster from the enemy who had crossed the Danube with the Romans, despairing of vengeance on his victors, wished to seek it from his own subjects, inflamed with the greatest hatred toward the Christian name; because Ulphilas, Prelate of the Christians, adhering to Fritigern and reconciling him with Valens, had brought this calamity upon him: and he was going to bear nothing more heavily He began to rage against the Christians of his dominion than to see the religion planted by him with the labors of so many years utterly rooted out, at least in that part of Gothia which obeyed Athanaric. To this part there was also this peculiar happiness, that (as under the year 370 Cardinal Baronius shows at more length) it was still of the most intact faith, and untouched by any taint of Arianism: which Fritigern's part, bound by the benefits of the Arian Valens, could not avoid, especially since Ulphilas himself, with whom the summit of the faith seemed to lie, had been drawn into error, as though the dispute were only about words and not about the divinity of Christ: and Audaeus, from whom the Audaeans were named, untouched by any Arian contagion, was inclined to the heresy of the Anthropomorphites. Perhaps with greater simplicity than stubbornness in each, but altogether pernicious for posterity, who little by little led into Arianism, afterwards carried it along with victorious arms through Gaul, Spain, and the Italies.
[5] But still intact, at least in the first years after Fritigern's restoration, under Athanaric the religion was, as we have said: against which the barbarian, made savage by his defeat, [sending those who were to go around from village to village and force them to offer sacrifice:] then did those things which are read in the passion of Saint Nicetas, killed by his command on September 15; and then those which Sozomen in Book 6, chapter 37 thus describes: "It is reported that those to whom he had committed the carrying out of this business led around a certain statue placed in a chariot through each of the tents of the Christians, and ordered them to adore it and to offer sacrifices to it; and when the Christians refused to do this, they burned the tents with the men themselves." Others acted elsewhere more languidly in professing the faith, and permitted the Gentiles who were dwelling among them, offering to the idol, to swear that no Christian was with them; as the Acts of Saint Sabas, which we shall presently give, signify, of such sort as composed by the Presbyters of Gothia and sent to the Churches of Cappadocia with the body of the holy Martyr himself, we have in Greek from a Vatican manuscript, and we give it, preserving as far as possible the Latin translation of Francisco Zini, as it stands in Lipomanus, corrected only in a few places by comparison with the Greek text.
[6] on which occasion those 26 were burned together with the church "Moreover I have learned," says Sozomen in the aforesaid passage, "that another disaster, much more miserable than this, happened at the same time. For many then, men and women, of whom some had brought boys with them, others newborn infants still sucking at their breasts, yielding to the violence of those who were compelling them to sacrifice, fled to the tabernacle of the church which was there; all of whom, when the tabernacle was set on fire by the Gentiles, were together destroyed"—the very same, of whom on March 26 whose cult is held on March 26, with the number contained in the day's mark, and whose relics, collected by her, Queen Gaatha, a Christian, and perhaps the wife of Fritigern himself, translated to Romania. Of the sincere faith of all of whom we have the splendid testimony of Saint Augustine in Book 18, chapter 52 of the City of God, where he says: "The King of the Goths in Gothia itself persecuted the Christians with wondrous cruelty, and others praised by Saint Augustine, when there were none there but Catholics, very many of whom were crowned with martyrdom, as we have heard from certain brothers who were then there and without doubt remembered themselves to have seen." The other things pertaining to this may be seen in Baronius, discussed with mature examination: to which one may add this: that it should not be said, because Ulphilas, the chief Doctor and Apostle of the Gothic people, added in his last years a stain to his glory by agreeing with the Arians, that therefore all who were under Fritigern, being Christians, fell away from the right faith and are unworthy of the title of Martyr, if any of them also, caught by Athanaric's agents, were killed for refusing the worship of idols: for that evil leaven could not have passed in a moment to all.
[7] How truly cruel the persecution of Athanaric was, Epiphanius describes, thus speaking of the Audaeans (whose order, notwithstanding their blemishes, he had a little before praised and almost all Christianity was extinguished, as adorned with sincerity of life and justice) and of the other Christians: "Very many were driven from Gothia, not only of them, but also of our Christians there, a great persecution being set on foot under the pagan King, who was very wicked and hostile to the Romans, because the Roman Emperors were Christian: so that the whole people of the Christians were driven from those parts, that there should remain no root of wisdom or plant of faith. But although all seem to have been driven away, there are altogether faithful men there; for it is not possible for the fountain of faith to fail." He wrote this in the fourth year after the exile of those whom he mentioned: the rest fell away to Arianism. when, the troubles pacified among the Goths, all alike turned their arms against the Roman Thracians, and by Ulphilas and his successors were little by little drawn over to Arianism—even those who had held out under Athanaric; since they had among them almost no other teachers by whom they might be instructed about Christ, nor could they easily be persuaded that Ulphilas differed in anything from the faith which he himself had with such great labors and prodigies previously taught them.
[8] However that may be, the whole Eastern Church acknowledged Saint Sabas as an outstanding and true Martyr of Christ, recalling his memory on various days, depending on when the relics of his sacred body were communicated to and received by various churches. The Acts designate this 12th day of April as the day of death, and his memory is found inserted on this day in both Turin manuscripts, likewise in the Ambrosian, marked N 378, which codex when Galesinius had seen, he wove for him this elogium. Cult of Saint Sabas on April 12. "In Gothia, Saint Sabas the Martyr. This man, having embraced the faith of Christ Jesus from his infancy, and being engaged in every exercise of Christian virtue, under the Emperor Valens, variously harried by the Princes of Gothia worshipping idols, finally thrown into the river Sabas, received the crown of the battle undertaken for piety." But the Acts mention only Atharidus, son of the little-king Rhothestheus, as the author of the Martyrdom: all the other Greek codices constantly name the river Musaeus, the place of martyrdom at the river Musaeus. perhaps Galesinius wished to write Savus: but this flows into the Danube in Pannonia above Belgrade, while Athanaric reigned beyond the Danube, where now the Wallachians and Moldavians dwell: but among the Wallachians even today there is a river called Missovo,
not far from Terisco or Târgoviște, the chief seat of the Voivode; which river, flowing past the town of Rebnick and mingled with the strait, loses its name before it is carried into the Danube.
[9] Molanus, following the Acts as read in Lipomanus, also placed Sabas on April 12: Canisius followed him also in the German Martyrology, and finally in the most recent Roman one Cardinal Baronius in this manner: "In Cappadocia, Saint Sabas the Goth, who under the Emperor Valens, when Athanaric, King of the Goths, was persecuting the Christians, after dire torments was thrown into the river: at which time also (as Saint Augustine writes) very many of the orthodox Goths were distinguished with the crown of martyrdom." In the notes he signifies that the Greeks treat of the same on the 14th day before the Kalends of May in the Menology, At Constantinople he is venerated April 18. namely in that which Cardinal Sirletus compiled from manuscript Menaea, with too extemporaneous a labor, whence in it is read not without errors that the Saint was beaten with lashes by Athanaric himself; though Athanaric was not present at his martyrdom. Meanwhile it remains true that on April 18 Sabas was venerated at Constantinople, as is gathered both from the Kalendar of the Greeks in Genebrard, and from the metrical Ephemeris of April proposing one chief Saint of each day in single hexameters, of which this is one:
Ὀγδοάτῃ δεκάτῃ ποταμοῦ Σάββαν κτάνε ρἑιθρον
"On the eighteenth the river's wave slew Sabas."
The elogium which the aforecited manuscripts have on the 12th day, the Menaea also have on this day, both the one printed at Venice, and at Dijon with Francisco Chifflet, with this distich proposed:
Ὕπελθε Σάββα φθαρτὸν ἡδέως ὕδωρ, Ὡς ἂν πίνῃς ἄφθαρτον ἡδονῆς ὕδωρ.
Enter the mortal river gently, O Sabas, That you may drink the immortal river of joy.
In a certain Ambrosian manuscript at Milan, marked O 148, the commemoration of Saint Sabas the Goth is also noted on April 15, elsewhere 15. as also in the Menology of the Emperor Basil with an elogium drawn from the Acts.
[10] Take this compendium of the Acts from the manuscript Synaxary of Clermont, Compendium of the Passion from a manuscript Synaxary, April 17. at the 17th: "On the same day the contest of the holy Martyr Sabas the Goth. This man was under the reign of Valentinian from the region of the Goths: who, having been a Christian from adolescence, not only himself refused to taste foods offered to idols, but turned away others who were ready to do so; proposing to them the faith which is in Christ, he baptized many converted by him from his fellow gentiles. Therefore the idolaters rising up against him expelled him by force from their city. But after some time, when Athanaric the Prince had moved a persecution against the Christians, and was grievously afflicting all who preached Christ, Sabas was also seized, and bound to a chariot axle, suspended from the beam of his own house: and when he had refused to eat things sacrificed to idols, led to the river, with a great log tied to his neck, he was thrown into it and suffocated, being in the thirty-eighth year of his age." The same age the printed Menaea also note: though of it and of the baptism of many conferred by Sabas nothing is in the Acts, nothing also about the hanging: but on the contrary, that, bound by his hands and feet stretched out between two axles, he lay on the pavement, until a woman of the house coming up loosed him from the wood.
[11] A graver error of the same printed Menaea is that they added to the name of Sabas the title Στρατηλάτου, Different from this is Sabas the General, April 24. that is, General or Tribune of Soldiers: which belongs to another, likewise a Goth, who suffered under Aurelian at Rome, whose solemn feast and office occurs on April 24, both in the printed and the manuscript Menaea and Synaxaria. Led astray by some similar error, our Fathers at Ascoli in Picenum, around the year 1612, when from Rome they had received the body of Saint Sabas the Goth from the most Reverend Father Claudio Acquaviva, General of the Society of Jesus; chose the day April 12 for his annual veneration, on which is venerated this one of whom we now treat, who suffered far from the city of Rome in Gothia: whereas they would have done much more correctly, if they had determined to keep the day marked in the Roman Martyrology for the Roman and more ancient Martyr of this name: to which we also defer a few things received from Ascoli.
ACTS
written by the Church of Gothia to the Church of Cappadocia.
From the Greek Vatican manuscript, collated with the Latin version of the Venetian manuscript by Francisco Zini in Lipomanus and Surius.
Sabas the Goth, Martyr, in Cappadocia (St.)
BY THE PRESBYTERS OF GOTHIA. FROM A GREEK MANUSCRIPT.
To the Church of God which is in Gothia, the Church of God which is in Cappadocia, and to all Christians of the Catholic Church dwelling everywhere among the nations, may mercy, peace, and the charity of God the Father and of our Lord Jesus Christ be fulfilled.
[1] What was said by Blessed Peter, "In every nation, he who fears God and works justice is acceptable to him," is now also declared to be true. Acts 10:35 For this has been confirmed in Blessed Sabas, who is a Martyr of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ. For though he was a Goth by race, By race a Goth and in Gothia in the midst of a depraved and perverse generation led his life, he so imitated holy men, and with them worshipped Christ in every kind of virtue, that he shone in the world like a star. For from his very infancy, having embraced the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ, but a Christian from infancy, he deemed perfect virtue to be to become, through the knowledge of the Son of God, a perfect man. But because to those who love God all things work together for good, strenuously fighting against the enemy, and proving superior to the evils of this life, and holding peace with all, he reached the prize of the supernal calling.
[2] For the sake therefore of memory and of the edification of the devout, after he himself rested in the Lord, we are by no means permitted to be silent and at rest: trained in every virtue, but are impelled to write down his illustrious deeds. For he was upright in faith, ready to obey in all justice, meek, religious, unskilled in speech, but not in knowledge; peaceful with all, speaking for the truth, stopping the mouth of the idolaters; not proud, but (as befits the humble) subject, not petulant in speaking but quiet; most inclined to every good work: singing psalms in the church, and taking great care of it: despising money and possessions, except as necessity demanded: sober, and continent in all things, but especially shunning the company of women; daily engaged in prayers and fasts, averse from vain glory, stirring all to right living, pursuing those things which belong to virtue and duty, and fleeing their opposites: finally, observing complete faith, which works through love, and never ceasing to speak in the Lord with freedom. For not once, but often, before being crowned with martyrdom for the faith, he showed himself in very deed a most resolute defender of true piety.
[3] For when the princes and magistrates of Gothia had begun to persecute Christian men, he dissuades the Christians from consenting to the fraud of the Gentiles, and to compel them to eat things offered to idols; and certain Gentiles had entered into a plan that to their Christian relatives they should set before things not sacrificed instead of sacrificed ones, and thus preserve their relatives and deceive the persecutors; when the matter was known, Blessed Sabas not only himself refused to eat the forbidden foods, but coming forth into the midst he protested before all, saying: "If any one of that flesh shall eat, he cannot be a Christian": and thus he took care that all should not fall into the snare of the devil. For this reason, those who were plotting this fraud expelled him from that village: but afterwards they called him back. Moreover, when the persecution had been moved again, certain Gentiles of the same village, offering victims to the demons, wished to affirm under oath that no Christian man was to be found in their village. But Sabas, again with confidence coming forth into the midst and approaching their assembly, said: "Let no one swear for me: for I am a Christian." At length, the persecutor insisting, the aforesaid Gentiles, concealing their relatives, swore that there was no one in their village but one Christian. and he publicly confesses himself a Christian: On hearing this, the Prince of iniquity ordered that one (but this was Blessed Sabas) to be brought. And when he had been brought, he asked from those who were standing around what he had in goods: and they answering nothing more than what he was clothed in, the wicked man despised him, saying: "One such as this can neither help nor hurt." And having so spoken, he ordered him to be thrust out.
[4] Afterwards, when again a great persecution was moved in Gothia by the sinners, and the holy day of Easter a was approaching, he wished to go to another town, to celebrate that holy day with Guthicus the Presbyter. But as he was making his journey, there appeared a man of lofty body and splendid aspect, venerable, and said: "Return, and go to Sansalas the Presbyter." But Sabas answered: and at Sansalas the Presbyter's celebrating Easter "Sansalas," he said, "is absent." For he had fled because of the persecution, and was staying in Romania: but then because of the day of Easter he had returned home. Wherefore Sabas, since he was ignorant of his return, had so answered, and was striving to go to Guthicus the Presbyter. But when he refused to obey the command of that great man he had seen, suddenly, though the weather was then clear, a great abundance of snow so occupied the face of the earth, that the way was cut off, and Sabas could not proceed. He understood therefore that he was being prevented from the journey by the will of God, who commanded him to betake himself to Sansalas the Presbyter. Wherefore giving thanks to God, he returned: and joyfully meeting Sansalas, he told him and many others what he had seen on the way. Therefore together they celebrated the day of Easter: but on the third night after the celebration, by the decree of the impious, he is snatched naked from his bed Atharidus, son of Rhothestheus the little king, with a great hand of impious robbers broke into the village: and finding the Presbyter sleeping in his house, he ordered him to be bound together with Sabas, whom they had raised naked from his bed. And the Presbyter indeed they placed in a chariot: but Sabas, naked as he was born, they dragged through thorns b which they had recently set on fire, pressing him down, and beating him with clubs and scourges: so savage and cruel were they toward the servants of God.
[5] But the cruelty of his enemies exercised the patience and faith of the just man. For when the day had come, glorying in the Lord, he addressed his persecutors in this way: "Did you not drag me naked and without shoes through rough and thorny places? See whether my feet are hurt; and he is tortured all night bound to axles: and whether on my body there appear any marks of the blows which you inflicted on me." And they, seeing no trace of their cruelty extant in his flesh, placing on his shoulders an axle taken from the chariot, and to the outermost parts of the axle stretched out his hands; likewise they tied his feet to another axle: and finally throwing him upon the axles, they made him lie supine on the ground:
nor did they cease to torture him before the greatest part of the night had passed. But as the servants were sleeping, a woman approached and loosened him: for she had been roused in the night to prepare food for the household. But he, having been loosened, remained in the same place undaunted with the woman, and helped her. But when it became light, the matter being known, the cruel Atharidus ordered his hands to be bound, and him to be hung from the beam of the house.
[6] Not long afterwards came certain men sent by Atharidus, and brought foods offered to idols, thus addressing the Presbyter and Sabas: "These things the great Atharidus sends you, that you may eat, he is ordered to eat things offered to idols and deliver your souls from death." "These things," replied the Presbyter, "we do not eat: for it is not lawful for us. Therefore exhort Atharidus rather to order us crucified, or killed by another kind of death." But Blessed Sabas said: "Who sent these things?" They replied: "Lord Atharidus." "There is one Lord God," said Sabas, "who is in heaven. Impure and profane are these foods of perdition, just as Atharidus himself, by whom they were sent." As Sabas was thus speaking, one of the servants of Atharidus, inflamed with anger, hurled the point of his c pestle (pole) at the holy man's chest with such force, that all the bystanders thought he would immediately perish from the violence of the blow. But he, overcoming the pain of the blow by zeal for piety: the barbarian hurls a pole: "Now," he said to the torturer, "do you think that you have done away with me by your blow? But know this, that I so little felt pain, that you seem to me to have cast a tuft of wool upon me." Of which thing this was a plain indication, that neither did he cry out, nor (as usually happens in pain) groan, and he is unhurt by it nor did any trace of the blow appear on his body.
[7] Then, all these things known, Atharidus ordered him to be killed: and the ministers of iniquity, having dismissed the Presbyter Sansalas, dragged Sabas to the river which is called Musaeus, to there drown him. The tyrant orders him to be drowned in the river. But the blessed man, mindful of the Lord's precept, and loving his neighbor as himself, said: "What has the Presbyter done wrong, that he does not die with me?" "It is not for you," the ministers answered, "to prescribe this." Then he exclaimed in the exultation of the Holy Spirit, and said: "Blessed are you, O Lord, and praiseworthy is the name of your Son forever, Amen: for Atharidus has indeed condemned himself to death and eternal destruction, but has sent me to perpetual life. So has it pleased you in your servants, O Lord our God." And as he was being led, he never ceased to praise God; not thinking the afflictions of this time worthy to be compared to the future glory, which shall be revealed in the Saints. And when he had been led to the bank of the river, the ministers said among themselves: "Why do we not dismiss this innocent man? when the ministers wished to release the Saint, For Atharidus will never know this." But Blessed Sabas said to them: "Why do you trifle, and not rather do what has been commanded you? I see that which you cannot see. Behold, there stand from the opposite side those who will receive me in glory." Then they led him to the water, giving thanks to God and praising him (for his spirit never ceased to do this to the end), and having thrown him into the river, with the log which they had tied to his neck, he entreats them not to spare him. they drowned him in the depth: so by the wood and the water having died, he expressed in himself the true symbol e of salvation. He was of thirty-eight years when he was crowned with Martyrdom on the fifth day f of the Sabbath (week) after Easter, that is, on the day before the Ides of April, g under the Emperors Valentinian and Valens, in the Consulship of Modestus and Arintheus.
[8] Then the murderers drew him from the water, and left him unburied. But neither beasts nor birds touched his relics, but they were preserved by pious brothers, the body is sent to Cappadocia and the most illustrious Duke h of Scythia, Junius Soranus, a worshiper of God, having sent trustworthy men, transferred them from the barbarian place to Romania: and wishing to gratify his own homeland, sent this precious gift, the glorious fruit of faith, into i Cappadocia to your religion, by the will of the Presbyters, k the Lord so ordaining, who bestows his grace on those who endure and fear him. Wherefore, on the day when the Martyr was crowned, offering sacrifice, announce this to the other brothers, that in every Catholic and Apostolic Church exulting, they may praise the Lord, who chose his own servants. Salute all the Saints. Those salute you, the year to be honored with a feast. who with us are suffering persecution. But to him who is able to lead us all by his grace and kindness into the heavenly kingdom, be glory, honor, dominion, majesty with his only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever, Amen.