ON BLESSED JOHN THE EPIROTE,
MARTYR AT CONSTANTINOPLE.
15TH CENTURY
PrefaceJohn the Epirote, Martyr at Constantinople under the Turks (B.)
D. P.
[1] A sacred history, taken from the great Menaea of the Greek Church, translated into Latin, corrected by observations, Raderus had prepared a Greek history from the Menaea, illustrated with explanations, by Matthew Raderus, Priest of the Society of Jesus, was prepared for the press already from the year 1631, and would have filled an honest folio volume, when to the same there was added an Auctarium of all Saints, gathered by the same author from almost all the Fasti, Martyrologies, proper Breviaries of all churches. This was the title of the work, magnificent indeed, and more equal to the vast desire of the diligent man, than to the measure of the prepared thing. For the history indeed contains nothing other than eulogies of Saints, gathered from the Menaea, such as are commonly found in those books which we call Menologies or Synaxaria, without the Canons or Odes and Contacia and Troparia pertaining to the proper Office of each Saint, which besides are found in the Menaea. But the Auctarium is a bare Index of names, arranged in alphabetical order, so that in the nearest small columns the State, the Laurel, the Place, the Time, the Day, the Month, and the Author are noted for the individual names — either all or some — as far as Raderus could obtain knowledge of those circumstances.
[2] which is still preserved in MS. There was lacking someone to undertake printing in Bavaria so great a mass, as at first sight the eight paper codices seemed to contain; and the heir of the Plantinian Press when requested, John Moretus's son Balthasar, great-uncle of that Balthasar who now possesses it as the third of this name, demanded that to the Latin version the Greek context be added, prudently conjecturing that otherwise it would not be desired by the learned. Meanwhile at Munich the author ended his last day at the end of the year 1634, and into the hands of our Bolland the autograph came, with the Superiors judging that nowhere else would it be more usefully deposited, than with him who was known to have undertaken the cultivation of the same Sparta. Yet up to now this matter has been of small use to us, with Annotations, having the very sources and far more abundant ones, not only in printed books, which alone Raderus had, but also in very many manuscripts. The Annotations of Raderus have happened to be cited a few times: but now for the first time an occasion is offered of bringing forth something from that labor, nowhere else to be found, and yet most worthy of the reader's knowledge.
[3] Raderus therefore writes in the above-praised History for April 18: "On the same day of St. John the Younger the Epirote Martyr": then in the Observations he notes thus: "This John is absent from all the Menaea and Menologies: in which the history of John the Epirote, whom however I did not judge should be passed over in silence, since on this day in the Anthology or Florilegium of the whole year, his life and death and martyrdom are described at length in Greek, from which I set before you the same with the prologue in Latin." This Anthology must have been some MS. of Constantinople of more recent age, like the Chiflet one; enlarged by some fuller history of one or another Saint, mixed with briefer eulogies of other Saints. taken from some Synaxarion of Constantinople, For that which was published by command of Clement VIII, collected by Arcudius in the year 1598, the new Anthologion, has nothing of the kind, being very contracted like a Latin Breviary, for the use of Greeks traveling, who do not have at hand twenty volumes, containing the whole office of the Greek Church. But I say that it was of more recent age; because the Mahometans, under whom for the faith of Christ John endured death at Constantinople, occupied that royal city only in the year 1453. Indeed it is also probable that this Anthology was composed for some church of the united Greeks, who dwelt at Pera among the Genoese: for the schismatic Greeks would not have honored a man of Epirus, and so tenacious of the Roman faith and union, as we do not doubt John was, by proposing his martyrdom to be read among the Lives of the Saints.
[5] The calumny against John, contrived by his fellows of the same trade which he himself professed before the Turkish Magistrates, as if once he had passed from the faith of Christ to the superstition of Mahomet, The cause and occasion of the martyrdom under the Turks at Constantinople. is precisely the same which at Damascus from his master endured Elias of Heliopolis among the Saracens; whose Martyrdom, transcribed from the Parisian Chancellor's codex, because it pertained to the Kalends of February already published, we lent to Francis Combefis, that together with the Acts of Hyacinthus of Amastris and Bacchus the Younger it might be published in Greek and Latin, which was done
at Paris in the year 1666. such as was that of Elias Heliopolita at Damascus under the Saracens. This also is common between Elias and John, that as his master, an apostate from the Christian faith, accused the former; so John seems to have been accused by none other than schismatic Greeks or those fallen to Mahometanism (for these were almost the only ones at Constantinople to have the whole gain of civil arts, with the Turks devoting themselves to warfare alone), to whose envy, noted in the Acts, I would believe goads were added by hatred of the Latin union, to which the Epirotes adhered, at least from the time when the most valiant Scanderbeg vindicated that whole tract from Turkish servitude by his arms, and joined it to the orthodox.
[6] His homeland was Joannina The homeland of the Martyr is said to have been Joannina, the chief city of old Epirus, which many wish to have been called Cassiope by the ancients; but that it was also the royal seat of Pyrrhus, I would not maintain; since many attribute this prerogative to Ambracia. This is certain, that about the year 1300, in the reign of Andronicus Palaeologus the elder, the city of Joannina, when it was a Bishopric subject to the Metropolitan of Naupactus, was honored with the rank of Metropolis, as is said in the list of Bishoprics subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople then drawn up, the Episcopal city of Epirus which is presented in Miraeus book 3 Episcopatuum orbis chapter 2, where it is numbered 53 among the Metropolises. Geographic tables of those parts present it beyond Mount Pindus as Janna, a large city in the middle of a lake, between Tricca of Thessaly to the North, and Ambracia of Epirus to the South: but so that they seem to attribute it rather to Thessaly than to Epirus, dividing both by Mount Pindus, which perhaps was not always so. Ferrarius in his Geographical Lexicon establishes the city as still today Archiepiscopal, and the seat of the Turkish Prefect.
ACTS
From a certain Greek Anthology brought forth by Matthew Raderus of the Society of Jesus.
John the Epirote, Martyr at Constantinople under the Turks (B.)
FROM MS.
"He was born in the city called Joannina, which formerly was the royal city of that ancient King Pyrrhus in old Epirus; as with consent the historians relate. Afterwards it was the seat of the last Lords; but it was called thus from a certain John, Joannina named from a certain Lord of its own Lord of those parts, who gave the name to the city from his own name through ambition, so that it should be called Joannina; as Constantine the Great called Byzantium Constantinople, and Hadrian among the Odrysians Hadrianopolis, and many other Kings did the like. But Joannina was formerly most celebrated for its piety and Catholic religion, and other infinite goods; and abounded and flourished with an abundance and multitude of things and of the best men and the greatest worshippers of Christ. But nothing equally of all these adorned and illustrated it, the homeland of this John and still adorns it today, than this its nursling and citizen John, illustrious Martyr of Christ: who though in years quite a youth, but in contests suddenly undergone for Christ an old man and great, and in valiantly done and most noble deeds to the praise of God performed, was easily first among his own.
[2] And indeed the city deserved to be ennobled and honored by such a citizen: but John was allotted pious parents also and special worshippers and lovers of the Divinity, who, living by manual labor at Constantinople, content with modest and sober fortune. Then bereaved of his father almost still a boy, he betook himself to Constantinople, where he obtained his living by handicraft. But indeed the neighbors and partners of the same trade and craftsmen, moved against him as a foreigner by the stings of hatreds, greatly envied him. For the young man in speaking used sincere liberty, and without all fear before all spoke what was true, and displayed a kind of boldness joined with great confidence, which even more kindled their envy. the envy of rivals companions in the same trade, Therefore they took to seeking an occasion and, like wild lions, laid in ambush, if they could seize by calumny some at least specious cause, by which as by certain bonds they might entangle the young man: which also they accomplished in deed, as in the progress of the narration will be more openly shown.
[3] perceiving himself to be in peril John, when he perceived that ambushes were being set against him by them, judging it beautiful himself for Christ to meet with them, first goes to his Spiritual Father, (this was the great Protopapa Calothetus) and because then the great day of Parasceve was being held, he laid out his sins to him through confession, and at the same time the malice of those setting snares against him, and his resolution of professing the faith. But he felt that he did not incline very much to such counsels, he reveals the matter to his confessor, but rather admonishing him to spare himself and pay attention, and to hold suspect the snares of the devil: "For he is wont," he said, "to suggest such thoughts to many, by which he drives them to martyrdom, that he may then give them as a laughing-stock to the whole world when they fail, as those who were unable to resist him until the end." Then the young man: "I, however," he said, "trusting in my Christ, and his desire for martyrdom, plainly hope that it shall be that he will not suffer me to become a laughing-stock to my enemies, as you say: but he will come to my aid, so that he may be basely overcome by me, and I may triumph over him, and bring back a noble trophy." At these sayings of John again the religious man: "Mark, my son," he said, "that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, as the most holy oracles of the sacred page teach, and that such matters need a certain preparation, who is commanded to deliberate maturely and alacrity of mind and body. Matt. 26:41 They desire assiduous fasting, they need perpetual prayers, which pious practices if you shall have used to wipe away every stain from your mind, by God himself it will be signified to you what must be done, for God is wont so to insinuate himself to pure minds. Attend therefore to yourself, and go in peace, and I pray God that he may make you victor over all your enemies, men I say who meet your eyes, and devils who do not appear, and superior to all." And with these words he dismissed him.
[4] The young man returning the next day to the religious Father with serene countenance, said: "Reverend Father, and animated by a nocturnal vision know that in the midst of flames, through a nocturnal vision in sleep, I exulted and danced; not otherwise than the three boys once did in Babylon. Therefore I am full of the best hope that I shall be helped by heavenly aid, and that the matter shall have a happy end and outcome. But I ask you to arm me with your prayers." "God," said the religious Father, "may confirm you, son, so that you may be able to conquer the infernal wolf — I mean the invisible dragon — and for Christ's sake bring back the palm of martyrdom": and so with favorable prayer he dismissed the young man. Whom, returned to his workshop, when those envious ones saw, they conferred among themselves: "Is not this," they said, "he who at Tricca (it is a city of Thessaly) openly renounced and denied Christ? He boldly confesses Christ: How then does he now again show himself a Christian, and is so, and appears so?" Here the young man, regarding them with a fierce countenance: "Are you saying such things of me, or of someone else?" And they: "Of you," they said, "and no other, and are we not speaking the truth?" "God forbid," he said, "that God should ever have deserted me so that I should deny my Christ; neither at Tricca nor elsewhere, nor in any place whatever have I renounced him: far be it from me ever to have done this. For in Christ I live, and shall always live, but with him and for him willingly and gladly I shall meet death."
[5] At which things heard, condemning his liberty of speech, as if he had said that not from confidence in Christ but from imprudence, at once all rose up from their workshops; and having exhorted one another, with a conspiracy made among themselves singly, as they are wont, as though having devised a certain trick and fraud, they seize the young man and drag him by force to the tribunal of the Judge. But he, if the truth is to be told, was dragging rather than being dragged, and with so cheerful a forehead was following them, that he seemed rather called to a wedding than to the cross. And they indeed brought forth calumnies or accusations by way of argument, themselves at the same time, as this kind of men is wont, accusers, he is falsely accused: witnesses, and judges. But after the accusations they feigned themselves moved by compassion for the accused and to grieve for his lot, and with greatly placated minds they tried to lead him to this, that he should confirm himself guilty and changed, and urged him to confess that he had renounced Christ. But after they saw their madness to be refuted by him, testifying and entreating that he should confess himself guilty that he had never put off or cast aside the worship and faith in Christ. Then indeed they turned to threats, and after these to abuse, reproaches and contumelies. All of which that noble athlete utterly despised.
[6] But they, advancing from words to tortures, most atrociously tortured him. He is urged by words and tortures, But when they accomplished nothing, they were all occupied in devising punishments, and meanwhile they granted him space to deliberate, and shut him up in prison. But on the next day, led out again they asked whether he had changed his mind? And when they saw him constant in his resolution, and in nothing changed from before, then they command him to be beaten again with rough rods, which they call double, those cruel ones. The lictors therefore inflict blows without end: but in vain: but he, like untameable adamant, bore the blows so silently, as if another were being beaten, not himself. Meanwhile with generous and undaunted breast he was exhorting himself, and for the contest to be undergone for Christ, as an athlete, having prayed to God in silence, was anointing himself; and such things within himself, as is fitting to believe, he was saying to himself: "Confirm me, O only powerful God: having prayed to God silently, Give me strength, give me force and vigor, and stretch forth a helping hand from your holy dwelling." And these things he said perhaps silently to God. But to his enemies, who can worthily relate his replies, joined with the highest prudence and liberty? Or how he beat down the haughtiness and shut up the mouths of his truculent adversaries, raging against him as though to swallow up an innocent man. "Nothing," he said, "of those things which are in the world, whether reckoned good or bad, he testifies that he will persevere, shall ever be able to turn me from my purpose. God forbid that I should ever think anything other than what Christians think. God forbid that I should either yield to flatteries or be frightened by threats. What seems best to you, do, and snatch me from this life as soon as possible, that all the more quickly you may send me to that eternal one. I am a servant of Christ, I follow Christ, with Christ I die and shall live."
[7] He is led back into prison Here the Judges too, seized with fury, ordered him to be torn from them as soon as possible. But the attendants dragged him off, and drew him by the hair this way and that, struck his cheeks with blows, and what did they not say at length? What did they not do? Dragged back into chains, they shut him up in a cage, intending to repeat the interrogations the next day. Again led out the next day, they ask on what he was relying to show such
obstinacy. After they heard him replying constantly just as before, and repeating the same things as he had said before; again they order him cruelly to be beaten. Then, as though a robber, they throw him on the ground, and monstrously beat him. on the next day he endures new tortures: And the lictors indeed beat him with as much force as they could, but he himself with mind and eyes lifted to heaven, lying on the ground, was singing that solemn song of the Church: "Christ is risen," and what follows there. And his body indeed was to be seen wholly cut by lashes, the pavement was flooded with blood. But this truly noble young man, often raising his head, kept addressing the executioners: "Beat," he said, "beat, and with all your strength redouble the blows: but you shall never deter me from my mind, nor shall you ever subject me to your opinion or will."
[8] When therefore they saw his patience in enduring tortures and his unconquered mind, at length macerated for some days they were ashamed of being defeated by a young man, but under the pretext of religion more enraged, for the present they thrust him again into custody, and afflict him with all the discomforts of prison, that at least by long continuance of evils they might bend his mind, and render him obnoxious to themselves, and at length compel him to yield. After some days, therefore, when they had led him out of prison, intending again to take trial of him; and saw him the same as he had been before, constant and persevering in his opinion, they condemned him to death by pyre and flames. Accordingly they dragged him like a beast, he is condemned to the fire: or rather, as more correctly I may say, like an innocent lamb to the victim, they led him to be immolated to Christ to his death, and meanwhile by the way they monstrously tore him with contumelies, beat him with blows, loaded him with abuses.
[9] leaping into which of his own accord When they came to the place of punishment, they kindled a pyre, and bring him to the fire, into which the young man, exulting of his own accord, leaped with quick foot. But him leaping into the flames, intending to spare him, by the very chains with which he was bound, they pulled back. But he, bearing this ill: "Why," he said, "do you not leave me in the flames? Why do you not let me be offered to my Christ as a holocaust and pleasing sacrifice?" But the Judges, he is drawn back unwilling although they knew the punishment of flames to be both grave and bitter, yet as though they were to spare the fire itself, as, in the Persian manner, they seemed to be worshippers of fire; lest, drenched with Christian blood, it should be polluted, they signified by a nod to one of the lictors, and he is beheaded, that with a sword he should sever the head of the innocent. The trunk of the body falling to the ground, the remains of the burned body Christians collect, was thrown into the pyre together with the head, and wholly consumed in the fire as a holocaust, with a few relics found in the ashes together with the head, which certain religious among the pious Christians gathered, and honored with great piety and veneration.
[10] And in this manner the iniquitous Magistrates did libation to their wrath: the applause of the Angels in heaven follows but the young man attained the end which he had desired. But I think and am wholly persuaded that his soul was taken up by Angels as those of the earlier Martyrs also, and with great applause, joy, and dance was led into heaven. Luke 15:7 For if, as Christ himself said, the Angels rejoice over one sinner doing penance, how should they not exult over a Martyr dead for Christ, and especially one so generously running and finishing the stadium of Martyrdom in early youth. Truly they proceeded with all joys, applauded the Martyr, and celebrated with all praises and hymns Christ who supplied strength to the Martyr. But I would also affirm this, on earth of the best example that by his example and virtue he stirred many fellow soldiers to martyrdom, and to posterity added by his death the greatest strength of mind for undergoing death for Christ, and made them hidden, so to speak, heirs of the heavenly kingdom. For many of us have been stirred up, and confirmed and strengthened by his example, lest we so easily, as before, should renounce our religion. for the confirming of the more faint-hearted. Therefore we pay due thanks to Christ our God, who effected such things in this young man; and so to the holy Martyr John himself, through whom in these our times quite unlike those we have been affected with so great a benefit: through whose prayers, clement and kind God, have mercy on us."