ON STS. THE HOLY MARTYRS
ELEUTHERIUS AND LEONIDES.
Their cult from the Roman Martyrology and the Greek Calendars.
Eleutherius, M., in Greece (S.)
Leonides, M., in Greece (S.)
J. P.
This pair of Athletes is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology in these words: Of the holy martyrs Eleutherius and Leonides, Their cult among the Latins and Greeks, especially at Constantinople. who consummated their martyrdom by fire. In nearly the same manner they are announced in the Sirletian Menologium, and in the great printed Menaea of the Greeks, which pursue them with this distich:
Ἀμφοῖν Ἀθλητῶν οὐ θυόντων τῇ πλάνῃ Κοινὴν κατακρίνουσιν οἱ πλάνοι φλόγα.
While the twofold Athlete offers no libation to error, The fury of the deceivers condemns them to a common fire.
Besides the Menaeum of Chifflet, in which are the names of those Martyrs, they are recorded by the manuscript Supplement to the printed Menaea, from the manuscript Synaxarion of Sirmond and the manuscript of Chifflet; where once indeed there is added τῶν νηπίων, "of the infants," with the letters "dom." moreover written above, by which understand the parchment Menaeum of the convent of the Dominican Fathers at Paris, of the congregation of St. Louis; but in the said Supplement there is presently appended another reading, the name "Sirm." being prefixed: Ἐλευθ. Λέον. καὶ τῶν νηπίων, that is, of Eleutherius, Leonides, and the infants: by which Martyrs distinct from the former seem to be indicated. Whatever be the case, a singular cult of our Martyrs at Constantinople is indicated by these words of the cited Supplement: Τελεῖται δὲ ἡ αὐτῶν σύναξις ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ τῆς ἁγίας Εἰρήνης πέραν ἐν Ἰουστινιαναῖς. But their solemnity is kept in the building of St. Irene across the harbor
in the Justinianae: concerning which Du Cange, Christian Constantinople, book 4, page 148.