ON STS. GREGORY THE SPATHARIUS, JULIAN, MARCIAN, JOHN, JAMES, ALEXIUS,
DEMETRIUS, LEONTIUS, PHOTIUS, PETER, MARY THE PATRICIAN, AND TWO
YOUNG BOYS, MARTYRS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
In the year 730.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Gregory the Spatharius, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Julian, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Marcian, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
John, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
James, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Alexius, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Demetrius, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Leontius, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Photius, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Peter, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Mary the Patrician, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Two young boys, Martyrs, at Constantinople
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
§ I. The number of the holy Martyrs, their eulogy; others distinguished from these by time; the day of the passion, and likewise the cause, what image of Christ it was at Constantinople.
[1] Our transcript, taken from a Ms. codex of the Imperial library of Vienna, The number of the Martyrs concerning which below, prefixes to the Greek Acts of those Martyrs this title: In the month of August, the 8th [day]. The contest of the holy priest-martyrs of Christ Gregory, Julian, Marcian, John, James, Alexius, Demetrius, Leontius, Photius, Peter, and of the holy and most venerable Mary the patrician, who also suffered martyrdom in the times of Leo the Isaurian on account of the image of our Lord Jesus Christ at the Brazen gate. That is: In the month of August, the VIII day. The contest of the holy Martyrs of Christ Gregory, Julian, Marcian, John, James, Alexius, Demetrius, Leontius, Photius, Peter, and of the holy and most venerable Mary the patrician, who in the times of Leo the Isaurian underwent martyrdom on account of the image of our Lord Jesus Christ at the Brazen gate. Peter Lambeck in the Commentaries on the aforesaid library, book 8, page 118, for "of the holy priest-martyrs" has "of the holy TEN martyrs," on which passage he notes there thus: For there were ten Martyrs, besides St. Mary the patrician, who indeed in fact was the eleventh: to whom if you add the two Young Boys, you will now have a band of thirteen Martyrs.
[2] But for what reason I have judged that those two younger Champions of Christ ought to be added to the remaining eleven, from the Greek Acts although passed over above, I shall say in a few words. The Acts mentioned above, and divided by me below into various numbers, at number 21 report an apparition of our eleven Martyrs with the two Young Boys. And at number 24 they write of their discoverer, who was Joseph the keeper of the vessels: He came upon the noble martyr Mary lying above all the rest; and near her the most glorious Gregory the protospatharius; and below them the remaining Saints with the two Young Boys. Since therefore those two victims are there recorded with the other eleven, why should I shut them out from these? This reason therefore moved me to reckon in the title above these two anonymous Young Boys with the other eleven who are named. Concerning these two, therefore, the Greek Calendars can be supplemented from the said Acts, as also concerning St. Gregory the spatharius, who is passed over in them; as may be seen from the announcements which I subjoin.
[3] The Menology translated into Latin by Sirleto speaks thus on this IX day: supplemented for the Greek Calendars The birthday of the blessed X Martyrs, who suffered martyrdom on account of the holy image of our savior Jesus Christ, set up at the Golden (rather the Brazen) gate: whose names are these: Julian, Martian, John, James, Alexius, Demetrius, Photius, Peter, Leontius, and Mary the patrician. All these, under the impious emperor Leo, endured many hardships for the defense of the holy images, and, various torments being overcome, were at last struck with the sword and crowned with martyrdom. In our transcripts from the Ms. Menæa of the Ambrosian library is had "the contest of the holy ten Martyrs." The contest of the holy ten Martyrs; but only nine are named, Martian being omitted. The great printed Menæa of the Greeks also express only ten by name; and first indeed they applaud the nine men with these little verses:
Nine Men, when they lay low the enemy of God, Become by the sword a company friendly to God.
Then Mary the patrician is thus sung to in the same place:
Mary says: Receive, O Savior, The blood of my neck, as you did the ointments of the other Mary.
[4] and for the Roman Martyrology: And the ten Martyrs are venerated also in the Latin Church, the Roman Martyrology announcing them thus at this day: At Constantinople, of the holy martyrs Julian, Marcian, and eight others, who, on account of the image of the Savior which they had set up at the Brazen gate, were, by the order of the impious emperor Leo, after many torments, slain with the sword. Which too can be supplemented from what has been said above. You see that Mary the patrician is not here expressed by name; who nevertheless is more rightly named by the Greeks, because she plays the chief parts in the Acts of the martyrdom to be brought forward hereafter, and alone in them is expressly praised by name before all, if you except St. Gregory the spatharius.
[5] a eulogy: To these it is well to attach the eulogy which from the Menology collected by the order of the emperor Basil is had in Greek at the end of the first volume of this month of August, and in Latin sounds thus: In the same month, on the IX day, the contest of the holy martyr Julian and of his companions. These lived while Leo the iconoclast was reigning. And since they were orthodox and God-fearing, and venerated the holy images, they accomplished martyrdom. For when they saw him turning away from the adoration of the venerable images and burning them with fire, grief and zeal seized upon them. And when they saw the honorable image of Christ at the Brazen gate overturned, they brought forth into the light the grief pressed within their heart, and, seizing the spatharius who had climbed the ladders to abolish the image, and casting him to the ground together with the ladders, they killed him. By which thing the tyrant being stirred to anger, these indeed, many in number, were at once slain with the sword (among whom were also not a few women, and Mary the patrician), while those were handed over to custody, and, branded in the face, after enduring many hardships, sustained the cutting off of the head. Thus there; but observe that the composer of that eulogy, when he places Mary the patrician among those who were at once slain, disagrees with the Acts of our Martyrs; as will become plain from what is to be said.
[6] Among those who, after the defense of the image just mentioned, others suffered for the same cause, but at a different time. were slain by the order of Leo, some are distinguished from others in time, place, and number, according to the Acts. For at number 15 we have these words: When the tyrant emperor understood these things, being filled with great fury, he sent seven hundred soldiers armed with the sword, and commanded that all of them be seized and killed, except these Saints (ours, of course, of whom we treat on this day). Whereupon the soldiers seized them, and slew them with the sword in that very place of the Brazen gate; and many on that same day were wreathed with the crown of martyrdom: among whom were women and men, priests and levites, unmarried women and nuns, rulers and subjects: whose number and names the Lord alone knows; for there is not in us so great a faculty that we could reckon their number. And when the Martyrs had thus consummated their course on the nineteenth day of the month of January, etc. And these are the anonymous Martyrs, who without delay, and in the very heat, so to speak, of the raging tyrant's passion, were put to death. But in the morning, as you will read in the same place, the emperor, having summoned the holy martyr Mary together with the holy company that was with her, addressed her thus, etc. And below at number 18: The Martyrs in the Cynegium … were slain together with Mary on the ninth day of the month of August. These things,
as I was already indicating, do not agree with the eulogy above, which reckoned Mary the patrician among the first victims, not the last, as the Acts expressly do.
[7] In marking the day of the public veneration of our Martyrs as the IX of this month, the sacred tables of the Greeks and the Roman Martyrology agree; The day of the cult. from which differs the announcement or title prefixed to the transcript of the Acts, in which is put "in the month of August, the 8th [day]," in the month of August the VIII day, as was said before at number 1; which day Lambeck also reads, of whom below. But in the context of those same Acts it is expressly and distinctly said that the martyrdom happened "in the month of August, on the ninth," on the ninth of the month of August. Ought there then in the said title to be substituted for the letter η the letter θ, such as is noted in the Basilian one cited? Or in the place or province in which the author of the said Acts lived, was the day of the cult of our Saints anticipated on account of the concurrence of some solemnity or public veneration of another Saint on the ninth day of August? Whatever it be, we, in our customary manner, with the Roman Martyrology give these sacred Champions on this IX day of August. Let us illustrate and confirm from elsewhere the deed of the Martyrs for the defense of the sacred image of Christ the Savior set up at the Brazen gate, namely the occasion of their sacred contest, and the basis of the Acts.
[8] The composer of the Acts narrates it below at number 14: The deed of the Martyrs The holy martyr Mary … together with St. Gregory, who was protospatharius, and with the remaining Saints taken by her as companions … went to the Brazen gate, and, the ladders being broken, they tore apart and killed the spatharius, the destroyer of the image, having cast him to the ground. St. Gregory II the Pope, in the first letter given to Leo the Isaurian, and published on the occasion of the second Nicene council in Labbe, volume 7 of the Councils, thus addresses him to our purpose at column 19: When they (the kings of the West) learned and were made more certain that you had sent Jovinus the spatharocandidatus to Chalcoprateia to overturn and shatter the Savior who is called Antiphonetes, where also many miracles are wrought, there were found there women kindled with zeal, and rivals of those women who bore the ointments; who besought the spatharocandidatus: Do not, we beseech, do not do this, they said. But he, not admitting their prayers, set up a ladder and climbed; and when he had struck three times with an axe the face of the image of the Savior, the Women, seeing this and not bearing that iniquitous deed, drew away the ladder and killed him there, cut to pieces with cudgels.
[9] for the defense of the image of Christ Then you, an emulator of evil, sending your satellites, killed there I know not how many women, while there stood by useful men of Rome, and from France, from the Vandals, from Mauretania, from Gothia, and, to speak generally, from the whole inner West. And when they had come home, and each had narrated in his own regions your juvenile and childish deeds, then they cast down your laurelled images and trampled them, and cut in pieces your face, etc. But lest anyone stick at "your laurelled images," which the interpreter thus renders from the Greek, Du Cange in the Glossary to the writers of middle and low Greek, at the word λαύρατον, says: a laureate, an image of the emperors, as it is called by Lactantius in the book On the Deaths of the persecutors, number 25, which after their inaugurations was carried into the provinces. The note in Labbe at the place cited, column 23, may also be consulted. That the spatharocandidatus, of whom above, was a dignity above the dignity of spatharius, to whom of course the dignity of candidatus had been joined, you will find in the collector of the praised Glossary. But what the spatharii were, I shall say in the Annotations to chapter 1 of the Acts, letter k. The dignity of candidatus, palatine as well as military, is recorded in the said collector in the Glossary to the writers of middle and low Latin; who may also be seen in the Greek Glossary cited above. These things being briefly observed, let us return to what went before. Besides those things which I have brought forward for illustrating and confirming the history above, it is well to transcribe hither a certain other passage, because in it are noted some circumstances which are passed over in the former.
[10] is confirmed Among the Greek Analecta published at Paris in the year 1688, there is had from page 396 the Life of St. Stephen the Younger, monk and martyr under Constantine Copronymus, which was written after the 42nd year had elapsed from the martyrdom, according to what is read in the same place at page 399. From that Life therefore I skim these things, which are reported from page 414 on the occasion of Anastasius, the pseudo-patriarch of Constantinople (concerning whom in the Acts of our Martyrs, chapter 2, number 11), thus: The impious Anastasius seized the pontificate by the hand of impiety, by the force of soldiers, not by the suffrage of divine piety; who indeed handed over all things pertaining to the church to the imperial buildings. Then the tyrant (Leo the Isaurian), having received free power to betray the heresy, at once attempted to cast down and give to the fire the holy and Lordly image of Christ our God, which, placed above the imperial courts, was on account of its effigy called the holy Brazen; which indeed he accomplished. And, a few words being interposed concerning the fortitude of the women and the death of the spatharius: After these things, hastening at once to the patriarchal house, they attack the impious Anastasius with stones, saying: Most impure head, and enemy of truth, was it then for this that you invaded the priesthood, that the holy and sacred anathemas or votive offerings should be overthrown? The profane man, not bearing this victory over him, fled from the sight of the pious women, and, taking refuge with the tyrant, was the author to him that he should slay those holy women with the sword; which indeed was done.
[11] The Brazen gate therefore, and the image of Christ the Lord set above it, and is illustrated. pertained to the courts of the emperor; concerning which Du Cange has collected various things in Christian Constantinople, book 2, page 116. Pagi at the year 730, number 5, observes that it was called now Chalcopratian, now Brazen or Æneous, now Antiphonetes (as if you should say surety and guarantor). Combefis in the volume which is entitled the History of the heresy of the Monothelites, column 611, published a Greek-Latin Narration concerning it. The etymology of the name is given by Zonaras in the Annals published at Paris in the year 1687, book 14, page 62, recording the Chalcostegum of the palace, which now, he says, is called Chalce (the name was made from the brazen roof), and serves the use of a prison. Codinus in the Excerpts on the Origins of Constantinople, published in the same place in the year 1655, page 40, suggests various things worthy of record concerning the image already praised, saying: In the Chalce, Constantine the great had erected a brazen statue of our Lord Jesus Christ. But Leo, the father of Caballinus or Constantine Copronymus, overthrew it. The image of God in mosaic work which is seen there even today (namely in the twelfth century) was placed there by Irene the Athenian. But that first brazen statue stood there four hundred and fifteen years (according to Papebroch in the Preliminary Commentary on St. Theodosia, to be mentioned below, number 1, not so long); by whose power a woman laboring with an issue of blood was healed, and many other miracles were wrought. The Greek-Latin Narration cited above, at column 614, speaking of Constantine the great, records thus: Further, in the middle of this great city he built a court supported by four columns, raised in a rounded vault, covering it with brazen tiles, and ordered the sign of the victorious cross to be set there: at the venerable image of which Lordly figure, fashioning the eastern part, he erected it to be beheld and adored by all the faithful. And from that time, and hitherto, a most sacred figure of this kind was famous and celebrated, having glory from miracles and healings, and from the universal veneration of those who honored it. Of one therefore of those many and greatest miracles, for the utility of those who shall read, and for making them a sure faith, I am about to weave in a narration in this place, etc.
§ II. To whom the chief parts in the defense of the said image are to be ascribed.
Reasons are brought forward, Occasion for this controversy is given by those things which were long since said among us in volume VII of May, at the XXIX day, concerning St. Theodosia, nun and martyr of Constantinople; where in the Preliminary Commentary, page 66, the cause of the martyrdom which she endured is attributed to the defense of the often-designated image of Christ the Lord placed at the Brazen gate, and ordered to be abolished by the impious Leo the Isaurian. But among the women who tried to hinder this profanation, the spatharius, the minister of that same emperor in that crime, having been rolled from the ladder to the ground and killed, the chief parts in that scene are given to the praised St. Theodosia, as the leader and standard-bearer of the other women, according to what is said in the same place, number 4; contrary to what has been narrated by us above, and will further be narrated in the Acts to be subjoined to this our Commentary, where that deed is chiefly ascribed to St. Mary the patrician. Let us therefore consider in this place whether it suits this or that Saint, or perhaps both, by bringing forward on both sides the reasons which deserve to be weighed in this controversy.
[13] which make For St. Theodosia there makes, first, the eulogy which we gave, from the Chifflet Synaxarium collated with the text of the Clermont Synaxarium, at the said XXIX day of May, page 67: for in the same place, while the spatharius was busying himself to remove the praised image, these things are narrated: At once St. Theodosia and other pious women seized the ladders, and put to death the spatharius cast down to the ground, and, rushing into the patriarchate, began to stone Anastasius the pseudo-patriarch. Secondly, the deed here in controversy is recorded by the discourse of the most wise and great logothete, the lord Constantine Acropolita, on the holy holy-martyr Theodosia; concerning which author, and also concerning the time in which he lived, the aforesaid Commentary gave more. But that discourse, or Encomium (for under this latter name we gave the deeds and martyrdom of the Saint), is given in Greek and Latin in the volume cited from page 67. Thirdly, the deed of which we here discourse is vigorously confirmed by the Synaxarium from the Menology collected by the order of the emperor Basil, whose month of July has been printed among us in Greek at the end of volume 1 of that same month; whence at page 694, at the XVIII day of the praised Synaxarium, I skim the following eulogy, and interpret it into Latin; since I have not known it to be extant elsewhere among us in Latin in the said month, and since it will be of use to us in weighing several points of the present disputation.
[14] for the defense Thus therefore it sounds: The contest of the holy martyr Theodosia. The holy martyr of Christ Theodosia, while Constantine Caballinus was reigning, came forth into the light at Constantinople, the daughter of pious parents. But when her father and mother had died, after she had given all the goods which were left to her to the poor, she entered a monastery and was made a nun. And while Leo the iconoclast held the empire, and, the most holy patriarch Germanus having been driven from his throne, was abolishing the holy images, he wished also to overthrow the likeness of our Savior which was in the Chalce; and St. Theodosia, learning of it together with other women, and taking up divine zeal, cast down and crushed the spatharius who had climbed the ladder to destroy the holy image, and, going off to the house of the patriarch, rebuked Anastasius the heretic. Then the other women indeed were beheaded; but Theodosia, dragged by a rope, was slain with a horn in the Bull's arcades. Concerning the place of the Bull at Constantinople, various things are noted in the Commentary on St. Theodosia (of which I made mention
above), page 68, number 12. But since that place was a public forum at Constantinople, and since ἔμβολος among other things signifies the beak of a ship, I suspect that here ἐν τοῖς τοῦ βοὸς ἐμβόλοις, which is in the Greek, denotes the rostra, or the place of public assembly, in that forum.
[15] the image of Christ at Constantinople. For the rest, that this Theodosia is the same as St. Theodota, marked in the Roman Martyrology on the XVII day of July, we said in the Passed-over at that day. And although the Menology rendered into Latin by Sirleto, which we cited in the same place, indicates that she was neither a virgin nor a nun, and moreover reports that she completed her martyrdom by another kind of death, yet other things persuade that this Theodosia is not distinguished from Theodota. Let that Menology be heard, thus recording at the aforesaid day: On the same day, of the holy martyr Theodota. She, from the city of Constantinople, when she had caused three holy images to be made out of her goods, one to Christ the Lord, another to the Mother of God, a third to St. Anastasia, distributed the remaining wealth to the poor and to orphans: and when, after much exercise of virtue, the blessed Theodota with many other religious women labored for preserving the cult of the holy images, by the order of the impious emperor Leo she was struck with the sword and consummated. But if you compare these with the Eulogy of St. Theodosia which Constantine Acropolita wrote, in which these things are said in chapter 1: She distributed all her goods … among the poor, reserving to herself out of them only so much as she judged would be necessary for buying up sacred images: of which she procured for herself three in particular, the first of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, the second of the most pure Mother of God, and one besides of the holy martyr Anastasia. These things, I say, if you compare them with one another, will you not say that what is recorded by each of those writers suits one woman, and not two?
[16] It is well meanwhile to add to these the things which Otto of Freising in the Chronicle, book 5, chapter 18, is to be ascribed to St. Theodosia. on the occasion of the emperor Leo, thus reports: Among the rest there suffered the virgin of Christ Theodosia, whose memory and veneration remains to this day very great in the royal city: for in a church of nuns she is preserved buried with body entire, and, carried in the hands of virgins, is applied to all comers as a heavenly physician, and it is held as for a good omen if she shall show herself heavy to any on whom she is laid. Which we too, together with many others, lately experienced, while the expedition to Jerusalem was being carried on under Conrad king of the Romans and Louis king of the Franks. Concerning the words culcare and collocare, that is, to lie down, Du Cange treats in the Glossary. Otto therefore will have meant to say that it is held for a good omen if the Martyr shall show herself heavy, as often as her sacred relics have been laid upon anyone. And these indeed are the things which make for St. Theodosia.
[17] But now receive what things are inconvenient to her deed. Arguments Pagi in the Baronian Critique at the year 730, number 6, opposes various things to her, which I transcribe hither from him. He observes therefore that the history of the casting down of the spatharius, who was removing the image of the Savior, is reported in the same way by Stephen the deacon and by Gregory II in his first letter, as will become manifest to one comparing both narrations, and accordingly that Constantine Acropolita, the great logothete, in the Encomium of St. Theodosia the nun of Constantinople, which he wrote about the year 1294 (but before the year 1306), as Papebroch judges at the XXIX day of the month of May, where he recites it, was not well informed of the deed. For he reports that St. Theodosia, her father being dead, was placed in a monastery, and that when Leo the Isaurian had declared war on the sacred images, and one of his spatharii had undertaken to cast down the divine effigy of our Savior, Theodosia joined to herself as companions several religious women who had removed from themselves the world and all the world's ornaments, and by a certain holy fury advanced against the man; that Theodosia roused her sisters to dare this, and that she herself first of all seized the ladders. "Therefore (subjoins Constantine) the impious man, who was now nearly standing at the top of the ladders, before he could lay hold of the sacred effigy, being shaken off from them, fell headlong into the depth of hell."
[18] And yet both Gregory II and Stephen the deacon attribute this noble deed not to nuns which are inconvenient to this opinion but to women and matrons, as the Greek text of both also has, and narrate the deed a little differently: and Stephen subjoins that those same women, after they cast the spatharius to the ground, hastened to the patriarchal house and attacked the impious Anastasius with stones, as we just now saw. Of which matter Constantine makes no mention. Wherefore he seems to have ascribed to Theodosia and her nuns what was done by those pious women. Yet there is no doubt that Theodosia was given over to death for the sacred images with her companions. For Constantine recites various miracles wrought at her invocation, and there is mention of Theodosia and her companions at the XVIII day of July in the Synaxaria recorded by Papebroch. If nevertheless this word γυναῖκες, that is, women, which both Gregory and Stephen the deacon use, could be taken for nuns, the relation made by Constantine could be reconciled with the letter of Gregory and with the Life of St. Stephen the Younger. But I do not see that this can be done. Papebroch, who assigns the martyrdom of Theodosia and her companions, with the common opinion, to the year 726, did not turn his mind to that different manner of narrating one and the same thing. The passage from letter 1 of St. Gregory we gave above at number 8; and that from Stephen the deacon in the same place, number 10.
[19] are weighed. But to the difficulties proposed by Pagi I answer, first: Why should the signification of the word γυναῖκες, used by St. Gregory II the Pope and by Stephen the deacon, exclude Religious women and nuns, although not expressly so stated by either? For indeed the term "women" suits monastic persons of that sex equally with secular ones, just as the term "men" fits monastic as well as secular persons of that sex. But our anonymous author, who committed to letters the Acts of St. Mary the patrician and her companions, determines the persons of both sexes more distinctly and as it were by degrees; for among those who at the XIX day of January are recorded as afflicted with martyrdom, there were women and men, priests and levites, unmarried women and nuns, rulers and subjects; whose number and names the Lord alone knows, as you have in the same place at number 15. Do you hear "nuns"? Why then could not St. Theodosia the nun with her own be included under this term, since by that other term "women" they are not excluded from this signification? Add that in the Synaxarium collected from the Menology by the order of Basil Porphyrogenitus in the tenth century, these things are said of St. Theodosia: But when her father and mother had died, after she had given all the goods which were left to her to the poor, she entered a monastery and was made a nun. If therefore on the credit of that document she was a nun; and further, if by the relation of that same document, as I just now said, she performed that vast deed for the defense of the sacred image of Christ the Lord; who will believe that she alone and unaccompanied by her own dared it? Nay rather, who would not judge it altogether likely that other women were present, namely nuns of the same institute, whatever at last it may have been? You have the first answer to Pagi's difficulty.
[20] I answer, secondly: from those things which at the beginning of this paragraph I collected for St. Theodosia, it is made out that she is reckoned in the often-mentioned history of the image. But although there is a deep silence concerning her in the documents brought forward concerning our holy Martyrs of today through the course of this Commentary, yet in them she is not clearly and expressly excluded from it, however much Gregory II and Stephen the deacon narrate the deed a little differently, as Pagi observed above: and accordingly from what has been said I do not see that Pagi sufficiently proves what he above inferred concerning Constantine, saying: Wherefore he seems to have ascribed to Theodosia and her nuns what was done by those pious women. For one and another manner of narrating the same thing, a little different between themselves, since the accidents of the matter are slight, change nothing in the substance of the matter. But what Pagi in the same place reported from Stephen, that the women, after they cast the spatharius to the ground, hastened to the patriarchal house and attacked the impious Anastasius with stones, of which matter Constantine makes no mention, these things are confirmed at least in substance from the Synaxarium of the emperor Basil praised before, where what is here reported of the women and of Anastasius being attacked by them with stones, is there narrated of Theodosia, but in a milder manner, thus: Going off to the house of the patriarch, she rebuked Anastasius the heretic. And this deed does not exclude that one.
[21] I answer, thirdly: since the Acts of St. Theodosia written by Constantine must be reconciled with the Acts of St. Mary the patrician, which were composed by an anonymous author, and with the other monuments which we have brought forward concerning her, so far indeed as it can be done with truth preserved, Whether and in what manner let us see in what way we can effect this. It cannot in the first place be done if we say that the names of Mary and Theodosia suit one and the same person, who had two names. For this can by no means be said: for that two persons are indicated by them is proved by their characteristics, which appear diverse. For Mary was born of most noble parentage according to her Acts, number 5; but Theodosia, from what was said above at number 14, was the daughter of pious parents. The latter was a nun, in the same place; of a monastic institute of Mary those same Acts say nothing, nor do I remember anything published elsewhere concerning it. Likewise the circumstances of the death of each differ entirely, as will become clear to him who shall not have found it burdensome to compare those things which are had at the aforesaid number 14, and also in the Encomium of St. Anastasia, with the Acts alleged at numbers 18 and 19. Is not this difference between the one Martyr and the other more than enough? Since therefore by this way no approach lies open to us for composing the controversy of which we here treat, and for reconciling the Acts of each with one another, let us consider whether another way can succeed in it.
[22] I answer therefore, fourthly: since it is our part to be the patrons of the Acts of the Saints, wherever even a chink opens itself suitable for doing this, both these opinions can be composed. I do not give my assent to Pagi when he says that Constantine in the Acts of holy Theodosia was not well informed of the deed; nor does that please me: He seems to have ascribed to Theodosia and her nuns what was done by those pious women. For what else is this than to reject a great part of the Encomium written by Constantine concerning the Saint as spurious and supposititious? Which seems both hard to say, and not to be done without urgent necessity. It is true indeed that that author composed her Encomium long after the times of the Saint; but is the stain of error therefore at once to be branded upon him, and is it not rather to be supposed that he found in earlier documents the things which he narrates? But that there existed other
documents before him is established from what has been said above. What if therefore we should say that in that famous defense of the image of Christ the Lord (since on it the hinge of this controversy turns) both holy martyrs, namely Mary the patrician and Theodosia or Theodota, played the chief parts, that both overturned the ladders, that both cast down from them the spatharius, the minister of the most impious emperor Leo in carrying out the profanation, and that both at last were crowned with martyrdom? In this way the Acts of St. Mary will retain their own authority, and the Encomium of St. Theodosia its own, and the difficulty raised by Pagi will vanish. You have, reader, our conjectures concerning the present controversy, which as such we set before the learned for the time being; until they shall have taught us better things, which we shall embrace not grudgingly but gladly.
§ III. The year of the martyrdom; the parachronisms of others in fixing it; the Acts; the apparition and finding of the Saints.
In the year 730 of the common era The martyrdom of our Saints happened in the year of Christ 730. Thus I prove the assertion. Our Acts at number 13 record these things: The emperor held a silentium in the tribunal of the nineteen couches, and, having summoned the most holy patriarch, tries to turn him from the right faith. But the noble champion of Christ, Germanus, rising up, and standing in the midst of all, delivered up his pallium, saying, etc. To which is subjoined the deed concerning the image of the Savior. In Theophanes in the Chronography, page 342 of the Paris edition of the year 1655, which we use, the resignation of the bishopric made by St. Germanus in obedience to the faith is circumscribed with these marks of time: On the seventh day (we advised that the seventeenth must be read, in the chronological History of the Patriarchs of Constantinople before volume 1 of August, page 92 *) of the month of January, in the thirteenth Indiction, on the third day of the week (in Petavius in the notes to Nicephorus, page 82, the VII day of the week, or at any rate the III of January), the irreligious Leo held a silentium (concerning which below in the Annotations to chapter 2, letter o) against the holy and venerable images in the tribunal of the nineteen couches, the most holy patriarch Germanus being summoned … But the strong servant of Christ, by no means yielding to the abominable counsel of Leo … resigned his bishopric. We have here the year 730 of the common era, with which the thirteenth Indiction concurs.
[24] it is proved that the martyrdom is to be attached, The praised Theophanes in the same place subjoins these words: And on the seventh day (rather the XXII, from what was said among us on the III day of May, page 158, number 19; and in the History cited, page * 93, number 534) of the same month of January, they substituted in his place Anastasius, a man of false name, the disciple and fellow-cellarer of that same blessed Germanus. We have here again the XIII Indiction, and accordingly the year of Christ 730: concerning which Pagi too may be consulted in the Baronian Critique at the years 726 and 730. To these add what we said above at number 6 concerning the double class of Martyrs, who for the defense of the image of the Savior were killed partly in the month of January, partly on the IX of August; both nevertheless in the same year 730, as is clear from the premises.
[25] and some corollaries are deduced thence, And hence the following corollaries flow. It follows, first, that both letters of St. Gregory II the Pope given to Leo the Isaurian, and reported in Labbe, volume 7 of the Councils, column 7 and following, and also in Baronius at the year 726, but tied to a year not their own, namely 726, must be restored to the year 730. For in the first letter it is narrated what the women performed for the defense of the image already often alleged, as is clear from what we recited beforehand at number 8; which certainly happened in the year 730, as appears from the foregoing. Besides, the deed of those women did not come to pass until after St. Germanus had resigned his bishopric, and the impious Anastasius had been intruded into it. Of the resignation of St. Germanus I made mention a little before; of the substitution of Anastasius treatment was made at number 10. Moreover Pagi at the year 726, number 3, observes that it is established from the reading of them that both letters were written after the expulsion of St. Germanus from the see of Constantinople. But he presided over it until the month of January of the year 730. Both letters therefore must be removed from the year of Christ 726, and restored to the year 730. It follows, secondly, that the laurel of our Martyrs, obtained for the defense of the sacred image of our Savior, must be removed from the year 726, to which the most Eminent founder of the ecclesiastical Annals attaches it, to the year 730. It follows, thirdly, that the same emendation of time must be applied in the Commentary which is preliminary to the Eulogy of St. Theodosia the nun and martyr of Constantinople among us in volume VII of May, at the XXIX day, page 66. But whether she had any part, and indeed, as you will find there at number 4, the chief part, among the Champions killed on account of the praised image, we examined above in the second paragraph.
[26] It follows, fourthly, that those things must not be confounded which Leo the Isaurian did against the holy images in two different years of his reign. consequences are deduced, Pagi sets forth and proves the matter at the year 726, number 7; where those things which Baronius from number 5 to 9 ties in one stretch to that same year, though they pertain to different ones, he thus restores to their own times: Both Metaphrastes and Stephen the Deacon in the Life of St. Stephen the Younger, after they have narrated that the emperor Leo in the tenth year of his reign began to persecute the sacred images, recite in one series what the emperor afterwards did in the same cause in the thirteenth year of his reign, namely of Christ 730; and they say that St. Germanus, bishop of Constantinople, when he had learned of it, sent to him men who should signify that from the beginning after the Assumption of Christ into heaven images have been made; that he himself would most gladly die for them; and that he who has treated the image of Christ with ignominy casts the injury back upon him whom it exhibits. And that then the emperor sent his satraps into the patriarchal house, whom he charged to drive the holy man thence with blows and reproaches. But those messengers were sent by Germanus to the emperor at the close of the thirteenth year of his reign, and of Christ 730.
[27] But in this year, after the persecution was raised, there happened what Theophanes reports in the X year of Leo's reign (page 340): by which the parachronisms of others "From that time he imprudently took up enmities with the blessed patriarch of Constantinople, condemning all his predecessors, emperors, prelates, and Christian peoples as idolaters on account of the adoration of the holy and venerable images; whereas he, by reason of his excessive unbelief and rusticity, was by no means able to grasp the reasoning and the discourse concerning their relative cult." Wherefore whatever Baronius has at number V and the three following, from Theophanes and the author of the Life of St. Stephen the Younger, whom he judges to be Damascene, pertains to the year 730.
[28] From number X to XIV. Theophanes, where in the X year of the emperor Leo he sets his discourse concerning the persecution against the sacred images, are emended. gravely slips. For he says (page 339): "The people of the imperial city, stirred with the greatest grief on account of that new doctrine, both resolved to attack Leo himself, and put to death many of the imperial household who had thrown down the image of the Lord at the Brazen gate," and the rest which Baronius at numbers X and XI brings forward from the version of Anastasius. For these things were perpetrated in the year 730, the impious Anastasius being the author, whom the emperor then substituted in the place of St. Germanus, expelled from the see of Constantinople, as we shall show at that year, number 1 and following. But we have already said enough both of this matter and of the holy women who tried to hinder the impious profanation of the image of Christ at the Brazen gate; Pagi rightly knitting this deed, and also the questionings which were held concerning certain noble men at last given over to death, which are recited by Baronius at numbers XII and XIII, to that same year of Christ 730. These things, I say, thus far; of which both those things which Pagi noted for distinguishing the times, and for bringing back into the way the most wise father of the ecclesiastical Annals, who by a small deviation of a few years strays from the true chronology, and also those things which we have fixed above, will conduce very much to this, that the things which in the Acts of our Martyrs are mingled and confused may each be accommodated to its own times. But now those Acts call us.
[29] The Acts are weighed. What name their author had, what institute of life he professed, he nowhere expresses in the course of his narration. But although in the same place he also does not determine the time in which he lived, or in which he applied his mind to writing, yet that he did not write before the year 870 of the common era is made out from the apparition and finding of our holy Martyrs, concerning which a little later. He agrees in many things with St. Theophanes; whence we gather that this author was in his hands. Further, the things which he narrates too confusedly, the order of time not being kept, as I was just now signifying, we shall try to illustrate in the Annotations. He deserves praise in that he abstains from episodes and long digressions, in which the Greeks who write the Acts of Martyrs are wont to be so profusely liberal. The copy of the Greek which we present in Latin was transcribed from a codex of the Imperial library of Vienna, concerning which I indicated more on the VIII day of this month in the Preliminary Commentary on St. Myron, bishop and confessor, number 8. In the praised codex therefore, from folio 89, page 1, column 1, to folio 98, page 1, column 1, is noted the Contest of the holy ten Martyrs (see what we set forth above at number 1), on the witness of Peter Lambeck in the Commentaries on the said library, book 8, page 118. I would besides have the reader warned that a transcript came into my hands not without faults, which I have tried to correct according to the exigency of the matters, so far at least as it seemed to me. Finally, the copy itself, as is customary with us, I have divided into chapters, with titles set to them, and into numbers. And so much of the Acts; but concerning the apparition and finding of the Saints receive the following.
[30] From an earthquake Concerning the finding of the bodies of our Athletes, and the apparition preceding it, the author has noted various marks of time, which being laid down and admitted, we are led into a knowledge of when approximately they happened. But that they did not happen before the episcopate of St. Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople, is clear from what he narrates at number 20 and following. That prelate seems to have been substituted for St. Methodius in the year 846, according to what was said in the chronological History of the Patriarchs of that city, which I cited before, page 109: and he died in the year 877, as you have in the same place, page 112 , after he had presided over the see of Constantinople twice; and the first time indeed until the year 857, to which his unjust deposition is more probably assigned in the same place, page 110 ; but the second from the year 867, in which we thought he was restored to his see, page 111 . But that that apparition did not happen at the time when St. Ignatius sat the first time, but the second, is argued by this, that a most grievous earthquake gave the praised patriarch occasion for imploring most earnestly the divine help, that the Lord might set a measure to his anger; while Basil the Macedonian, of course, was reigning,
from the Acts below at number 20. And it happened, as is there written, on account of the multitude of our sins, that a most vehement earthquake occurred at that time for forty days, such as had never been at any time … But Ignatius the pontiff of God … ceased not by night and by day to appease the divine majesty with supplications and prayers. And presently at number 21 the said apparition is subjoined. Basil the Macedonian began to reign in the year 867, and at once took thought of restoring St. Ignatius to his see; Nicetas the Paphlagonian writing, at the place presently to be indicated, column 1226: And at the beginning of the first Indiction (it had run from the Kalends of September of the year 867), on the ninth (rather the eighth, from the Greek text) of the Kalends of October, Basil, the palace being occupied, was saluted emperor …; and on the day after he had been proclaimed emperor, he casts out Photius, thrust down from the throne, etc. And at column [ ]: St. Ignatius on the twenty-third of November … is restored to the throne of his church.
[31] Nicetas the Paphlagonian, in Labbe, volume 8 of the Councils, in the Life of St. Ignatius just praised, at Constantinople column [ ], says: Plainly terrifying was the earthquake which at that same season (namely in the year 869, as will be said below) occurred on the ninth of January, by which many churches, very many porticoes, and buildings fell down. So great a slaughter of men and of beasts of burden was made as can be expressed by no words. Nay, even the august temple of Sophia itself, shaken in many parts, would have come into danger of ruin, had not the singular care of the princes forestalled it. And these things happened before the synod which was the eighth ecumenical and the fourth of Constantinople, held in the years 869 and 870 against Photius, and noted in the Labbe cited from column 961. We have indeed here an earthquake suited to the matter and the time of which we have set our discourse; but of a duration through forty days, nothing: which nevertheless I find elsewhere expressly noted. For Symeon the master and logothete, among the writers of Byzantine History after Theophanes published in royal type at Paris in the year 1685, in the Annals, page 454, writes thus: In the third year of the emperor Basil, on the feast day of St. Polyeuctus, an earthquake occurred for forty days and as many nights; and many churches fell, among which also the holy Mother of God which they call Sigma; so much so indeed that a common ruin crushed all who were chanting the divine praises in it.
[32] And in the same volume George the monk in the Lives of the new emperors, page 544, the time is fixed, says: There occurred on the day of St. Polyeuctus a very great earthquake, so that for a space of forty days the earth was shaken. And there fell then the globe of the statue which is in the forum; also the church of the most holy Mother of God, whose name is Sigma, so that all who were there chanting the divine praises were killed. The third year of the emperor Basil concurs with the year of Christ 869. St. Polyeuctus the martyr of Melitene in Armenia is here treated of, since he both had a church at Constantinople, and is celebrated with a very solemn rite among the Greeks on the ninth day of January, as we said in volume II of February, at the XIII day, page 650; and that same ninth day of January is expressly noted by Nicetas the Paphlagonian praised above, although the name of that Saint is not expressed.
[33] in which happened the apparition and the finding of the Martyrs. But now the difficulty is in the day on which that terrible earthquake is narrated by our martyriographer to have ceased; which matter, as also the finding of the bodies and their deposition, according to what he narrates at numbers 23 and 24, happened in the month of January, on the thirty-first day. For if that earthquake began on the ninth day of January, and ceased on the XXXI day of the same month, how will you find forty days from the beginning of the earthquake to the end? But that day and a few more could be found, if it were permitted to substitute for the said Polyeuctus the martyr another of the same name, of Cæsarea, whom I read in the great printed Menæa of the Greeks, in our transcripts which have been excerpted from the Ms. Menæa of the Ambrosian library, and in the Menology of the emperor Basil in Ughelli, volume 6 of Italia sacra, column [ ], under the XIX day of December. But because that terrifying earthquake occurred on the ninth of January, on the witness of Nicetas the Paphlagonian above; because likewise in the third year of the emperor Basil, from the Symeon cited; because finally on the feast of St. Polyeuctus, from what has been said: I judge that we must stand altogether by the IX day of January of the year 869 for fixing the beginning of the often-mentioned earthquake, which year concurs with the third Indiction, in which in the month of October, on the fifth day, on the fourth day of the week, the council of Constantinople was begun, as is noted in the first Session in the Labbe alleged, column 978. It follows therefore from the premises that this earthquake lasted until the XVIII day of February. But if the writer of the Acts perhaps took St. Polyeuctus of Cæsarea for the one of Melitene, and began to count his forty days of the earthquake not from the feast of the latter but of the former, namely proceeding from the XIX day of December to the XXXI of January, both those forty days will be found, and three which run over; which nevertheless being neglected, he may have taken a round number. But such as this conjecture is, it avails at least so far, that by this means those difficulties may in some way be composed. These things being premised, I subjoin.
THE ACTS
By an anonymous author, from a Ms. codex of the Imperial library of Vienna, John Pien being the interpreter.
Gregory the Spatharius, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Julian, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Marcian, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
John, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
James, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Alexius, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Demetrius, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Leontius, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Photius, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Peter, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Mary the Patrician, Martyr, at Constantinople (S.)
Two young boys, Martyrs, at Constantinople
By an Anonymous author.
CHAPTER I.
The origin of the heresy of the Iconoclasts; our Martyrs under it; Leo the Isaurian.
Of the all-praised and all-working, life-originating Trinity, the one Christ our true God, who from above and outside all time, impassibly and without flux, shone forth from the bosom of the Father, and inseparably co-exists with him and reigns together with him (through whom all things were created, both the invisible and the visible, heaven, I mean, and the things within it, and earth and the things in it); and who last of all, as it were a king, fashioned man with his own hands, and formed him after his own image, and breathed into him an intellectual soul by his divine and life-giving inbreathing, and showed him a rational living creature, and set him in the paradise of delight, and commanded that he be royally endowed with gifts; and who in these last days came down from the heavens and was made flesh of the Holy Spirit and of Mary the virgin, that he might loose us from the bonds of sin, and endured both the cross and death for our salvation, and ascended bodily into heaven to his own Father, whom he never forsook in his Godhead; and made our nature heavenly, and made it to share the seat of the Father's throne, and sent down the power of the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, and through them called all men to the knowledge of him, and declared us heirs of his kingdom.
[2] But when the idolatrous defilements and abominations had been taken out of the midst by the power of the life-giving cross, and churches and sacred altars had been built up, and all were being honored with the surname of Christ our God — Christians, I mean — there reigned, on account of the multitude of sins, Leo the impious, deriving indeed from the country of the Germanicians, but in truth taking his origin from the most impious heresy of the Isaurians. And by Justinian the Slit-nosed, in his first reign, he was removed with his parents to Mesembria of Thrace. Whence in his second reign, I mean that of Justinian, when he was coming with the Bulgars, he met him with a gift of five hundred sheep. Justinian therefore, being exceedingly pleased at these things, made him a spatharius, and had him thenceforward as a genuine friend, and commanded him to set out with him for the imperial city. When therefore afterwards many slandered him as aiming at the empire, Justinian was unwilling openly to harm him, but sent him with money to a certain nation called the Alans, that they might destroy him when a fitting pretext should be found. Yet even this was not conceded by the divine judgments; for the divine justice reserved him as a vessel of wrath, according to the blessed apostle Paul, to become such to us as Pharaoh of old was to the Israelites.
[3] While therefore this man, who bore the name of a beast and had a disposition still more so, in the six thousand two hundred and ninth year of the ordering, or rather of the framing together, of this world, and in the seven hundred and ninth year of the incarnate coming of the Word of God to us, was holding the sceptres of the empire, at first he was somewhat dissembling and mild; but when a little time had ridden by, he set forth openly to all the babbling talk of his wicked and evil-minded counsel, and first indeed persuasion, because he thought thereby the rather to deceive the many. But when he saw himself fallen short of his aim, taking off the counterfeit and assumed color, he showed himself openly to all as being outside all fair speaking. But let our profitable narrative of the history stand still a little, if only I may run back again to what goes before the history, and make it plain. In the six thousand two hundred and fourteenth year of the world, and in the seven hundred and fourteenth year of the incarnation of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, and while the most lawless emperor was passing his seventh year, there came a certain Jew, setting out from Laodicea of maritime Phoenicia, and, entering in to Izid, who then held the Syrian land, promised him that he would hold his rule for forty years, if he would take down the venerable images honored in the churches of the Christians throughout all the dominion under him.
[4] Persuaded by whom, the wretched and senseless Izid decreed a universal edict against the holy and venerable images; but by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the intercessions of his all-praised and incorrupt Mother, and of all his Saints, in that same year the utterly abominable Izid died, before his godless and satanic decree had come to be heard by the many. But Leo the emperor also, having partaken of this strange and impious and bitter heresy, became the cause of many and grievous evils to us: for he found a man of one mind with him, a certain Beser by name, who had been a captive from among the Christians in Syria, but was a denier and betrayer of the faith in Christ our true God, and had counterfeited himself utterly to the doctrines of the Arabs, and had not long before been set free from their servitude. And coming to the imperial city, both for his bodily strength and for his agreement in evil doctrine, he was honored by that same Leo as a patrician, and he, a most wicked counsellor, became to the emperor the cause of such an evil. And a like-minded associate of his, dishonorable and filled full of all uncleanness,
and living together with a congenital ignorance, was the overseer of Nacolia. And indeed, like a cloud driven on, this most wicked purpose was buzzed abroad in the ears of all and resounded; yet it had not as yet been enacted as law by the ruler.
[5] And some were urging on and taking counsel toward martyrdom (if indeed this should truly seem to be such), instructing themselves with these words; of whom the leader was Mary, truly most noble and lovely in beauty, and descended of a most royal race, whose beauty the heavenly King loved, and espoused her to himself by the Holy Spirit. Let us stand, she says, nobly, O brethren, and let us not defile the tunic of our faith; let none of us flinch at martyrdom; let no man's perishable wealth be preferred to the love of Christ, nor parents, nor children, nor friends, nor even the infliction of tortures themselves. Let us reckon the labors of the holy martyrs, and their endurance unto death, and for the love of him who made us and for his kingdom let us not become less than they. Let us therefore be zealots of their nobility, and let us not only call them blessed, but let us hasten to become fellow-heirs of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. For who that desires a kingdom does not display all diligence to obtain it? Truly no one. For he who has a desire for it, but does not hasten to become master of it, thinks and reasons with himself in vain; so we too, if we admire the labors of the holy martyrs, but do not hasten to become partakers with them, are like the man who admires the brightness of the sun, but, having closed his eyes upon it, does not behold its light through his own sluggishness.
[6] Thus therefore, all having made themselves eager, each, as he had strength, besought God to give them fortitude and endurance, that they might nobly contend against the impious one, so that, taking up the victory, they might utterly put him to shame, saying: Give not, Lord, your inheritance to reproach, and let not those who are hostile to us rejoice over us. Let the deceitful lips be made speechless, which speak iniquity against you, O God; lest ever they say: Where is their God? Let the groaning of your servants come in before you, according to your great compassion; for we are your people, and the sheep of your pasture, and for your sake, our God, we are put to death all the day long; for you are our God, and we are your people, and besides you we know no other; and to you we send up glory and thanksgiving, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, unto the ages. Amen. Thus therefore, while all were entreating and imploring, they charged themselves to be in readiness for such a contest; for all were still waiting to see what should come to pass, as has been said above also, not suspecting that this was true. But the rest, as many as were mastered by cowardice, scattered here and there, looking about upon villages and islands, holes and places hard by the sea and chasms, and whatever other place of refuge they supposed to be safe. And what need is there to say more? Equally upon all there lay a kind of twilight, this wicked heresy tearing at them as with a scratch.
[7] In the ninth year therefore of his reign, Leo the emperor began to make discourse concerning the taking down of the holy and venerable images. And learning this, Gregory, among the saints, the Pope of elder Rome, withheld the tributes of Italy and Rome, and wrote also a dogmatic letter to Leo, that an emperor ought not to make discourse concerning the faith, and to innovate upon the ancient doctrines of the church, which were laid down by the holy fathers and teachers. But how great a boast he who was wroth here had to be uttered throughout the whole inhabited world, I, being mortal, have not strength to declare. And there befell also a certain most fearful sign, by the dispensation of God, in those days, refuting his evil-minded and frenzied folly (even though he, held fast by his great folly, would not come to a right perception). For in the summer season of the ninth Indiction, a vapor as from a furnace of fire boiled up between the islands of Thera and Therasia, from the depth of the sea, for many days; whence that vapor, being little by little thickened and turned to stone by the burning of the fiery exhalation, the whole smoke and the air was shown fiery in appearance; and by the thickness of the earthy substance it sent forth great pumice-stones, like certain rocks, over all Asia Minor, and Lesbos, and Abydos, and Macedonia toward the sea, so that the whole face of that sea was full of pumice floating upon it. And in the midst of so great a fire, an island, made into land, was joined to the so-called Holy island, not having existed before.
[8] But as the aforesaid Thera and Therasia were once cast up, so also this one now, in the times of the wicked and God-fighting Leo, who, reckoning the divine wrath against him as in his own favor, more shamelessly raised up the war against the holy and venerable images, having as ally Beser the denier of God, and a rival to him in the like unreason. For both were full of ill-breeding and of every ignorance, from which also most evils come. Whence first of all the tyrant, summoning to the palace Germanus the most blessed patriarch of Constantinople, undertook to entice him with flattering words, thinking to persuade him to his own will. And he says to him: By what traditions or by what definitions were they persuaded, who before us held the sceptres of the empire, when they enacted that the pillar-inscription of images should be engraved? I think that those who enacted these things are of one mind with the idolaters; for indeed in none of the ancients have we found any such thing. Wherefore I exhort your Paternity to cease from the adoration of them, and not to refuse to set this forth to all: for I cannot endure that anyone in all the empire under me be detected doing this; and if any be detected clinging to these things, let them undergo a swift-dooming fate; for I do not judge it just that we who are called Christians should adore idols, and assign reverence to dead bones, and have our hope in them as in God.
The author, concerning Christ, Whereas Christ, one of the Trinity worthy of all praise, worker of all things and life-giving, and our true God, in the heavens outside all time, tranquilly and calmly amid splendors had been begotten from the paternal womb, and dwelt continually with him and reigned (through whom all things invisible and visible alike were created — heaven, I say, and all things which are in it, and the earth, and all things which are contained in it), and had himself with his own hands fashioned man, last of all, no otherwise than a certain king, and had formed him to his own image, and had breathed into him a soul endowed with thought by his divine and life-giving breath, and had approved him an animal partaking of reason, and, placed in the paradise of pleasure, had ordered him to be heaped with the most magnificent gifts: in these last days he came down from the heavens, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and of Mary the virgin, that he might loose us from the bonds of sin, and endured the cross and death for our salvation; he ascended into heaven with his body to his Father, whom he had not left in his divinity; and he turned our nature into heaven, and rendered it a partner of the paternal throne, and sent the power of the Holy Spirit to his disciples: through whom he called all to the knowledge of himself, and showed us to be heirs of his kingdom.
[2] under Leo the Isaurian, But when the pollutions and abominations of the idols had been taken out of the midst by the power of the life-giving cross, and the temples and sacred altars had been restored, and all things were faring prosperously and splendidly under the Christians, named from the name of Christ our God, Leo the impious, the multitude of sins requiring it, brought forth indeed from Germanicia a, but truly sprung from the most impious heresy of the Isaurians b, obtained the empire c. He, under Justinian d who was mutilated in the nostrils e, while the latter was reigning the first time f, migrated together with his parents into Mesembria g of Thrace. On which occasion, when Justinian had a second time h gained possession of the sceptres of empire, and had returned with the Bulgars i, Leo went forth to meet him, bringing him a gift of fifty sheep. Justinian, wondering at the thing, created him spatharius k, thenceforward reckoned him among his sincere friends, and ordered him to depart with him to the imperial city. And so, when many afterwards accused him of aspiring to the empire, Justinian was unwilling to harm him openly, but sent him with moneys m to a certain nation which they call the Alans l, that these, when opportunity offered, might destroy him n. But by the divine judgments this seemed otherwise: for the divine vengeance reserved him as a vessel of wrath, to speak with the blessed Apostle Paul, no otherwise than of old Pharaoh for the Israelites.
[3] and the heresy of the Iconoclasts He therefore, endowed not with the name only, but moreover with a bestial disposition, while in the six thousand two hundred and ninth o year from the world adorned or founded [p], and from the incarnation of the divine Word the seven hundred and ninth, he was holding the sceptres of the empire, at the beginning indeed, being crafty, he made a display of kindness; but, a short time having elapsed, he made plain to all the empty trifles of his malicious and shifty counsel: and first indeed the art of persuading, because he had thought to deceive very many. But after he beheld himself frustrated of his aim, the feigned and composed color being taken away, he exhibited himself openly to all as a stranger to all fair speaking. But let a small and not useless narration of the history be premised by us, whereby it may come about that I may run back to narrating those things which followed behind, and may explain them. In the year of the world six thousand two hundred and fourteenth, and of the Incarnation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ the seven hundred and fourteenth [q], but of the most iniquitous emperor the seventh [r], there came a certain Jew, sprung from Laodicea of maritime Phoenicia [s], and, having gone off to Izid, who then reigned in Syria, announced to him that he would possess the rule for forty years, if he should destroy the venerable images which are venerated in the temples of the Christians subject to his rule.
[4] To whom the wretched and demented Izid, giving credit, published a universal decree [t] against the holy and venerable images: but by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the intercessions of his Mother [u], worthy of all praise and liable to no corruption, having prefaced some things concerning its origin; and of all his Saints, in the same year [x] the most wicked Izid died, his impious and diabolical doctrine [not] having occupied the ears of many [y]. But Leo the emperor, taking up also this monstrous, impious, and bitter heresy, was to us the cause of many and grievous evils. For he found a certain man of the same mind with himself, by name Beser [z], who, having been made a slave, fell away from the Christians in Syria, of Christ, the true
our God, he denied and betrayed the faith, and, being wholly imbued with the doctrines of the Arabs, was not long before freed from their servitude. But being brought to the royal city, both for the strength of his body and for his agreement in perverse doctrine, he was raised by Leo himself to the dignity of patrician, and, a contriver of the worst counsel, stood forth as the author of an evil of this kind to the emperor. With him conspired that ignominious man, full of every filthiness, and moreover passing his life in the ignorance in which he had been reared, the bishop of Nacolia [aa]. And indeed, like a certain compressed cloud, this worst of counsels filled the ears of all with din and noise; yet it was not then confirmed as law by him who was reigning.
[5] And these indeed (namely our Champions) brought their zeal and counsels to martyrdom (if indeed this ought truly to be reckoned martyrdom), he begins to act instructing themselves with these discourses. Of whom the leader was Mary (who was truly both most noble, and remarkable for beauty, and sprung of imperial race; whose comeliness the heavenly King, loving, espoused to himself through the Holy Spirit). Let us stand, she says, brethren, with upright mind, and let us not defile the garment of our faith. Let none of us fail at martyrdom. Let neither fleeting riches, nor parents, nor children, nor friends, nor even the vehemence of torments be of greater price to anyone than the love of Christ. Let us consider the labors of the Martyrs, and their patience even unto death; and for the love of our Creator and for his kingdom let us not be made inferior to them. Let us therefore be emulators of their noble spirit, and let us not only proclaim them blessed, but let us hasten to become coheirs of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. For who is there that desires a kingdom, who does not display every zeal for obtaining it? Truly no one at all. For he who burns with desire of it, and gives no effort that he may obtain it, thinks and considers with himself in vain. So we too, if we admire the labors of the Martyrs, and shall not have striven to become partakers of them, are like the man who indeed admires the splendor of the sun, but, because that same sun presses down his eyes with its light, does not behold its light on account of his own sloth.
[6] Thus therefore all, rousing themselves to alacrity as much as they could, concerning our Martyrs, each besought God to give them fortitude and patience, that they might nobly contend against the impious one, that, having obtained victory, they might perfectly confound him, saying: Give not, Lord, your inheritance to reproach, and let not our enemies rejoice over us. Let deceitful lips be made mute, which speak injustice against you, O God: lest ever they say: Where is their God? Let the groaning of your servants come before you according to your great mercy: for we are your people, and the sheep of your pasture, and for your sake, our God, we are put to death all the day long. For you are our God, and we are your people; and besides you we know no other, and to you we render glory and thanksgiving, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, unto the ages. Amen. After therefore all had thus besought and adjured, each bade the other be of a mind prepared for the contest: for all were still awaiting the outcome of the matter (as was said above), not fearing that anything false underlay it. But the rest, who had been seized with fear, were dispersed hither and thither, about to traverse villages and islands, sea-caves also and hiding-places, and any other saving place of refuge that they conceived in mind. And what need is there of more words? Upon all alike there lay a kind of dim night, this malignant heresy consuming the land like some ulcer.
[7] [and concerning the destruction of the images by the emperor Leo, whom St. Gregory the Pope] In the ninth [bb] year therefore of his reign, the emperor Leo began to treat of the destruction of the holy and venerable images. Which being learned, St. Gregory [cc], Pope of the elder Rome, forbade the tributes [dd] of Italy and of Rome to be conveyed to him, and wrote a decretal letter [ee] to Leo, that an emperor ought not to determine anything concerning the faith, and to innovate upon or tear down the ancient doctrines of the Church, sanctioned by the holy Fathers and masters. But with how great praise [ff] Gregory, for having stoutly opposed himself to him, ought to be extolled through the whole globe of lands, I am certainly unable to declare with a human tongue. But in those days there befell a sign far most terrible, God so disposing the matter, which should refute the malevolent and furious madness of Leo (since he indeed, overcome by great frenzy, would not return to a better mind). For in the time of harvest, in the ninth Indiction [gg], between the islands of Thera [hh] and Therasia, for many days [ii] a vapor boiled up from the deep of the sea, as from a burning furnace. Whence, when this had been little by little condensed and hardened into stone by the evaporation of the fiery burning, the whole air seemed to be smoke and fire, and, on account of the thickness of the earthy matter, to cast out great pumice-stones, like certain rocks, through Asia Minor, Lesbos [kk], Abydos [ll], and maritime Macedonia; so that the whole face of that sea was full of floating pumice. In the midst therefore of such a fire, an island, torn from the mass of the earth, was heaped up to the island called Sacred [mm], although it had not existed before.
[8] and St. Germanus, bishop of Constantinople But just as the aforesaid Thera and Therasia once boiled up, so also did that one now in the times of the wicked and God-resisting Leo, who, reckoning the anger of God stirred up against him to be in his favor, more shamelessly moved war against the holy and venerable images, having obtained as fellow-soldier Beser, a deserter of God, and an emulator of equal madness. For each was full of unskillfulness and of every ignorance, from which many evils proceed [nn]. Whence first of all, when the tyrant had summoned to the palace the most blessed Germanus [oo], patriarch of Constantinople, he tried to entice him with flattering discourses, thinking to bend him to his own will. And he says to him: By what traditions or definitions were my predecessors in the sceptre of empire persuaded, when they sanctioned that the statues of images should be carved on columns? I think that those who passed this law are of the same mind as the idolaters: for in none of the ancients do we find anything of this kind. Therefore I exhort your paternity that it desist from the adoration of them, and refuse not to set this forth to all. For I cannot endure to detect anyone in the whole empire that is subject to me who does this. But if any be detected who have clung to those things, let them look for a short lot of life. For I do not judge it fair that we who are called Christians should adore idols, and give worship to dead bones, and moreover place our hope in them as in God.
ANNOTATIONS.
the composer of these Acts connects his chronological reckonings with the time in which Leo held the sceptres of empire, as he presently here subjoins, it follows that the things which he narrates did not happen before the year of Christ 717, in which we said above at letter c that the empire was taken up by Leo.
p. In our transcript εἴτο βυσυμπήξεως I judge must be changed into εἴτε γῆς συμπήξεως, which the sense seems to require in a copy faulty in other places also.
q. In the year 721 of the common era, as will presently be said.
r. According to the common era the fifth: for Leo began to reign in the year of Christ 717, from what was said above at letter c; and the deed which is here reported happened in the year 721, as we shall presently see.
s. Cellarius, book 3, chapter 12, page 279, treating of inland Phœnice (so it must be written for Phœnicia, as he had advised in the same place from the ancients at page 271), makes mention of maritime Laodicea, which on the geographical map at page 243 is marked on the Syrian sea between Heraclea and Gabala. That Laodicea I judge to be here designated, since the writer of the Acts speaks of the maritime one.
t. The matter is confirmed from Theophanes, page 336, where he narrates it thus: In this year a certain Jew, sprung from Laodicea of maritime Syria, a supreme conjurer, having had a conference with Izid, promised that he would possess the principate of the Arabs for forty years, if only he would eliminate the venerable images from the churches of the Christians throughout his whole principate. And that Izid, truly insane, promulgated a general decree against the holy and venerable images. Concerning this decree of Izid the second, Caliph of the Saracens, and the promise of the Jew, Baronius treats at the year 723; but Pagi, correcting him at that year, at number 7 affirms that this persecution against the images pertains to the year 721: For in the second Nicene council, he says, session 5, whose words Baronius recites from the ancient and vulgate version, it is read: "When Ezidus had done this, living not more than two years and a half, he died." But Ezidus or Iezidus the Caliph ceased to live in the month of February of the year 724. Wherefore about the middle of the year 721 he had assailed the sacred images. In the vulgate version indeed, which Baronius followed at number 21, it is had: He did not live beyond a year and a half. But this version must be emended from the Greek text and from the Anastasian version.
u. For the Greek μητρός I found written, most faultily, in our transcript, μάρτυρος.
x. That Izid died in the same year our author here affirms; but that he survived two years and a half has just been said. Theophanes at page 336 does not precisely determine how long he survived; for he says: Izid was extinguished.
y. That saying of Theophanes, page 336, οὐδὲ ἀκουσθῆναι φθάσαντος τοῖς πολλοῖς τοῦ σατανικοῦ αὐτοῦ δόγματος, which is there rendered, "his satanic sanction not yet having been published to the ears and knowledge of many," Pagi at the year of Christ 723, number 7, warns must be corrected from this, that John the monk in the second Nicene council, cited above at letter t, says: The tyrant (namely Izid), caught by deception, complied with him (namely the Jew), using levity: and sending, he took down from every province which was under him the holy images and the remaining likenesses: and in this way, not sparing, he defaced the churches of God situated under his power through the Hebrew sorcerer, before the evil came to that land; namely, as Pagi observes, to the dominions … subject to the Roman empire. For within two years and a half the edict of the Caliph could not fail to come to the knowledge of many, nay of all. Yet it seems certain that it was not everywhere committed to execution; otherwise John the monk would not have spoken of it in the council as of a thing little known.
z. Theophanes treats of him at page 336; whence the things which our martyriographer says are confirmed.
aa. Constantine, bishop of Nacolia, is noted in a recent French writer in the History of the Iconoclasts, book 1, page 59; by which name he is also expressed in the Life of St. Stephen the Younger, cited above at number 10, pages 477 and 480. And Nacolia is a city of Phrygia, marked in Strabo, book 12.
bb. In the ninth year of his reign completed, and the tenth begun, of Christ 726. Zonaras, concerning Leo, book 15, page 104 of the Paris edition of the year 1687, says: Beginning the tenth year of his tyranny, he begins at the same time also war against God. The Life of St. Stephen the Younger cited above, page 412, records these things of him: But after the tenth year of his reign (namely begun), that new Belshazzar breathed into the Church the Manichean heresy, and one perhaps not unlike that of the Aphthartodocetæ, so to speak. Pagi gives more at the year 726, number 1, observing among other things that the Chronology of Theophanes is corrupted through these times, and that this persecution has been wrongly placed in the preceding year, as the ninth Indiction compared with the tenth year of the emperor Leo certainly shows.
cc. St. Gregory, the second of this name, sat from the year 715 to 731. See the Preliminary Commentary to his Acts, presently to be cited.
dd. This is confirmed from Theophanes, page 338.
ee. Of this letter our Commentary makes mention at number 25.
ff. His Acts have been illustrated among us in volume II of February, at the 13th day, page 692.
gg. This word, expressed entire neither in our Ms. nor in the copy from which it was taken, I have supplied from Theophanes, who at page 338 reports these things: In the ninth Indiction (for in the Greek it is ἰνδ. θ᾽), at the season of gathering the harvest, between the islands of Thera and Therasia, etc. And the ninth Indiction concurs with the year 726 of the common era. With these things do not agree in time what St. Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople, records in the historical Breviary, printed in royal type in the year 1648 at Paris: for, having premised the III Indiction, in which he signifies that Constantine Copronymus was crowned emperor, he presently reports what happened at Thera and Therasia … ABOUT THE SAME TIME … AT THE BEGINNING OF SUMMER, etc. But the 3rd Indiction concurs with the year 720.
hh. Thera and Therasia are islands on the Cretan sea. Strabo, published at Paris in the year 1620, book 10, page 484, says: About Crete are islands: Thera, the metropolis of the Cyrenians, a colony of the Lacedæmonians … Thera is long, with a circuit of two hundred stades, situated near the island Dia, which is at the Heracleum of the Cnossians: it is distant from Crete seventy stades. Near it are Anaphe and Therasia. See below at the letters mm.
ii. Theophanes, page 338: ἐπὶ ἡμέρας τινὰς, that is, for some days.
kk. Lesbos is an island in Asia Minor in the Ægean sea.
ll. Three cities of Abydos, one at the Hellespont …, another in Egypt …, a third in Japygia or Italy, which in the neuter gender is called Abydum, are noted in Stephanus On Cities. The first I understand here from the region which the author of this Martyrdom assigns.
mm. Hiera is an island in the Cretan sea. In Pliny, book 2, chapter 87, treating of islands that have come into being, there are recorded among the Cyclades, in the fourth year of the 135th Olympiad, Thera and Therasia. Among the same, after 130 years, Hiera, and that "automate," that is, born spontaneously or by chance.
nn. The things which are here narrated are confirmed from Theophanes, page 339.
oo. Treatment was made of that Saint among us on the 12th day of May, volume III of the same month, page 155. Concerning him may also be seen the Chronological History of the Patriarchs of Constantinople before volume 1 of August, page * 91.
CHAPTER II.
The discourse of St. Germanus, archbishop of Constantinople, with Leo; his prophecy; the constancy in the faith both of him and of others against the Iconoclasts.
But the blessed and great high-priest of Christ, Germanus, said to him: O emperor, we who both are and are called the people of Christ do not thus limp concerning the right and blameless faith, as you say: for we do not, like the Greeks who reverence matter and assign worship to soulless idols, serve the creature, forsaking the Creator of all things; but through matter and through created things we recognize the Fashioner and Maker: for the honor of the image, according to the blessed and great Basil, passes over to the prototype. For we depict the image of our God and Savior Jesus Christ by means of material colors; but the reverence we attach not to the matter, but to him who is portrayed through the matter. For indeed as to the gold on which the images of the emperors are stamped, all men do not attend to the gold as to the emperor, and, leaving the emperor, cling thenceforth to it; but on account of his image they glory in the gold. And I beseech you, master, to cease from such a strange purpose: for we hear that the taking down of the holy and venerable images is to be, but not under your reign. And the emperor, hearing this word from the thrice-blessed luminary Germanus, becoming speechless, and looking upon him with troubled eyes, with all the force he had, pressed him to say quickly who this man might be. And the patriarch said: Conon. And the emperor, hearing this, and becoming as it were inspired with pleasure, answered graciously that he himself was so called by his parents when he was baptized.
[10] And the patriarch said again: God forbid, master, that through your reign this evil and wicked drama should come to pass: for he is a forerunner of Antichrist who does this dreadful and grievous thing. At these things the tyrant, being greatly angered, held a grudge against the blessed Germanus, as once Herod against the Forerunner, and secretly lay in wait to ensnare him, that he might thrust him from the throne as a factionist and not as a confessor, having for this a like-minded fellow-worker, Anastasius the falsely-named, his own disciple; the emperor promising him to bestow upon him the throne of the high-priesthood, if he should ensnare and accuse him. And he from that time did not cease from plotting against him. But that truly most thrice-blessed and genuine follower of Christ, seeing him daily hastening on to the betrayal, like another Judas, with meek and calm heart did not fail to remind him concerning the betrayal. But he, smitten with yet greater madness, treated the things said with prating contempt, like his fellow-minded Judas.
[11] And once, when the thrice-blessed Germanus was entering the palace, the wretched Anastasius, held by ungovernable insolence, shuddered not to trample with his own two feet the omophorion of the holy man. But the most holy high-priest, opening his blessed and holy mouth, gently and humbly said to him: What is this? Do not
be so swift toward your undertaking; for you shall come soon enough to the Diippion. Which also came to pass after fifteen years. For the most lawless offspring of the lawless Leo, having beaten him unsparingly, paraded him through the Diippion in the hippodrome, seated upon an ass with his face turned backward, and ordered the populace to pelt him with stones; and then, having led him away into the Cynegium, cut off his wretched head. But when Germanus, among the saints, the patriarch, had withdrawn from the imperial courts, he comes to the sacred temple, and, having gathered together all his honorable and sacred flock, thus discoursed to them: Behold indeed, O children — both you who are pastors and you the sacred flock — the devil, the envier of good things, has sown, by the permission of God, in the heart of him who rules a wicked and profane doctrine, and altogether alien from the divine laws, and he wishes to break down the sacred setting-up of the holy and venerable images. Wherefore I exhort and beseech you all: betray not the fair and precious pearl of your faith; but stand nobly, contending against the enemy, that we also, the humble, may become heirs of the good things of the Lord, together with all his saints.
[12] Then indeed, then, having heard these words from the all-blessed luminary Germanus, this Mary the patrician, who bears the Lord's own name, who was also of imperial blood, together with the holy company that was with her in her house, casting herself at his feet, cried out, saying: Bless us, master, with every spiritual blessing; teach us more plainly how we may contend against the tyrant. Grant us to be walled about with teaching, as with some safe fence; arm us with prayer, breastplate us with the seal, lift up on high your holy hands, and commend us by your prayers to God; pray, as Christ himself also prayed to God and the Father, whose follower and imitator you are, saying thus: Those whom you have given me I have kept, and none of them has perished, save the son of perdition. Yes, I beseech your holiness, venerable master, contend yourself also together with us, and shrink not from praying, that the tyrant may drag away none of us. And when all had been blessed by the holy high-priest Germanus, all returned home. But these Saints alone, together with their honorable and noble teacher, remained with the high-priest Germanus.
[13] And when not a few days had passed, the emperor, holding a silentium in the tribunal of the nineteen couches, and having summoned the most holy patriarch, undertook to pervert him from the right faith. But the noble contender of Christ, Germanus, rising up, and standing in the midst of all, delivered up his omophorion, saying: If I am Jonah, cast me into the sea; for without an ecumenical synod I am unable to innovate upon the faith, O emperor. And having said these things, the Blessed one went out from that assembly with great speed. And going away to the so-called Platonion, that is, to the monastery now called Chora, he there kept quiet. Then the tyrannical emperor, boiling over with great wrath, commanded that the holy image of Christ and God our savior which was at the Brazen gate be broken down and given over to the fire, and that no sacred image remain in all the dominion under him. And if anyone should be detected having any such thing, he ordered him to undergo death by the sword. When therefore his impious commands were being fulfilled with great speed by his servants, there came to the aforesaid Brazen gate the soldiers who were to set up the scaffolding for breaking down the holy and Lordly likeness, the God-fighter Beser also being present.
[14] And when the holy martyr Mary, who bears the Lord's own name, the myrrh and cassia, who is fragrant to God with the virtues, who is enlightened by good works and fills all men with her divine enlightenment, had learned this, taking with her the holy Gregory, who was protospatharius, and the remaining Saints, who themselves also were men of rank and noble, she comes with them to the Brazen gate, and, having broken apart the scaffolding, and having flung to the ground the spatharius who was destroying the image, and having torn him asunder and put him to death, they cast curses upon the tyrannical emperor, declaring with a loud voice that they were Christians. And when no small rumor had disturbed the city, all in a body ran to the Brazen gate, being suddenly struck with amazement at the tumult. But when they arrived and saw what was being rumored, all with a loud voice cried out the "Lord, have mercy," and said that they were Christians and adorers of the venerable and sacred images, and that for these we shall also readily die.
[15] The tyrant emperor, learning these things, and being filled with much wrath, sending soldiers armed with swords to the number of five hundred, ordered that all of them be seized and put to death, except these Saints. Whereupon the soldiers, seizing them, slew them all with the sword in that same place of the Brazen gate, and many on that day were wreathed with the martyr's crown, among whom were women and men, priests and levites, unmarried women and nuns, rulers and ruled, whose number and names the Lord alone knows; for we have not so great a faculty as to hold them by number. And when the holy Martyrs had thus been perfected on the nineteenth of the month of January, the tyrant ordered their honorable bodies, some in the Cynegium, others in the place called Pelagia, to be cast into the pit of those who die by violence. And at dawn the emperor, having summoned the holy martyr Mary together with the holy company that was with her, said to them: It behoved you indeed, as being in eminence of race and of dignities, not thus to mingle yourselves with the men of the market-place and with boors, and to raise so great a sedition in the city, and further even to become rebels against my empire. But since your concord has gone out into such an excess of insolence, as even to set yourselves against emperors, and to serve idols, and to hope in dead bones as in God: unless you depart from these things, I will subject you to many punishments and destroy you with the sword.
from his purpose To whom the blessed and great pontiff of Christ, Germanus: O emperor, we who both are and are called the people of Christ do not thus, as you say, limp concerning the orthodox and blameless faith. For we do not, like the gentiles who venerate matter and bring worship to lifeless idols, bring worship to the created thing, the Creator of all things being left behind; but through matter we recognize created things, and their fashioner and maker: for the honor of the image, according to the blessed and great Basil, passes over to the prototype. For we form the image of God and of our savior Jesus Christ with colors that represent matter; but the worship we accommodate not to the matter, but to him who is expressed in the matter. For where the images of emperors are struck in gold, all attend not to the gold, but to the emperor; nor, the emperor being left aside, do they thereafter cling to it; but on account of his image they glory in the gold. But I beseech you, lord, that you set an end to a monstrous purpose of this kind. For we hear that the proscription of the holy and venerable images is to be, but not while you a are reigning. The emperor, this discourse being heard from the thrice-blessed luminary Germanus, became mute, and, fixed upon him with troubled eyes, with what force he could, compelled him to declare without delay who this man might be. But the Patriarch said: Conon. The emperor, after he had heard this, as if scarcely master of himself for the gladness of his exulting mind, graciously answered that he had been so called from his birth, when he had been baptized.
[10] To whom the Patriarch again said: While you, lord, are reigning, those trying in vain to deter him from it. let not this evil and wicked business come to pass: for he is a precursor of Antichrist who carries out this grievous and troublesome thing. Amid these things the tyrant, being much angered, laid snares for blessed Germanus, as once Herod for the Precursor of Christ, and craftily busied himself to entrap him secretly, that he might expel him from the throne as seditious and not as a confessor; having obtained for this a partner of the same mind and work, Anastasius b, a man of false name c, his disciple: to whom the emperor promises that he will bestow on him the pontifical throne, if he should entangle him in snares and brand him with marks of infamy. And he thenceforth did not cease from contriving frauds against him. But that truly thrice most blessed and genuine Prelate of Christ, seeing him each day hastening to the betrayal, no otherwise than another Judas, with meek and peaceful heart ceased not to admonish him concerning the things which pertained to it. But he, a man of very great and abandoned madness, neglected those things which were said, like Judas, the partner of the same counsel with him.
[11] And while the thrice-blessed Germanus was approaching the palace of the emperor, St. Germanus utters a prophecy, and strengthens the Christians in the faith; the unhappy Anastasius, seized with intolerable audacity, shuddered not to trample with his feet the omophorion d of the Saint. But the most holy Pontiff, opening his blessed and holy mouth, said to him meekly and humbly: What is this? Do not hasten so much to that which you intend. For there will be a time when you shall come to the Diippium e f. And this happened after fifteen years g. For the son h more iniquitous than the iniquitous Leo ordered him, vehemently beaten, sitting upon an ass with his face turned toward the tail, to be led about through the Diippium i in the equestrian games in a triumph of mockery, and to be assailed with stones by the people; and then, when he had thus been led away into the Cynegium k, he cut off his wretched head l. But holy Germanus, having gone out from the imperial palaces, betakes himself to the sacred temple, and, after he had gathered all his honorable and sacred flock, thus addresses it: Behold indeed, sons — both pastors and sacred flock — the devil, envious of good things, by God's permission has inserted into the heart of the emperor an evil and profane doctrine, and one altogether alien from the divine laws, and wishes to abrogate the sacred setting up of the holy and venerable images. Therefore I ask and beseech you all: do not betray the fair and precious pearl of your faith; but stand with noble mind, fighting against the enemy; that we humble ones may become heirs of the good things of the Lord with all his Saints.
[12] among whom St. Mary the patrician chiefly excelled. Then indeed, then, these words having been heard from Germanus, the most blessed luminary, Mary the patrician m, herself also bearing a name proper to her, who was sprung also of imperial blood, together with the holy companions who were with her in her house, cast herself at the feet of the Saint, saying: Bless us, lord, with every spiritual blessing, and instruct us more plainly, that we may fight against the tyrant. Grant us to be fortified with doctrine, as with a certain firm fence,
arm us by praying, furnish us with a breastplate by signing us, lift up on high your holy hands, and by your prayers commend us to God. Pray to God and the Father in the very words of Christ, whose officer and imitator you are, who thus says: I have kept those whom you gave me, and none of them has perished, save the son of perdition. I beseech indeed your sanctity, venerable Lord, contend you also; and be not unwilling to pray, that the tyrant may withdraw none of us. And when the holy pontiff Germanus had prayed well for all, all returned home. But those Saints alone, together with their venerable and noble mistress, remained with the pontiff Germanus.
[13] [The distinguished example of St. Germanus for the orthodox faith: the fury of the Iconoclasts against the image of Christ,] But when not a few days had elapsed, the emperor celebrated a silentium o [p] in the tribunal of the nineteen couches n, and, having summoned the most holy patriarch, was trying to turn him away from the right faith. But the noble champion of Christ, Germanus, rising up and standing in the midst of all, delivered up his pallium, saying: If I am Jonah, cast me into the sea: for without a universal council, O emperor, I am able to innovate nothing at all concerning the faith. Having thus spoken, the Blessed one went out from that assembly with much haste. Then indeed, betaking himself to the place which is called Platonius [q], or to the monastery which is now called Chora [r], he there led a quiet life. Then the tyrannical emperor, burning with great fury, ordered that they should break in pieces and give to the fire the sacred image of Christ our God and Savior which was at the Brazen gate [s], and that no sacred image should remain surviving in the whole empire which obeyed him. And he commanded that whoever should be detected having anything of this kind should undergo death by the sword. And so, his impious orders being without delay committed to execution by his ministers, those soldiers who were to set up the ladders for breaking in pieces the sacred image of the Lord came to the Brazen gate, which we have mentioned, in the presence also of Beser, the assailant of God.
[14] the Christians bravely opposing themselves to him: This being heard, the holy martyr Mary, bearing a name proper to her, who indeed as myrrh and cassia breathed forth to God a sweet odor by her virtues, shone with good works, and moreover filled all with her divine splendor, together with St. Gregory [t], who was protospatharius [u], and with the remaining Saints taken by her as companions, who were themselves also distinguished both in dignity and in birth, went to the Brazen gate; and, the ladders being broken, they tore apart and killed the spatharius, the destroyer of the image, having cast him down [x] to the ground, and they cursed the tyrannical emperor with dreadful imprecations, crying out with a loud voice that they were Christians. And so, while a great tumult was disturbing the city, all the people who were in it ran to the Brazen gate, struck with vast confusion. When therefore they had come thither, and had seen why those crowds had been stirred up, all with one voice cried out: Lord, have mercy; and they said that they were Christians and worshippers of the sacred and venerable images, and that for their honor they would readily die.
[15] When the tyrant emperor understood these things, being filled with great fury, he sent five hundred soldiers armed with the sword, and commanded that all of them be seized and killed, some of whom Leo orders to be killed, others to be kept alive. except these (our) Saints. Whereupon the soldiers seized them, and slew them with the sword in that very place of the Brazen gate: and many on that same day were wreathed with the crown of martyrdom: among whom were women and men, priests and levites, unmarried women and nuns, rulers and subjects: whose number and names the Lord alone knows: for there is not in us so great a faculty that we could reckon their number. And when the Martyrs had thus consummated their course on the nineteenth day of the month of January [y], the tyrant ordered their precious bodies, which lay partly in the Cynegium, partly in the places called Pelagia [z], to be cast into the pit of those who had been carried off by a violent death [aa]. But in the morning the emperor, having summoned the holy martyr Mary together with the holy company that was with her, addressed her thus: It certainly behoved you, who excel in the eminence of race and of dignities, not thus to be mingled with base and rustic men, and to stir up so great a sedition in the city, much less even to become tyrants against my empire. But since the agreement of your minds has advanced to such an excess of audacity that you both resist emperors, and serve idols, and place hope in dead bones no otherwise than in God, if you do not desist from these things, I will vex you with many torments and kill you with the sword.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. The deed we have woven together with its chronological marks from Theophanes in our Preliminary Commentary, §3.
q. Πλατωνίῳ here; in Theophanes, page 342, Πλατανίῳ; and there is added, "betaking himself to his father's house": by which author the things which our anonymous here narrates are confirmed.
r. The monastery of Chora was in Pontus, founded by St. Cyrus, patriarch of Constantinople. See among us the 8th day of January, page 532, number 9, and the 12th day of May, page 155, number 5. Concerning the praised St. Cyrus treatment was also made in the Chronological History of the Patriarchs of Constantinople before volume 1 of August, page 90 *. A monastery of the same name is noted among the suburban ones at Constantinople in Du Cange, book 4 of Christian Constantinople, page 180, where he affirms that it is reported in the Synaxaria that St. Germanus was buried there. But since there are two monasteries of the same name, why should that burial suit this one rather than that other, which, as being remote from the city of Constantinople, was better fitted both for the exile of St. Germanus and for a quiet life?
s. Concerning this image consult the Preliminary Commentary.
t. St. Gregory, passed over in the sacred tables, we advised should be inserted into them in the Preliminary Commentary, number 2.
u. A protospatharius is he who holds the first and chief place among the spatharii. Of the spatharius I have treated above.
x. To whom the chief parts in this deed are to be assigned, we have disputed in the Preliminary Commentary, §2.
y. Namely of the year 730 of the common era, from the said Commentary.
z. "In Pelagia": so I have rendered it from the Greek text of our author, ἐν τοῖς Παλαγίοις; according to what Du Cange noted in Christian Constantinople, book 4, page 150, one must read here ἐν τοῖς Πελαγίου, and so it is also written in our Greek text below at number 19: as if you should say, in the place or cemetery of Pelagius. And that place, endowed with the appellation of Pelagius, seems, says the same author in the same place, to have stood not far from the shrine sacred to St. Theodore the martyr, from Nicephorus, whom he cites.
aa. The Alexandrian Chronicle makes mention of that place at page 784; where, as Du Cange observes at page 150 just cited, the corpses τῶν βιοθανάτων were wont to be buried before the times of Copronymus.
* perhaps Τοσοῦτο μὴ ὠκέως
* perhaps ἤλθομεν
CHAPTER III.
The contests and martyrdom of the Saints; the finding and translation of the bodies; their inspection and miracles.
But the holy Martyr said to him: You are mad, O emperor. Do you say that we are idolaters, we who adore the holy and undefiled image of the Lord, and of his honorable and incorrupt Mother, and of all the Saints? For what reason do you say these things? You are more senseless than idols, and more lifeless than all carved images and lifeless stones, O wretched and miserable man, and full of every diabolical operation, enemy of all righteousness and forerunner of Antichrist. Did your senseless and stony heart not shudder at all to conceive in mind to move your utterly abominable tongue against God the Most High, and against his incorrupt Mother, and against his Saints? O senseless and boastful man, we do not honor and reverence the matter, but we salute the holy thing that is figured through the matter: for indeed those who behold themselves in a Mirror do not handle the mirror as though it belonged to the mirror to make men comely, or as though the mirror itself were such; but through the shadow we perceive and behold the truth. And those who engrave with a seal or in wax the image of the ruler do not attend to the seal or the wax as to the emperor, but through the image they give the reverence to the emperor. Cease therefore from perverting the straight ways of the Lord, and put not forth your hand to afflict his holy catholic and apostolic church. But if not, he will send forth power from his holy height, a power which you will not be able to withstand, and will bring upon you evils, of which we pray that you may not have experience, but that you may turn to God the savior, and live, from whom you have turned aside, having been schooled under an evil and wicked teacher.
[17] But the emperor, gnashing like a lion, and looking upon them with troubled eyes, orders their girdles to be cut off, and them to be beaten with raw sinews; but the holy Mary he commanded to return to her own house; for he could not ill-treat her, since she was of imperial race, and honored by the whole city both for her virtuous manner of life upon earth and because she was of such a race. And when the holy Martyrs had long been beaten and were not at all overcome, the tyrant, warring the more in wrath against them, rose from the tribunal, ordering them to be sent to the prison and each of them to be kept in safe custody, encompassed with two chains. And when they had gone away into the prison, they chanted together and said: In you, Lord, have we hoped; let us not be confounded forever; in your righteousness deliver us from the hand of our enemies, for you are our protector, Lord, Lord our hope, and for your sake are we put to death, O protector of our life, for yours is the kingdom and the power unto the ages. Amen. And the emperor commanded the prefect to scourge them daily with five hundred ox-sinews apiece.
[18] And after the space of eight months the tyrant, taking his seat at the Brazen gate, ordered the Saints to be brought. And when they had been brought, he ordered them to stand before the tribunal. And when they stood, the emperor said to them: How long, O wretches, do you persist in idolatry, and cling to dead bones, and bow not to the truth? And the Saints said: Foul and accursed man, and workshop of Satan, how long will you not cease from blaspheming, calling the holy and venerable images idols, but, being always in falsehood like your father the devil, feign truth? Then the tyrant orders them to be stretched out and beaten with severe rods to such a degree that the questionaries were changed four times each. And when they had long been beaten, they said nothing else but only the "Lord, have mercy," holding their eyes toward the heavens. But when the tyrannical emperor saw that the beaters were growing faint, he ordered them to cease from beating, and commands red-hot spits to be brought, and their foreheads to be burnt, and then thus in the Cynegium their holy heads to be cut off, and that they be dragged away and cast into the place of Pelagius. And the holy martyr Mary, hearing the sentence against them, came herself also running to the place. And the Saints, seeing her, rejoiced greatly, and, falling down, did reverence to her; and thus, having settled all by common consent and embraced one another, they were perfected there, together with the Holy woman, on the ninth of the month of August.
[19] But after the lawless and frenzied decree of the most impious emperor, which commanded that the honorable and most noble woman Mary the patrician be perfected by the punishment of the sword together with the ten most noble men, and that their holy bodies be cast away with the condemned and the murderers in the place of Pelagius: God, the lover of mankind, taking providence for his own servants, brings them out of that dreadful and grievous pit through faithful and reverent men in this manner. For on the same day on which the Blessed ones were perfected, the sky becomes overcast, and at the setting of the sun there was poured forth a very great and exceedingly violent wind with thunderbolts, so that all said that the city was being swallowed up. But the aforesaid Christ-loving men, smitten partly by the conscience proper to their nature, and partly knowing the most noble and reverent character of the honorable and most illustrious Patrician lady, take good counsel by the co-working of God, and, having reached the place in which the filthy men had cast away the pearls, going down into that grievous pit, they bring them out like certain shining stars, and, having laid them upon beasts, they reached the venerable house of the holy and wonder-working Aninas, and, having wiped them clean and washed their vestments or garments, they lay them in a new tomb in the church of Demetrius the all-glorious martyr.
[20] But behold, all you lovers of Christ, and marvel at the true tokens of the undoubting faith of the holy Martyrs, and cry out with the melodist David what is fitting, saying: The Lord guards the bones of those who have contended for him, and not one of them shall be broken; for whole and entire (O the wonder!) and as it were alive, lying in the tomb for so many years, they work miracles unceasingly, furnishing to all healings of all manner of sicknesses and afflictions. Come then, let us take up also the things that follow these, declaring the marvels of their mighty working. For when the church of God had just recovered its ancient dignity through the adoration of the holy and sacred images, and pious emperors and honorable high-priests were guiding the throne blamelessly, by a divine vote the rudders of the high-priesthood are put into the hands of Ignatius, the most blessed and most beloved of God, after the divine falling-asleep of the holy confessor and champion of the truth, Methodius, under the happy reign of the orthodox and pious Basil. And it happened, from the multitude of our sins, that at that time there came to be a most violent earthquake for forty days, such as had never at any time been, very great churches and houses undergoing collapse from such a threatening of God. But Ignatius the high-priest of God, as a most true shepherd, ceased not by night and by day with litanies and supplications to propitiate the Deity, that he might stay his indignation against us, and cause the shaking of the earth to cease.
[21] And indeed on one of the days, when he had returned from such a litany and prayer to the great church of God, as happens to those who are wearied, he lay down upon his couch, comforting his old age and the weakness of nature. And immediately turning to sleep, he sees a woman fair and most graceful, clothed in the gold-shot raiment of the patrician rank, and adorned in glory with a golden necklace, and with her a man of goodly stature and splendid, clothed as it were in a chlamys and robe, with nine others, one of whom was arrayed in the vestments of the priesthood, together with two lads. And indeed the Martyr, having touched the head of the patriarch, spoke thus: You have labored, O aged man; may God see and requite your labor, and make your petition to be heard. But we charge your Paternity to bring up our bodies which lie beneath the earth. For we are they who were slain for the holy and undefiled image of the Savior at the so-called holy Brazen gate. And we were entombed near the holy priest-martyr Mocius, in the monastery of the holy and wonder-working Aninas; for so is the monastery written in the patriarchal codices.
But Ignatius the patriarch, among the saints, becoming awake and struck with astonishment at what had appeared, in perplexity considered what the things seen by him might mean. But the holy Martyrs appeared again a second time, setting forth the same things. Yet the high-priest, as happens to those who are occupied with ecclesiastical cares, became forgetful of what had appeared, and of what had been spoken to him by the Martyrs of Christ.
[22] Again therefore, on a third round, the Saints appear to him, and with stern look, threatening, they said: Unless you shall speedily bring to an end the things commanded you, we shall cause you to be driven from the throne. Then the patriarch, becoming awake with the greatest fear, commanded that his archdeacon, Leo by name, be sought out. And when he had come up to him, and had made the accustomed obeisance, the patriarch inquired: Tell me, sir Leo, is there near the monastery in which you dwell one called "the Aninas," in which lie the Saints who suffered martyrdom at the Brazen gate? And he answered: There is indeed a monastery, master, so named; but whether saints lie there is altogether unknown to me. And while they were making inquiry also concerning other monastic questions, as it were on some errand, Joseph, the most reverent monk, who had also undertaken the care of the sacred treasures of the great church, came in to the patriarch, and paid him due honor. And when the high-priest saw him also, he made inquiry concerning the aforesaid Saints. And he answered: Both the monastery, master, I know, and I have beheld Saints lying there beneath the earth, the church having fallen in the times of Theophilus the ruler, very many and very great miracles being wrought there; one of my friends recounting to me the miracles wrought by the Saints, who also took me with him, because the monastery was near to us both. Thus I became a believer in the things spoken to me by him there, and I faithfully and reverently paid reverence to the Saints upon the ground.
[23] The patriarch, having heard these things, rising up from the throne on which he was seated, fell upon his face to the earth, with tears confessing to God the lover of mankind, and giving thanks to him who in his days had revealed awful and marvelous wonders. Then he commands that on the morrow all the clerics of the churches, and all the monks, be gathered together at the greatest temple of the Wisdom of God; and so, together with all the people, with psalms and hymns they come to the coffin of the Saints. And a marvelous prodigy came to pass at that very hour, Christ the savior glorifying the finding of his own Servants. For as soon as that ten-thousand-fold multitude set out from the great church of God with their petition, the fearful shaking of the earth was at once stayed, and the most violent storm was checked; and, as they drew near to the monastery of the holy Aninas, while they were still afar off, each one smelled a very great fragrance, as though the spices of perfumers went before them, which struck them all the more with amazement, the grace of the Saints showing forth from afar their intimacy with the Creator. And when the slab had been lifted, in which the honorable and steadfast bodies of the Saints were treasured up, an outpouring of ointment was sent forth from them, striking all with astonishment at the marvelousness of the thing.
[24] And the holy Martyrs were found (O the marvelous wonder and report!) whole and entire and undissolved, neither their garments nor their bodies having undergone any diminution at all or corruption. For time, whose nature it is to wither all things, preserved the bodies of these venerable Martyrs wholly incorrupt and undissolved; so that here too was fulfilled the saying of Scripture which declares: The Lord guards all the bones of those who have contended for him, and not one of them shall be broken. And astonishment and awe held all who beheld it, as they sought out one worthy to go down into the tomb and to make the bringing up of the relics; and when many most reverent men and very many monks had gone down, and the Saints were not well pleased with them, all with one voice bear witness that the most reverent keeper of the vessels, Joseph, should go down, as one surpassing in great reverence. And he, going down, found the noble martyr Mary lying above them all, and near her the most glorious Gregory the protospatharius, and below these the remaining Saints together with the two Lads.
[25] Then the high-priest commands that vestments brought from various churches be laid over them, and that the holy Martyrs be set thereon; and when all had had their adoration and enjoyment of them, thereafter he laid them in a coffin of cypress, on the thirty-first day of the month of January, just as they had been in the tomb, the Holy woman having so commanded. Whence after these things Ignatius, the high-priest of God, having completed the divine mystic rite, with eagerness and much joy returned to his own throne, praising and giving thanks to God for all which he had heard and seen, sending up glory to the holy and all-working Trinity, to whom is due glory, honor, and might, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
He is gravely rebuked by St. Mary The holy Martyr answered: You are mad, emperor. Do you declare that we, who adore the holy and immaculate image of the Lord, and of his venerable and incorrupt Mother, and of all the Saints, bring worship to idols? And for what cause do you say these things? You are more insensible than all idols and statues, and more lifeless than lifeless stones, O wretched and miserable man, and full of every diabolical contrivance, enemy of all justice and precursor of Antichrist. Did not indeed your heart, lacking sense and hard as a stone, shudder to conceive the thought of moving your most defiled tongue against God most high, against his immaculate Mother, and against his Saints? O senseless and proud man, we do not attend the matter with veneration and worship, but we embrace with love the holy thing expressed in the matter. For those who contemplate themselves in a mirror do not do so because there is really anything in the mirror which makes men beautiful; nor do we handle the mirror as though it were really endowed with such a power; but through the shadow we understand and see the truth. And surely those who impress the image of the emperor upon a seal or upon wax do not turn their mind to the seal or the wax as though these were the emperor; but in the image they venerate the emperor. Cease therefore to pervert the straight ways of the Lord, and do not stretch out your hand to vex his holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Otherwise he will send forth power from his holy height; a power which you will not be able to resist; and he will bring evils upon you, which we do not wish that you should experience, but that you may be converted to God the savior and live, from whom you have turned aside, having been trained by an evil and wicked master.
[17] The emperor, roaring like a lion, and running over them with troubled eyes, rages against the Martyrs of today; orders their girdles a to be cut off, and them to be beaten with raw sinews; but he commanded holy Mary to return to her own house. For he could not vex her, who drew her origin from the imperial race, and was held in veneration by the whole city, both on account of her manner of life on earth conspicuous for virtue, and on account of her birth from so distinguished a race. And when the Martyrs had long been beaten, and were not at all overcome, the tyrant, fighting much and spiritedly against them, rose from the platform, ordered them to be led back to prison, and each of them to be kept in safety, bound with two chains. Having returned to prison, they sang together and said: In you, Lord, have we hoped; let us not be confounded forever: in your justice deliver us from the hand of our enemies: for you are our defender, Lord, Lord our hope, and for your sake are we put to death, who are the defender of our life; for yours is the kingdom and the power unto the ages. Amen. And the emperor charged him who was in command that each of them be beaten daily with five hundred ox-sinews.
[18] And after the space of eight months b, the tyrant, while he was presiding at the Brazen gate, whom he then orders to be killed together with her. ordered the Saints to be brought. And after they had come, he commanded that they stand upon the platform. And as they stood, the emperor addressed them thus: How long at last, O wretches, do you persist in idolatry, prostrating yourselves before dead bones, and not submitting yourselves to the truth? The Saints answered: Wicked and detestable man, and architect of Satan, how long do you not cease to blaspheme, calling the holy and venerable images idols; but, ever abiding in error, like your father the devil, feigning truth? Then the tyrant orders them to be stretched out and beaten with severe rods so long that each of them changed turns with four questionaries c. And while they were beaten much, they said nothing else but that one word, Lord, have mercy, with the eye lifted up to the heavens. The tyrannical emperor, seeing that those who were beating them were failing, ordered the lictors indeed to cease from the blows, but commanded that glowing spits be brought, and the forehead of the Martyrs be burnt, and that thus thereafter their holy heads be cut off in the Cynegium, and that they be dragged thence and cast into the place of Pelagius. But the holy martyr Mary, having heard the sentence which had been passed against them, hastened herself also at a run to the place. The Saints, beholding her, rejoiced greatly, and, falling down, did reverence to her. And thus, after they had prepared themselves by common consent, and each had clasped the other in an embrace, they were slain together with Mary on the ninth day of the month of August d.
[19] But after the iniquitous and insane sentence of the most impious emperor, which commanded that the honorable and most noble woman Mary the patrician be slain by the punishment of the sword together with ten most noble men, and that their holy bodies be cast with the accused condemned by judgment and with murderers into the place of Pelagius: Their bodies, foully cast away, are translated elsewhere, but the merciful God, bearing care for his own servants, led them out of that grievous and troublesome pit through faithful and pious men in this manner. For on the same day on which the Blessed ones underwent death, the sky was covered with clouds, and toward the setting of the sun there was poured forth so great and vehement a wind with lightnings that all said the city was being swallowed up. But the men of whom I spoke, lovers of Christ, both because they had been admonished by their own conscience dictating it, and because they were not ignorant of the most noble and pious condition of the honorable and most splendid Patrician lady, take good counsel, God co-operating; and when they had come to the place in which those muddy swine had cast away the pearls, and had gone down into that troublesome ditch, they brought out the Martyrs no otherwise than certain splendid stars, set them upon beasts of burden, came to the sacred shrine of St. Aninas e, famous for miracles, and, when they had been cleansed, the cloths or garments which had been spread over them being washed, they laid them in a new sepulchre in the church of the most glorious martyr Demetrius f.
[20] and famous for miracles, under St. Ignatius, archbishop of Constantinople, But behold, all you lovers of Christ, and marvel at the true tokens of the by no means doubtful faith of the holy Martyrs, and cry out becomingly with the melodist David: The Lord guards the bones of his champions, and not one of them shall be broken. For safe and entire (O the miracle!), and no otherwise than if they were alive, lying after so many years in the sepulchre, they work miracles continually, imparting to all healings of every kind of disease and of tribulations. Come then, we shall recall the memory of those things also which happened afterwards, announcing the greatness of the deeds performed by them and their miracles. When now the Church of God had obtained her ancient dignity, the veneration of the most holy images being restored g, and pious emperors and venerable pontiffs, integrity of life attending them, were presiding over the throne, to the helm of the archbishopric, God favoring, is set the most blessed and most beloved of God, Ignatius i, after the falling-asleep, breathed upon by the divine power, of the holy confessor and champion of the truth Methodius h, the orthodox and religious Basil k happily reigning. And it happened, on account of the multitude of our sins, that at that time a most vehement earthquake l occurred for forty days, such as had never at any time been, great churches and houses undergoing collapse from that vast menace of God. But Ignatius, the pontiff of God, a most true shepherd indeed, ceased not by night and by day with supplications and prayers to appease the divine Majesty, that he might stay the anger that was against us, and set an end to the earthquake.
[21] being admonished by an apparition of the Saints And on a certain day, having returned from such supplication and prayers to the great church of God, he lay down upon his little bed, as happens to those who are wearied, meaning to afford some solace to his old age and to the weakness of nature. Without delay, being lulled to sleep, he beholds a woman beautiful and most gracious, who was clad in the gilded garment of the patrician dignity, and honorably adorned with a golden necklace; and with her a tall and splendid man, robed in a stole as in a chlamys, together with nine others, one of whom was clothed in the vestments of the priesthood, with two young boys. And the Martyr, having touched the head of the patriarch, thus to speak: You are wearied, O old man; may God look upon you, and measure back to you according to the measure of your labor, and hear your petition. But we charge that your paternity bring forth our bodies, which lie beneath the earth. For we were slaughtered on account of the holy and undefiled image of the Savior at the gate which is called the holy Brazen gate. And we were buried near holy Mocius the martyr m, in the monastery of the holy and wonder-working Aninas: for so is the monastery reported in the patriarchal codices n. Then the holy patriarch Ignatius, roused from sleep, struck by the things seen, and uncertain what he should do, considered what those things which he had seen might mean. But the holy Martyrs at a second approach seemed again to admonish him of the same things. But the archbishop, intent indeed upon ecclesiastical cares, was forgetful of the things which he had seen and which had been said to him by the Martyrs of Christ.
[22] Again therefore at a third approach the Saints appear to him, and, threatening with stern aspect, said: and even terrified, If you do not speedily bring to an end the things commanded you, we will bring it about that you be expelled from your throne. Then the patriarch, roused from sleep with the greatest fear, ordered that his archdeacon, by name Leo, be sought out. And when he came to him and showed the customary profound reverence, the patriarch inquired: Is there, lord Leo, in this city which you inhabit, a monastery which is called Anina, in which lie the Saints who completed their martyrdom at the Brazen gate? He answered: There is indeed a monastery, lord, which is so called; but whether Saints lie there is altogether unknown to me. And while they were investigating other monastic questions, Joseph, a most religious monk o, discharging as it were a certain embassy, who bore the care of the sacred furniture of the great church [p], came to the patriarch, and attended him with due honor. Whom, as the archbishop saw him, he made inquiry concerning the aforesaid Martyrs. He answered: Both the monastery, lord, I know, and I have beheld the Saints lying there beneath the earth, when the church fell in the times of the emperor Theophilus [q], very many and very great miracles being wrought there, which one of my friends related, and he took me with him, that we might both betake ourselves to the monastery. Thus I was made more certain there of the things which had been narrated to me by him, and to the Saints laid in the earth I faithfully and religiously exhibited veneration.
[23] The patriarch, being taught these things, rising from the throne on which he sat, in a wonderful manner fell to the ground upon his face, professing the mercy of God, and giving him thanks that in his days he had revealed these awful and wonderful prodigies. Then indeed on the next day he orders all the clerics of the churches and all the monks to come together at the greatest church of the Wisdom of God [r]; and thus, with all the people present, with psalms and hymns, they find the urn of the Saints. At which very time a wonderful prodigy occurred, Christ the savior honoring the finding of his Servants. For as soon as that multitude, massed together as it were from an infinite heap of men, was departing from the great church of God with prayer, that terrible tumult of the earth at once ceased [s], and that most vehement storm was calmed. And while they were approaching the monastery of St. Aninas, and were even yet at some distance from it, each one smelled much fragrance, no otherwise than if the spices of the perfumers had gone before them: which struck all exceedingly, the grace of the Saints showing forth from afar their familiarity with the Creator. And when the stone of the sepulchre had been lifted, in which the venerable and valiant bodies of the Saints had been laid, an outpouring of ointment was sent forth from them, the wonderful event of the thing moving all to amazement.
[24] And the holy Martyrs were found (O thing wonderful to see and to hear! being found entire and incorrupt,) safe and entire, and by no means dissolved into ashes, their garments and bodies having suffered no diminution at all or corruption. For time, which makes all things to wither, preserved the bodies of these venerable Martyrs altogether incorrupt and undissolved; so that there was fulfilled that oracle of Scripture which says: The Lord guards all the bones of his Champions, and not one of them shall be broken. And amazement and fear seized all who beheld it, while there was sought out one who should be worthy to descend into the sepulchre and to bring the relics up. And when many most religious men and several monks went down, and the Saints were not well pleased with them, all with one voice gave their vote that Joseph the keeper of the vessels should go down thither, as one surpassing indeed in great piety. Who, when he had descended, came upon the noble martyr Mary lying above them all; and near her the most glorious Gregory the protospatharius; and beneath them the remaining Saints with the two Young Boys.
[25] they are honorably laid up by the said Saint. Then the archbishop orders vestments brought from various churches to be laid over those same holy Martyrs; and when they lay open to the veneration and enjoyment of all, he then in the same manner deposited them in a coffin of cypress, in the month of January, on the thirty-first day [t], in the order in which they had been found in the sepulchre, the Holy woman so commanding it. Wherefore, when after these things Ignatius the archbishop of God had performed the divine service, with alacrity and much joy he returned to his cathedral, attending God with praises and thanksgivings for all which he heard and saw, and moreover directing praises to the most holy Trinity, worker of all things: to whom is due glory, honor, and dominion, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. A σκευοφύλαξ is the officer set over the custody of the sacred furniture or of the sacred vessels: whose office is described at the end of the volume published at Paris in the year 1655, in which the historical Breviary of Constantine Manasses and George Codinus On the Origins of Constantinople are contained. There accordingly, at page 313, it is thus written: The great keeper of the vessels stands before the storehouse of the furniture, when the patriarch performs the sacred rites; and if ever there is need of any small vessel, or of a sacred book, or of tapers, or of vestments, he brings forth all these from the storehouse: for he has under his power the storehouse of the episcopal house and all the furniture of the church. Moreover the widows fed by the church, and all their sacred things, are subject to his inspection. He is present also at judgments, and preserves the rights and any revenues accruing to the church for the benefit of the clerics, until they distribute them among themselves.
q. Theophilus reigned from the year 829 to the year 842. But if the church which is said to have fallen in the time of that emperor owes its ruin to an earthquake, I have not ready at hand a means of determining the year of the event: for the continuator of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, book 3, number 39, recording how unhappy the times of this emperor were, among other calamities thus reports: Scarcely even for a single day, so long as he held the government, did the earth cease to be shaken by earthquakes. Add George the monk in the New Emperors, where in his account of Theophilus he speaks thus: Terrible earthquakes also, and almost continual.
r. The most august church of St. Sophia, or of divine Wisdom (I use the words of Du Cange, book 3 of Christian Constantinople, page 5), and long endowed with the common appellation of the Great church, always excelled the others which were raised in the city of Constantinople; because it was held especially to be the seat of the patriarch, and accordingly the chief and foremost of the whole East. The praised author afterwards illustrates it learnedly and at large.
s. The difficulties concerning the day on which that earthquake ceased you have in the Commentary, §3.
t. Whether and in what manner this deposition could then have happened, our Commentary gives in the same place.