ON ST. VAMNES, MARTYR,
IN PERSIA,
In the year 423.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
His cult, the day of his death, the year of his martyrdom fixed from the Persian persecution.
Vamnes, martyr in Persia (St.)
BY J. P.
The first to draw this Martyr out of darkness and bring him into the light, or rather the only one, so far as we know, Castellanus is the first to announce him was Claude Castellan in his Universal Martyrology, where on the XV day of this month among the added names he announces him thus: In Persia, St. Vamnes, who, after he had redeemed from captivity the monk Aëtius, was put to martyrdom under the count Dandrasbadus by the sentence of the judge Franus. Nowhere else, either among ancient or among more recent Martyrologists, have we found his name marked. The whole proof, then, of the martyrdom, and indeed of the cult which we ascribe to St. Vamnes, must be sought from his Acts, concerning which the aforesaid Castellan published in print these words: His manuscript Acts are preserved in the library of the church of Paris, where his death is noted on this day in the second year of the reign of Vararanes V, the twenty-third of Theodosius the younger. The same Martyrologist in the year 1709 sent hither a transcript of the same Acts … whose manuscript, on parchment in Carolingian letters, preserved in the library of the Chapter of the metropolitan church of Paris, gives a preliminary notice before their title, which runs thus: The Passion of St. Vamnes the martyr, who suffered on the XVII of the Kalends of September. Another copy our Papebroch transcribed from a very ancient Moissac codex in the keeping of the Canon Claude Joly at Paris. And its title runs thus: The Passion of St. Vamnes the martyr, on the XVI of the Kalends of September. But we commit to the press that which we received from Castellan. It has been collated by us with the Moissac copy, from which are taken those things which are either inserted into the text of the other or noted in its margin with an asterisk.
[2] Castellan had marked this holy Champion on the XV day in his Universal Martyrology; and warns that he should be marked on this day. but in the Supplement to the same he rightly corrected himself, warning that he must be placed on the XVI day of the same month. Rightly, I say: for in the transcript of the Acts which he sent hither, that day is expressly marked, and not only in their title, which we have given, but also in the course of the Acts, at our number 4, in these words: After not many days, again on the seventeenth of the Kalends of September, King Vararanes orders Dandrasbodus the Count to lead St. Vamnes out of prison and to deliver him to Franus the governor to be heard and condemned. And consistently enough, as appears: for at the end of the Acts his body is said to have been buried on the XVI of the Kalends of September. Our Moissac transcript of the same Acts agrees with the Parisian, although, as we have seen, it differs — faultily, for the reasons given — in the title. For these reasons, then, we give our Champion on this XVI day of August, on which he ought to be given. But now certain other matters concerning him must be weighed.
[3] St. Vamnes suffered under Vararanes V, king of the Persians, From the duration who continued the persecution against the Christians stirred up by his father Isdegerdes. Concerning which matter it is worth while to hear Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, book 5 of his Ecclesiastical History, published at Paris in the year 1642, chapter 38, pages 751 and following, narrating these things: At that time Isdigerdes, king of the Persians, made war upon the churches, having seized upon the occasion which he there recounts. Hence therefore the storm which arose stirred up most grievous and savage waves against the nurslings of piety, and, thirty years now having elapsed, the tempest, driven by the magi as by certain whirlwinds, lasted on. And the Persians call magi those who make gods of the elements … And Vararanes indeed, the son of Isdigerdes, after his father's death took up together with the kingdom the war also against piety: for the dying man left both joined together to his son. But the kinds of torments and the exquisite tortures with which they afflicted the pious can scarcely be expressed in words. And straightway he pathetically sets forth the deadly and utterly barbarous butchery of torments. But among the sacred Champions whom he there names, St. Vamnes does not occur.
[4] Further, Vararanes succeeded his father Isdegerdes in the year 420, and the time as Pagi has it in his Baronian Critique at that year, number 14; where at number 15 there is also discourse of the persecution continued by him, and of the war which arose from it between the Romans and the Persians, and of its causes: but at the year next following, number 13, mention is made of the victory won over the Persians. Socrates writes of it in book 7 of his Ecclesiastical History, published by Valesius, chapter 18, page 357; and together with the war, in which he writes that the Persians were again conquered by the Romans in a vast battle, chapter 20 of the same book, he would have the persecution to have ceased, saying at page 359: In this manner, therefore, the war which had been undertaken on account of the Christians dwelling in Persia came to an end. Which indeed happened in the thirteenth consulship of Honorius and the tenth of Theodosius, in the fourth year of the three hundredth Olympiad. At the same time also the persecution which had been stirred up against the Christians in Persia grew quiet. By these consuls the year 422 of the vulgar era is indicated, concerning whom see Reland in his Consular Fasti, page 587. But Theodoret, who extends the persecution to thirty years, as we were saying, persuades us to believe that it afterwards gradually broke out again, though perhaps with less violence: in which matter he deserves the greater credit inasmuch as the city of Cyrus, of which he was bishop, was nearer to Persia. Theodoret wrote his Ecclesiastical History about the year 450, according to the French collector of Ecclesiastical Monuments, volume 12, page 356, where he treats, so to speak, professedly of this Persian persecution. But the Greek Analecta, published by the Benedictine monks at Paris in the year 1688, in the Life of St. Euthymius the abbot, page 19, defer it to the last period in which Isdigerdes lived, in these words: At the beginning of the persecution then stirred up in Persia, about the end of the reign of Isdegerdes, king of the Persians, when the magi wished to seize all the Christians, etc. But in the year 420 Isdegerdes died, as the same collector of Monuments has it, and Pagi at that year, number 14, affirms it to be certain. The said persecution, therefore, may have begun in the year of Christ 419.
[5] of the Persian persecution But the aforesaid Pagi, at the year of Christ 408, number 5, says: There is no doubt that this persecution began toward the end of the reign of Isdigerdes, or in the year of Christ 414: but how that or is to be joined with the year 414 we do not sufficiently perceive, nor do we see that that year is about the end of his reign. He had cited
indeed at number 5 the Life of St. Cyril in the Greek Analecta, of which we too have just made mention, but that year cannot be hammered out from it. To this he had prefixed in the same place, from Theodoret, thirty years now having elapsed, etc., whom we heard speaking above; in which matter, as Pagi thinks, that is confirmed which Theophanes writes (whose text he had brought forward at number 4), namely that this persecution lasted five years under Isdigerdes, that is, from the year of Christ 414 down to his death, which occurred in the year 420. But it seems that we should rather adhere to the other system, for the chronological reasons alleged above in its favor, and depart from Theophanes, removed by the interval of so many centuries from the matter of which he here writes. So much concerning the persecution begun by Isdigerdes and continued by Vararanes, under whom St. Vamnes was crowned with martyrdom, namely in about the eleventh year of the same persecution, from what has been said and what is presently to be said.
[6] is fixed The Acts of that holy Martyr, below in our text at number 4, record these things concerning the beating with cudgels which he received: And the day on which these things were done was the V of the Kalends of August, in the second year of Vararanes, king of the Persians, but the twenty-third year of the reign of Theodosius the younger, son of the emperor. These chronological notes are marked also in our Moissac transcript. The second year of Vararanes coincides with the year 422 of the vulgar era, conformably to what has been premised: but Theodosius the younger was born in the year 401, in the month of April or January; nor are proofs lacking that from his very birth he was clothed in the purple and declared emperor or Caesar: but only in the following year, 402, proclaimed Augustus. And on the death of his father Arcadius on the Kalends of May in the year 408 he succeeds to the empire; see Pagi at that year, number 2; and accordingly the twenty-third year of his reign coincides with the year 430 of the vulgar era, to which Castellan, cited above, attaches the martyrdom of St. Vamnes. But how will you reconcile that year with the second year of Vararanes? This difficulty that author either did not see or dissembled: but let us consider in what way it can be solved.
[7] To say that an error has crept into the number of the years the year is, so to speak, to cut this Gordian knot rather than to untie it, especially since those years are written out in letters of the alphabet, and not in ciphers or numerals, which are more prone to slips. But since the beginning of the purple, with which Theodosius was clothed from the very time of his birth, most conduces to the present purpose, what we indicated in passing a little before on that matter seems here to require fuller confirmation. In the Life, then, of St. Porphyry, bishop of Gaza, which stands among us in volume III of February, on the XVI day, the following is said at page 652: But Theodosius the younger, when he was born, was brought forth into the light in the purple. Whence also, as soon as he was born, he was proclaimed emperor. On which passage this note is given at page 653: That is, acclaimed emperor and covered with the purple. The solemn inauguration, if the Alexandrian Chronicle is to be trusted, took place at the Hebdomon in the following year, on the IV of the Ides of January, in the IV Indiction. And in the same Life these things are said at page 653: But when seven days had been fulfilled from the childbirth, she (the empress Eudoxia) sends for us, and met us at the door of the bedchamber carrying the infant in the purple. And these things were done in the year 401. But that the solemn inauguration and proclamation is to be deferred to the year 402, Sozomen, cited before, testifies in book 8, chapter 4, page 763: At the same time, in that very consulship of Fravitta and Vincentius which we have mentioned, a son was born to the emperor, of the same name as his grandfather: who at the beginning of the following consulship was proclaimed Augustus. Pagi also may be seen at that year, number 27.
[8] But although to the purple conferred upon Theodosius the younger in the year 402 a new solemnity was afterwards added, in which St. Vamnes was crowned with martyrdom. which he did not yet have in the year 401, yet from this year Theodore the Reader, in the Excerpts from the Ecclesiastical History which Valesius published, book 2, page 568, seems also to reckon his very reign, when he records this: Theodosius the younger, son of Arcadius Augustus, began to reign in the month of January. He reigned together with his father seven years and three months. With this author, then, let us also reckon the years of the Theodosian reign from his birth in the purple, that is from the month of January, or, if you prefer, from the month of April of the year 401, and by this reasoning let us solve the difficulty proposed above from the words of the Acts of St. Vamnes. For if from that year we advance to the year 423 of the vulgar era, we shall have the second year of Vararanes and the twenty-third of Theodosius the younger, begun from the month of January or from the month of April and carried forward to the V of the Kalends of August, on which day the same Acts record that the Martyr's beating with cudgels, of which I spoke before, took place, as will be plain to one who considers the matter. Upon this foundation of computation we have built the year of our Martyr's death, the same 423, noted above at the opening of this Commentary: which, after you have compared it with these our chronological reasonings, you shall be free, reader, to amend, if you find a better. It remains that I subjoin the history of the martyrdom, which in my judgment deserves great esteem for its brevity and sincerity, especially because we have not known it to have been published in print elsewhere hitherto.
THE ACTS
By an anonymous author,
from a parchment manuscript of the Chapter of the metropolitan church of Paris, collated with another from the Moissac codex.
Vamnes, martyr in Persia (St.)
BHL Number: 8499
By an Anonymous Writer.
The Saint is accused, In that time King Vararanes a commanded that all should adore the sun, fire, and water, and that no one should make a Christian slave free, and that whoever should refuse to hear the king's command should be subject to divers punishments. Now St. Vamnes bought among other captives Aëtius the monk, whom he at once sent back at his own charge to his own place whence he had been taken captive. Hence a calumny was stirred up against the man of God, as against one rebellious to the royal command, who had made a purchased slave free b and had restored him to the Roman territory c. Then the king in anger ordered Dandrasbadus \*, his count, to question the man and to hear from him whether the things said about him were true. Dandrasbadus in that same hour, by the king's command, questioned Vamnes, who was brought before him. But he answered that he was truly a Christian, and that he had ransomed a captive monk and freed him and restored him to his native land.
[2] and by blandishments The count Dandrasbadus reported to the king what he had heard from blessed Vamnes. To whom the king again gave command that he should exhort him to deny the faith of Christ and to serve the religion of the Persians d; and if indeed he complied, he should pardon him his other faults also, and grant him his life and the auctioning of the goods of others e, and enroll him among the king's friends; for he had heard that he was rich and was held among the chief of the merchants: but if he did not comply, he should afflict him with torments, and after the torments put him to death. Then the count, returning to the praetorium, called out Vamnes and makes known to him the command and the counsel together \, and exhorted him, saying: I beg thee, despise and deny the error of the Nazarenes \, by which thou hast been deceived, and return to the ancient custom of our religion, that thou mayest be able to live and be reckoned among the friends of the king; for be assured that if thou shalt choose to persevere in that error, thou shalt lose not only the friendship of the king, but life itself by a miserable end.
[3] in vain Blessed Vamnes answered: Far be it from me that for the friendship of a man I should lose the love of God, and for the security of the present life lose the blessedness of eternal life. The count said: Why, against the king's command, didst thou make free a Christian man whom thou hadst bought as a slave? Vamnes answered: Because the God of the Christians, when I was the captive of the devil and the slave of sin, redeemed me by His blood, and gave me true liberty, and granted me the citizenship of the heavenly country; and I have offered God nothing worthy of requital. I gave money for that slave \ of mine; Christ for me gave His very self. The count said: Do not be wordy, but deny Christ and the sect of the Nazarenes, and pass over to the king's religion, and live. Otherwise I swear by the sun and by fire that, if thou wilt not come over to our religion, thou shalt pay the penalties both for thyself and for him whom thou hast sent away. Vamnes answered: And I swear by the true God that I will do nothing other than what I have learned from Christ, the true God.*
[4] Straightway the Count ordered him to be stripped of his garment; and when he had stood naked in the place f, and by stripes he is driven on. he asked him whether he would hearken to the king's command. And when he heard that he did not comply, he had him beaten with cudgels and cast him half dead into prison. Going therefore bound to the prison, St. Vamnes the martyr, led by Abursanes the keeper of the royal prison, gave thanks to God that he had been counted worthy to be beaten for the Christian religion: and he said to those who were present: If ye believe, brethren, it seemed to me, while I was encompassed with the blows of cudgels, as though I were adorned with crowns of roses \. And the day on which these things were done was the Kalends of August, in the second year of Vararanes, king of the Persians; but the twenty-third g year of the reign of Theodosius the younger, son of the emperor. After not many days again, on the seventeenth of the Kalends of September, King Vararanes orders Dandrasbadus the count to lead St. Vamnes out of prison and to deliver him to Franus \ the governor to be heard and condemned. This Franus had formerly been a Christian, and wishing to please the king, had departed from the faith of Christ: to whom, for the merit of his obedience, the king gave the dignity of the governorship.
[5] Franus the governor therefore, when St. Vamnes the martyr had been brought before him, began thus to address him: The governor also labors in vain. If thou wouldst remember \ our mutual affection, thou wouldst yield to the counsel of thy friend and pass over to the religion which our king holds; and it will be well with thee if thou wouldst yield to my counsel: for I too was a Catholic Christian, as thou thyself well knowest; but at the command of the king, whom the divine providence has willed to be our lord, I turned myself to the sect of the Persians; and now I live secure and happy. St. Vamnes says to him: And I am a Christian: nothing else do I wish or ought to be, as ye have already often heard from me; for thy superior also, the count Dandrasbadus, has learned even by the experience of torments what I bear in my soul through the faith of Christ, nay rather what Christ bears in my soul. And if before the sweetness of torments I most constantly confessed Christ my God, how shall I now deny Him, having obtained so great fortitude through cudgels? Franus said: I do not wish to kill thee, although I am pressed to do it by the king's command: but that some means may be given me of excusing thee before the king; if the sun and fire and water*
and earth thou wilt not adore, at least cry out that it is well done that the churches are destroyed; for whether thou say it or not, behold, they are already being destroyed. St. Vamnes answered: Far be it from me that what the merciful God willed to build for the gathering of Christians into one, I should say is well destroyed at the command of an impious king. Franus said: If thou wilt say nothing about the destruction of the churches, that they are justly pulled down, at least say this one thing: "Evil to the Christians," that there may be occasion for a just report to the king, by whose rescript thou mayest be released. St. Vamnes answered: I will not curse those whom God has blessed.
[6] While Vamnes was saying these things before Franus the governor, The prayers of his wife behold, the Saint's wife came crying and wailing, and pressing herself upon her Husband with mournful voice, she urged the claims of wedlock and said: To whom dost thou leave me? To whom dost thou commend thy sons? I did not wish to be joined to thee for this, that I should before the time be bereft of the solace of a husband, and my sons of a father, and the servants be defrauded of the governance of a master. To whom St. Vamnes said: Be of good courage, sister; he lacks not solace for the death of his own for whom Christ lives through the integrity of faith: abide in the faith in which thou wast reborn, and the Lord shall be governor to thee and to thine. And she answered: Neither do I wish thee so to live that thou shouldst deny Christ, in whose faith we hope for eternal life; for I rejoiced also when I heard that thou hadst been cudgeled for the confession of His name: but that thou mayest be restored to me and to all thine safe and alive, I ask that thou say this one thing, which is well, that the churches are justly overthrown; for whether thou speak now of this or be silent, the churches are being destroyed; they are neither to be pulled down at thy word, nor left standing at thy word.
[7] the Saint nobly despises, Then the holy champion of Christ, Vamnes, groaning more deeply, said: O serpent's tongue, interpreter of venomous counsel! This is that voice which of old enticed Adam to sin; this is that which persuaded holy Job to break his patience in his pain: give this counsel, woman, to those with whom human affections avail more than Christ: but to me no one can give greater counsel than Christ, who has enjoined His discipleship in the denial of all things which are seen and loved \: and thou, woman, if thou didst know how great goods thou hast lost by these words, how great a gain thou hast destroyed which thou hadst acquired by rejoicing over my passion — surely those griefs of thine, and those tears which thou pourest over me, ignorant of God's benefit, thou wouldst pour over thyself, who hast spoken against God.* At this rebuke of St. Vamnes the woman, pricked with sorrow, began to hope for the pardon of her fault from Christ through her husband's supplication.
[8] The Saint despises them, While the woman was still standing by, Franus the judge with serpent's mouth began to repeat his former hissings to St. Vamnes: Curse the Christians, and I let thee go. The woman, softened again, turned to her Husband and said: At least do this which he says: curse the Christians, that thou mayest be released and live. The holy Champion of Christ answered: Hear, woman, and learn what thou knowest not: Christians draw their name from the name of Christ, the true God; and so he who curses Christians curses Christ, the true God, whose \ name sounds in the Christians: likewise he who blesses them blesses Christ in them, whose \ the Christians are. I will therefore bless them and will not curse, that I may obtain the blessing of Him from whose name they are called. When St. Vamnes was teaching the woman these things in the governor's hearing, the governor said \ to St. Vamnes: And why, before thou didst believe in Christ, didst thou curse them and detest their fellowship? Vamnes answered: Because I was without the wisdom \ which now I have; for the love of Christ was not in me, to teach me of what love He is worthy.
[9] he is beheaded and buried. After this most firm confession of the Soldier of Christ, Franus the governor, wishing to put an end to an altercation which seemed to him tedious, and at the same time fearing that a protracted delay might seem to run counter to the king's commands, ordered him to be beheaded. St. Vamnes, having received the sentence, went joyfully to the field. Then the disciples of Christ, hearing it, rejoiced, and especially the merchants, in whom the greater joy arose because they saw that a Martyr had come forth from their own body; and mingling themselves with the crowd of the pagans, they ran to meet him and led him to the field. But some of the common people, moved with compassion, brought wine and offered it to him to drink: which he refused to take, saying that this was wont to be given to those who die unwillingly; but that for him it was unlawful, who even willingly received death for the love \ of Christ; and moreover that it was a wickedness, while Christ thirsted, to be made drunk with wine. And he said: I will not drink wine which makes drunk, but the cup of redemption which Christ has given me to drink by His grace. And so the most blessed Vamnes was beheaded; and his body was guarded by the executioners. Then the brethren who had clung to him in hiding \ from the beginning of his confession, the ministers of his need, gave money to the executioners so far as they asked; and they took away his body and buried it on the XVI of the Kalends of September, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, to whom be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ Elsewhere it is written Daudrasbadus*. \ Elsewhere suum*. \ Elsewhere negaque*. \ Elsewhere conservo*. \ Elsewhere decorarer*. \ Elsewhere Phranno*. \ Elsewhere recordareris*. \ Elsewhere instituit*. \ Elsewhere cujus*. \ Elsewhere cujus*. \ Elsewhere dixit*. \ Elsewhere non sapiebam*. \ Elsewhere pro amore*. \ Elsewhere latenter adhærebant*.