CONCERNING THE HOLY MARTYRS IN PALESTINE UNDER ALAMUNDARUS THE SARACEN.
SIXTH CENTURY OF CHRIST.
Historical Compendium.
Martyrs in Palestine, under Alamundarus the Saracen (SS.)
By G. H.
[1] On February 7 we gave the Life of St. Moses, compiled by us from various authors. He was given as Bishop to the Saracens in Arabia in the fourth century of Christ. We said that these Saracens were rather autochthonous than descended from the posterity of Ishmael, and we showed their settlements and wars with neighboring peoples who were under the Roman Empire, which were frequently waged. Many of these Saracens had often embraced the Christian faith, but had easily relapsed into pagan errors. Among the chieftains of these Saracens, Alamundarus is celebrated, who, making an incursion into Palestine under the Emperor Anastasius, killed very many Christians or led them into slavery. The Roman Martyrology commemorates them on February 19 in these words: "In Palestine, the commemoration of holy monks and other Martyrs, who were most savagely slain by the Saracens under their leader Alamundarus on account of the faith of Christ."
[2] An illustrious writer of the reign of the Emperor Justinian was the monk Cyril, from whose pen we have the Lives of Sts. Euthymius and Sabas, Abbots, and of St. John the Silentiary. St. Sabas admitted him as a disciple in the year 531, in which the latter then died on December 5, in the tenth indiction. But Cyril was sent by St. John the Silentiary to Leontius, the Hegumen of St. Euthymius, and was admitted among his monks in July of the sixth indiction, the year 543. Thence, after the Fifth Ecumenical Council held at Constantinople in the year 553, he withdrew to the New Laura, and spent two years writing the Lives of Sts. Euthymius and Sabas. Afterward, around the year 557, he published the Life of St. John the Silentiary, while the latter, in the one hundred and fourth year of his age, was still living. These and other details about Cyril we discussed on January 20, before the Life of St. Euthymius, nos. 8, 9, and 15. This same Cyril narrates more precisely what occurred during the incursion of Alamundarus in the Life of St. John the Silentiary, by whom he testifies he was also instructed concerning that event. That Life is to be illustrated by us on May 13; it was also published by Lipomanus and Surius, and in chapter 11 the following is read:
[3] "At the same time, Alamundarus Sicices, who had received royal authority over the Saracens subject to the Persians, invaded Arabia and Palestine with great fury against the Romans, plundering everything and leading many thousands of men into slavery, and committing many atrocities, after Amine had been captured. When a multitude of barbarians had spread through this desert, and those who had been entrusted with the care of the desert announced that precautions should be taken against the barbarian incursion into the monasteries, the Fathers of the Great Laura informed the venerable Father that he should cease living at Ruba, and should come to the Laura and rest in his cell. And the divine John, who through quietude had tasted divine sweetness, gladly followed it and could not bring himself to leave it, reasoning within himself and saying: 'If God does not take care of me, why do I live?' And thus making the Most High his refuge, he remained undismayed. But God, who always takes care of His servants, commanded His angels, as Scripture says, to preserve His saint. Wishing, however, to make him secure — for he had been somewhat terrified — He sent a perceptible guardian, a very great and most terrible lion, to guard him day and night from the ambushes of the savage barbarians. On the first night, when he saw the lion sleeping nearby, he was slightly frightened, as he himself told me; but when he saw the lion following him day and night and not parting from him, and repelling the barbarians, he sent forth songs of thanks to God, who does not allow the rod of sinners over the lot of the just. And our blessed Father Sabas, when he had come to Nicopolis and had established the New Laura, and had come to the building of the cave, as I have related in my second account, and had recalled to mind the vision he once had concerning St. John, went to him at Ruba and said to him: 'Behold, God has preserved you from the incursion of the barbarians and has made you secure, having sent you a perceptible guardian. Rise, and do you also what is human, and flee as the Fathers do.' Using many other admonitions, he led him to the Great Laura in the second indiction and enclosed him in a cell, when he was in the fifty-sixth year of his age." Thus far that passage. The year was 509. He had withdrawn into the desert of Ruba in the fiftieth year of his age, in the eleventh indiction, as is read in chapter 9. That year was 503, and this persecution of Alamundarus occurred within those six years. Baronius recorded it in the Annals at the year 509, and it certainly happened in that year or in the immediately preceding ones. Concerning the desert of Ruban, we treated this in the Life of St. Euthymius, chapter 5, letter b, and said that it appears to be the desert in which Christ fasted for forty days and forty nights, called by more recent writers the desert of Quarantania.
[4] Concerning the same incursion of Alamundarus and the Saracens, whom he then simply calls barbarians, the same Cyril treats in the Life of St. Euthymius, chapter 22, no. 125: "In the following years," he says, "when Anastasius had received the empire after him, and the barbarians had made an incursion and devastated a great part of the desert and laid it waste, they also overturned the very tents of the Hagarenes which the great Euthymius had recently erected for them. Then those among them who were more notable built for themselves other shelters in the monastery of the Martyrium monk and erected temples. But the barbarians, attacking them again, killed some, led others away captive, and drove some into other villages — namely, those who had survived this unforeseen danger — since this barbarian incursion there had been great and most grievous." Thus far Cyril the monk, who then narrates the subsequent death of Elias, the Hegumen of the monastery of St. Euthymius, who died in the year 511, having administered that office for thirty-eight years, from the year 473, in which St. Euthymius departed this life.
[5] After his death, St. Sabas withdrew into the desert near the Jordan and dwelt with St. Gerasimus, when he received four Hagarenes (by this name too they were accustomed to call the Saracens) who were exceedingly hungry, and was afterward presented with cheeses and dates by them. Having then received a companion for the solitary life, the monk Antho, he remained inseparable from him; during which time certain Hagarenes, plainly barbarian and hostile in spirit, attacked them, one of whom, insulting them, was swallowed up by the earth like Dathan in the sight of the others, who, seized with great fear, took flight and withdrew. Cyril narrates these things more fully in the said Life of St. Sabas, chapters 15 and 16, and they are cited as pertaining to Alamundarus by Baronius in his notes to the Martyrology under February 19 and in the Annals at the year 509, no. 9 — although they occurred about thirty years earlier. Indeed, under the Emperor Anastasius other incursions were made under the chieftains Agarus and Vadicarimus, of which the following is recorded in book 15 of the Miscellaneous History of Paul the Deacon, no. 10: "Meanwhile an incursion of the Saracens was made again into Phoenicia and Syria, after the death of Agarus, with Vadicarimus his brother, like a whirlwind and even swifter, sweeping through the places." And this is said to have occurred in the eleventh year of the reign of Anastasius, in the year of Christ 502, the same being read in Cedrenus.
[6] But let us return to Alamundarus, who presided over the Saracens in the years that followed. After the aforementioned incursion into Palestine and the slaughter inflicted upon monks and others, a certain Alamundarus embraced the Christian faith and was baptized by the orthodox. The event, which occurred in the twenty-second year of Anastasius, in the year of Christ 513, is narrated by Theophanes, Anastasius, and Paul the Deacon, Cedrenus, and others. Theophanes' account is as follows: "When Alamundarus, the Prince of the Saracen nation, had been baptized, the impious Severus sent two Bishops infected with the stain of his sect to communicate with him. But by the providence of God, the Prince had been baptized by the orthodox, who accepted the Council. When the Bishops of Severus were contriving to subvert the Prince from the true doctrine, Alamundarus refuted them with a marvelous stratagem, putting forward this device. 'Today,' he said to them, 'I received letters in which it is reported that the Archangel Michael died on this very day.' When they said this could not be, the Prince responded: 'And how, according to you, was He who is pure and mere God crucified, unless Christ consisted of two natures, since not even an Angel dies?' And so the Severian Bishops departed in confusion." Thus far the passage. Concerning Severus, the leader of the Acephali, and the Council of Chalcedon, we have treated elsewhere on numerous occasions.
[7] Again, a new plundering and slaughter under the Emperor Justinian is reported by Theophanes, Anastasius, and Paul the Deacon as having been committed by Alamundarus, but whether it was one and the same Alamundarus, we have doubts. The words of Theophanes, at the second year of Justinian, in the year of Christ 529, are as follows: "On the twenty-first day of March, in the seventh indiction, Alamundarus Zecices, the chieftain of the Saracens, made an incursion and plundered First Syria as far as the territory bordering on Antioch itself, at the place called Litargum, and killed many, and burned the suburbs of Chalcedon, and the estate of Sermium and the region of Cynegia. Hearing this, the Roman generals went out against him. When the Saracens learned of this, together with the Persians they took their plunder and captives and fled through the interior frontier." Thus Theophanes, in whom the Alamundarus who embraced the faith of Christ is mentioned without a surname; but here he is surnamed Zecices (in Greek, Sekikēs), by Paul the Deacon Zetices, and by Anastasius Zecius. The one who devastated Palestine under Anastasius is called by Cyril Alamundarus Sicices, then ruling the Saracens subject to the Persians; and he now flees together with the Persians. Theophanes narrates a second incursion into Palestine made by Alamundarus in the same year, and his subsequent flight to the regions of India.
[8] To these last incursions may perhaps be referred what is narrated by John Moschus in the Spiritual Meadow, book 10 of the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 21, in these words: "Abbot Gerontius, the Superior of the monastery of our holy Father Euthymius, narrated to me and to the Sophist Sophronius, saying: 'Three of us were together beyond the Dead Sea, and as we were walking up the mountain, another anchorite was walking about along the shore of the sea. It happened that Saracens were passing through those places and encountered him. When they had passed by him, one of them turned back, cut off the anchorite's head, while we watched from afar — for we had already climbed the mountain. While we were weeping in sorrow over the anchorite's fate, suddenly we see a bird coming from above, which seized the Saracen, bore him aloft into the air, and then dropped him to the ground; and from that fall the Saracen perished.'" Thus far the passage. Gerontius was appointed Hegumen or Superior of the monastery of St. Euthymius around the year 557, as we noted in section 4, no. 15 of his Life. Our Rosweyde, in his annotations to the said chapter 21 of Moschus, cites both the words of the Roman Martyrology concerning the monks killed by the Saracens under their leader Alamundarus and the observations of Baronius on them, asserting that what is found in the Spiritual Meadow, chapters 21 and 99, is in agreement. This we have also transcribed here for that reason.
[9] "The Fathers of the same monastery of our holy Father Theodosius narrated to us, saying: 'Some years ago, a certain old man named Antonius died here. He, in his lifetime, being greatly devoted to fasting, went to a place called Cotulas. On a certain day, while he was in the desert, behold, Saracens came to those parts and saw the old man, and one of them, drawing his sword, came against the old man wishing to kill him. But the old man, seeing the Saracen coming against him, looking toward heaven said: "Lord Jesus Christ, may Your will be done." And immediately the earth opened and swallowed that Saracen, and the old man was saved, and glorifying God, entered the monastery.'" This is from chapter 99, which Rosweyde also notes as pertaining to February 19, together with Baronius, who, however, mentions the same under May 16 in his notes on the holy monks killed in the Laura of St. Sabas during the time of the Emperor Heraclius. Concerning St. Theodosius the Cenobiarch and his monastery situated near Jerusalem in Judaea, we treated on January 11, as well as of another St. Theodosius, Abbot of the Monastery on the Rock, which is indicated here in the title of chapter 99, but erroneously; for before chapter 97, St. Theodosius, of whom the discussion continues, is called "the great Prince of monks," that is, the Cenobiarch. "Of these," says Baronius at the year 509, no. 9, "the glorious memory of the holy monks who were killed under the Saracen King Alamundarus, the 19th day of February is consecrated, on which all the Martyrs who then suffered, enrolled in the sacred records, are celebrated with an annual proclamation."