ON ST. PETER OF MAIUMA, SECRETARY AND MARTYR IN PALESTINE
THE YEAR 743.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Peter of Maiuma, Secretary and Martyr in Palestine (St.)
By the author I. B.
[1] Maiuma is a city of Palestine Prima, only twenty stadia distant from Gaza, which Constantine the Great, because it had embraced the Christian religion, honored with the rank of a city and named Constantia after his son. Julian the Apostate, for the same reason, deprived it of both its name and rank, ordered it to be called the Port of Gaza (limena tes Gazes), and subjected it to the Gazaeans. But afterward it was restored by Christian Emperors to the former dignity that Constantine had conferred upon it. Nicephorus Callistus, book 10, chapter 4, and other more ancient writers narrate this more fully. Here was either born, or also gained the palm of martyrdom, St. Peter of Maiuma, St. Peter of Maiuma (Petros ho kata ton Maiouman), as Theophanes has it. Baronius calls him Mauimenus and records that he was crowned at Damascus, his memory being thus inscribed in the Roman Martyrology: venerated on February 21. "At Damascus, St. Peter Mauimenus, who, when he said to certain Arabs who came to him when he was sick: 'Everyone who does not embrace the Catholic Christian faith is damned, as is Muhammad your false prophet'; he was killed by them."
[2] Baronius seems to have followed the Menaea, which Maximus of Cythera also followed, elsewhere on February 9. on the 9th day of February with these words: "On the same day, the holy Hieromartyr Peter of Damascus is perfected by the sword." The Menaea add:
"Peter, who reproved the deranged, Dies by a single blow, meeting his end by the sword."
Although St. Peter, Metropolitan of Damascus, also ended his life by the sword, as we shall say on October 4, distinct from St. Peter, Bishop of Damascus. what is said about the reproof of the mad Mohammedans properly applies to the Maiuma saint: whom the author of the Menaea perhaps calls Damascene because Theophanes, after narrating the death of St. Peter, Metropolitan of Damascus, immediately adds concerning the Maiuma saint: "His emulator and namesake Peter at Maiuma distinguished himself as a voluntary martyr for Christ in the same times." The most learned James Goar, O.P., Vicar General of the Congregation of St. Louis, thus translates this: "His emulator and sharer of the same name, Peter at Maiuma, bore a distinguished martyrdom for Christ voluntarily in those times." he more probably suffered at Maiuma, Anastasius the Librarian thus interprets these words: "The emulator and homonymous Peter at Maiuma was shown in the same times to be a voluntary Martyr for Christ." Baronius himself also, in Annales, volume 9, at the year 742, number 3, cites these words from Theophanes: "The emulator of this one, and homonymous Peter at Mauimena, was shown in those same times to be a voluntary Martyr for Christ." Nor should anyone be troubled that St. John Damascene is said to have written his eulogy: for Damascus is not so far distant from Maiuma that the fame of so celebrated an event could not have quickly reached there. Even closer to Maiuma is the Laura of St. Sabbas, in which John was then living as a monk: and perhaps St. Cosmas of Maiuma, Bishop, who had been educated at home with him in letters and afterward became a monk, immediately brought news of Peter's martyrdom to him. But let us hear Theophanes narrating the same martyrdom, in the second year of Constantine Copronymus, who had succeeded his father Leo the Isaurian, who died on June 18, 741.
[3] "His emulator" (he says), that is, of Peter, the most holy Metropolitan of Damascus, who was killed by the order of the Arab Prince Walid, "and sharer of the same name, Peter, at Maiuma bore a distinguished martyrdom for Christ voluntarily in those times. For, being seized with illness, he invited Arab nobles, who were personally known to him from his office as Secretary of public revenues, where he was a Secretary: to a private conversation. Then he said to them: 'May you receive from God the reward for your visit to me, a sick man, while sick, he admonishes the Arabs, I pray: for though you are deprived of the light of faith, yet you are to be considered friends. I wish you, therefore, to be witnesses of my testament, which is as follows: Whoever does not believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the consubstantial and life-giving Trinity in unity of nature and persons, he is blinded in the eyes of the soul and worthy of eternal punishment. Muhammad, your false prophet and precursor of the Antichrist, and execrates Muhammad: was such a one. Wherefore, if you will in any way believe me, who now call heaven and earth to witness before you, renounce his fabulous and deranged teaching. This is the present proof of my affection toward you; accept this benevolent counsel: lest you endure punishment equal to his." The Arabs, hearing these sacred words and others like them, were seized simultaneously with stupefaction and madness, bade the man farewell, judging him to have lapsed into a delirium of the mind. When he had recovered his strength from his illness, he began to cry out publicly in a strong voice: repeating the same things when well, he is killed: "Anathema upon Muhammad and upon his fabulous teaching and upon all who believe in him." Immediately he was subjected to the penalty of the sword and declared a Martyr. The holy Father, our John, rightly surnamed Chrysorrhoas on account of his golden radiance of eloquence and holiness, praised by St. John Damascene celebrated him with the encomia of his prayers, shining as if with golden splendor in spiritual grace.
[4] So Theophanes, from the new translation of Goar. He who is here surnamed Chrysorrhoas (from chrysos, meaning gold, and rhoe, a flowing) called Chrysorrhoas. is St. John Damascene, of whom we shall treat on May 6. Perhaps he bore the surname Chrysorrhoas because, like the Damascene river Chrysorrhoas, he widely irrigated souls with his various books, as if with streams of his teaching. Strabo writes of that river in book 16 in these words: "The Chrysorrhoas, beginning from the city and region of the Damascenes, is almost entirely consumed in channels, for it irrigates many deep places." And perhaps the river itself obtained this name because it was the source of great fertility and wealth for the neighboring inhabitants, enriching them as if with a golden stream.
[5] He whom Theophanes calls the Prince of the Arabs, Walid (Oualid, son of Isam), is called Hualid or Vhalid, son of Hisan, by Anastasius; by the author of the Miscella, from Gruter's edition, Vhalid son of Isam; from Henry Canisius's edition, Gizid son of Habdimelich. Goar explains that a Chartularius (the office which St. Peter held) is a Scribe, the office of Chartularius. or one who records acts or accounts in documents and codices. Anastasius thus explains: "Since he was a Chartularius and was reviewing public taxes by accounting." The same author writes thus of the surname Chrysorrhoas: "Who was rightly named Chrysorrhoas on account of the golden and radiant grace of the Holy Spirit, which flowered in him both in word and in the conduct of his life."