ON ST. GELASIUS, OR GELASINUS, A MIME, MARTYR AT HELIOPOLIS IN PHOENICIA,
YEAR 297.
Historical Summary.
Gelasius, or Gelasinus, a mime, Martyr at Heliopolis in Phoenicia (St.)
Author G. H.
[1] The memory of St. Gelasius, a mime and Martyr, is celebrated among the Greeks on the 27th of February. In the Calendar published under the care of Genebrardus, he is called Gelasius the Elder, and is joined to Procopius Decapolita, whom we shall treat below. Christophorus, Patricius and Proconsul of Mitylene, also gives him the surname "the most senior" and alone inscribes him in his Menologium. But the Menaea and Maximus Cytheraeus adorn him with this eulogy: "Memory of the holy Martyr Gelasius, who, ordered by the Governor to mock baptism, was truly baptized and finished his life by the sword." These verses, with an allusion to the name Gelasius (which means "laughable"), are added in the Menaea:
"About to receive illumination, you laugh at the deception that mocks. But washed clean, Gelasius, your head is cut off. Baptized, Gelasius, on the twenty-seventh you were struck."
[2] So far the Greeks in the Menologia and Menaea, without indicating the place or time at which he obtained the palm of martyrdom: these are explained quite clearly in the Alexandrian Chronicle under the 13th year of Diocletian, when Maximian Herculius for the 5th time and Maximian Jovius Caesar for the 2nd time were Consuls. This is the year 297 of the common era, which is there numbered as the 269th year from Christ's ascension into heaven. The following is there reported: Under these Consuls St. Gelasinus suffered martyrdom at Heliopolis, the city of Libanasia. He was a second mime, whom, with the theater completely full and the entire populace watching, the other mimes cast into a large basin of the bath filled with warm water, mocking the mysteries of the Christian religion and holy baptism. But Gelasinus the second mime, having been thus baptized, when he had ascended from the basin, now clothed in a white garment, no longer permitted himself to be made a spectacle for theatrical entertainment, saying: "I am a Christian. For I saw in the bath a tremendous glory. Wherefore I also die a Christian." When the people in the theater of their city Heliopolis beheld this, inflamed with violent fury, they rushed with great force from the tiers of seats onto the stage, and seizing St. Gelasinus in his white garment with which he was clothed, they cast him out of the theater and killed him with a shower of stones: and in this manner the just man departed from life. His sacred bodily remains were carried outside Heliopolis to the village of Mariamna, whence he was a native, and there they built a sacred oratory in his honor.
[3] So far the Alexandrian Chronicle, in which this mime is called Gelasinus, who to others is Gelasius -- the difference consisting in the addition of a single letter. But in the Menaea he is said to have been killed by the sword, while in the Chronicle by a shower of stones: however, he could have been snatched from the fury of the people by the Governor, and finally, having been struck with the sword, obtained the palm of martyrdom. Heliopolis is an episcopal city of Phoenicia of Lebanon, which province is here called Libanasia. Why he is called a "second mime" can in some measure be elicited from Cicero and Horace: the latter, in book 1, epistle 18, indicates something similar in these verses:
"As you would believe a boy reciting lessons dictated by a harsh master, Or a mime playing a secondary role."
But Marcus Tullius explains more clearly in the speech against Verres in these words: "As we see happen among Greek actors, often the one who plays the secondary roles, although he could speak considerably more clearly than the lead himself, greatly subdues his voice, so that the principal actor may excel as much as possible."