Martyrs

ON THE HOLY MARTYRS

THEODOTUS AND THEODOTA, DIOMEDES, EULAMPIUS, ASCLEPIODOTUS, AND GOLINDUCHUS, MARTYRS.

From the Basilian Menologium of Grottaferrata in Latium.

About the beginning of the Second Century.

Theodotus, Martyr (S.)

Theodota, Martyr (S.)

Diomedes, Martyr (S.)

Eulampius, Martyr (S.)

Asclepiodotus, Martyr (S.)

Golinduchus, Martyr (S.)

J. P.

Of these holy Martyrs I find no trace among the Latin Martyrologists. The printed Greek Menaea commemorate them on this day. In the Basilian Menologium there stands a brief summary of their sacred contest, Elogium from the Basilian Menologium in these words: And these holy Martyrs, seized for the confession of Christ by the impious Trajan, when they were compelled to deny the truth and to sacrifice to idols, and could not be brought to it, were tormented with divers torments and cast into that same prison in which the holy martyr Hyacinth had been shut up. And when they had been instructed by him and thoroughly strengthened in the faith of Christ, they were brought by the idolatrous keepers before the emperor Trajan. After the death of St. Hyacinth they were led out of prison and stood before him; and being again compelled to eat polluted foods, they rebuked him and execrated the error of the idols. Then, after they had been hung upon wooden frames and shaven, they were burned with torches. Taken down from the wooden frames, they made an end of life by the sword, delivering up their souls to God. These same holy Martyrs recur in the Menologium of Sirletus, with a few others associated with them, namely Diomedes, Eulampius, Asclepiodotus, and Golinduchus. The name Cholinduch is also found on the eleventh of this month.

[2] The time of the Martyrdom. Further, from the time at which Hyacinth attained the laurel of martyrdom, of which above, determine at what time these our Martyrs were crowned with martyrdom. Their memory too is read in our manuscript supplement, composed partly of the Synaxarion of Sirmond and the manuscript of Chifflet. But for Ἀσκληπιοδότου is written Ἀσκληπιάδου. Moreover three of them are recorded in the Chifflet Menaeon; and all of them also in Maximus, Bishop of Cythera, except Theodotus. The said Supplement adds to Theodotus and Theodota the two following little verses:

Τμηθεῖσι Θεοδότῳ καὶ Θεοδότῃ Θεὸς θεῶν δίδωσιν ἄξια στέφη.

To Theodotus and Theodota, beheaded, The God of gods bestowed a worthy crown.

Nor indeed is the memory of Cholinduch passed over there in the verses:

Ὑπὲρ Θεοῦ τείναντος, ὡς δέῤῥιν, πόλον Κτείνῃ, Χολινδοὺχ, τὸν τένοντα τῷ ξίφει.

For the sake of God, who stretched out the sky like a hide, You fall, Cholinduch, your neck smitten by the sword.

The poet seems to have aimed at wit from the affinity in pronunciation of words differing in sense: τείναντος, κτείνῃ, and τένοντα. This is more certain, that he alluded to Psalm 103, verse 2: ἐκτείνων τὸν οὐρανὸν ὡσεὶ δέῤῥιν. Stretching out the heaven like a hide.

ON THE HOLY MARTYRS

MARCUS AND MOCIANUS,

AN ANONYMOUS BOY, AND A CERTAIN PAUL.

Cult from the Menologia.

Marcus, Martyr (S.)

Mocianus, Martyr (S.)

J. P.

Very obscurely and confusedly are Marcus and Mocianus found inserted into the sacred tables of the blessed Martyrs, nowhere their birthplace, homeland, place of contest, and year of martyrdom being expressed. The Basilian Menologium thus records them.

Marcus and Mocianus, Martyrs of Christ, seized by the governor Maximus because they confessed Christ, were driven to deny the Christian religion and to submit themselves to the superstition of the idols. But while they were being tortured, a little boy, who stood by the altar of those sacrificing, rebuked the Governor, that he acted unjustly. But being bound, and beaten with scourges, together with a certain Paul, a Christian who was present and encouraged the Saints, he was shut up in prison. Sentence of death having been passed upon the Saints, they were led bound to death, praying to God and giving thanks that they had been held worthy to suffer martyrdom for Him. But their wives with their sons followed weeping, up to the place of martyrdom. When they had arrived there, they were beheaded, their venerable wives receiving their heads. The Supplement to the Greek Menaea, published in print, treats also of these same Martyrs, taken partly from the apographs of Sirmond, partly from those of Chifflet, but has nothing singular, except these little verses:

Ὁδὸν Μάρκος τῇ τομῇ τὸν αὐχένα, Ὁδὸν χαράττων Μωκιανῷ τοῦ πάθους.

Marcus offered his neck to the blade; thus Marking out for Mocianus the way of the passion.

The memory of our holy Martyrs is likewise found inserted in those excerpts which we preserve from the Ambrosian library, with this small elogium: These, when they had refused to sacrifice to idols, stand to be examined before the governor Maximus; and after very many torments, they are beheaded with the sword, in the presence of their wives and children, and while these lamented; whom the Saints exhorted to acquiesce, and to give thanks to God. Nor did the Menaeon of Chifflet pass over our Champions. Their memory is also found in the manuscript Menaea of the Ambrosian Library, and in the Turin codex, but as coldly and meagerly.

[2] certain things singly concerning the anonymous boy, The Menologium of Sirletus, published by Canisius, contains a few particulars concerning the anonymous Boy, strengthening the holy Martyrs in their torments: On the same day, of the holy Martyrs Marcus and Mucianus, who, when they were admonished by the governor Maximus to sacrifice to idols, were not permitted by a certain little boy standing at the altar: which boy, being seized, the heathen beat with a rod with a hundred and fifty stripes, at the Governor's command. To whom the little boy said: Do you, a judge, also teach letters? Of Paul he makes no less mention than the Basilian menologium cited above: Likewise a certain Paul, when, strengthening the Martyrs, he confessed Christ, was cast into prison.

[3] But lest anyone should suppose that the memory of our Martyrs is celebrated only among the Greeks, they have their place also in the very sacred tables of the Latins. The Roman Martyrology reviews them in these words: On the same day, of the holy Martyrs Marcus and Mucianus, who were slain by the sword for Christ: whom, when a little boy admonished with a loud voice not to sacrifice to idols, he was ordered to be beaten; and when he vehemently confessed Christ, together with a certain Paul, who exhorted the Martyrs, he was slain. Juan Tamayo de Salazar, in volume 4, inserted these same Martyrs into the Spanish Martyrology, and, he says, the Castilian Martyrology of Father Vasquez, the Portuguese of Father Lupi, the Spanish manuscript of Father Higuera, and the Italian of Costanzo Felice, agree, with other more recent ones, among whom there is deep silence about the place of contest. More rightly indeed both for himself and for the truth would the aforesaid Tamayo have consulted, if, with all antiquity behind him keeping silence about the place of contest, he himself likewise had kept silence about the same, not about to assign to him the city of Cáparra in Lusitania, which he could not solidly prove. For by what reasoning does he prove this his assertion? He obtrudes upon us an oracle, if it please the gods: Our Flavius Dexter marks that (place of contest) in his Chronicle. To this he cites his commentator Bivar, as also Roderic. It is a wonder he could refrain from appealing to the authority of Marcus Maximus, Luitprand, Julian, and other men of the same flour; to whom this alone seems to have been proposed, that they might import into the world of letters very many paradoxes, not to say historical monsters, and open falsehoods, which are therefore most deservedly relegated by the learned to old wives' tales.

[4] But that he may give the reader greater faith concerning the aforesaid place of the contest, he produces an epigram of ten lines, which, he says, is recorded in an ancient manuscript codex of poems in my possession. But by what author, in what century did that epigram see the light? To say what I feel, its authority is too vague and undetermined to be able to persuade anything probable in this matter, much less anything certain, especially where all antiquity, both Greek and Latin, as far as I at least have found, makes no word about this matter. Let the learned reader now see upon how ruinous a foundation the oft-mentioned Tamayo builds the following conclusion, contained in this tenor of words: Having learned through my Lord, Diego de Arce Reinoso, then bishop

of Plasencia, afterward supreme censor of the faith, that the place of the contest existed, and that it was situated within the bounds of his diocese; he himself declared our holy Martyrs, thenceforth, to be citizens of his episcopate and its natural combatants; and ordered their memory to be celebrated with an anniversary cult throughout the whole diocese, under the rite of a double office, from the common of many Martyrs, according to the rules of the Roman Breviary, as is clear from the circular letters, dispatched in my presence. By whose persuasion the Bishop learned and commanded such things, if not chiefly by that of Tamayo himself, who as Secretary subscribed the Decree, and probably composed it himself? You have the Decree in our work on the twenty-eighth of April, page 529, with the animadversions at the end; which see.