ON THE HOLY TEN THOUSAND CRUCIFIED ON MOUNT ARARAT, AND ON THE 1480 MARTYRS
UNDER CHOSROES KING OF THE PERSIANS IN PALESTINE.
UNDER THE EMPEROR HADRIAN.
CRITICAL COMMENTARY.
The Martyrs crucified on Mount Ararat. The Samaritan Martyrs in Palestine under Gosroes.
D. P.
The order of the Martyrology, especially the Roman, proposed for this work to follow, permits no one to pass over any of those who are there referred to, much less so many as are contained in the two classes placed in the title, without our bringing forward the contexts of the Acts pertaining hereto, as ancient as we can, and at the same time examining whether any older authority can render them credible to the learned Reader. What the criticism intends This did in his Notes on the Martyrology Cardinal Baronius: did I also not only second, but even first. You ask with what success? concerning the Saints here proposed There will answer for me the Acts themselves, examined article by article, and demonstrated to the eye such; that, if the cult of those Martyrs described in them rests on no other foundation than the credulity given to them in the course of a few centuries, it altogether seems able to be doubted whether such ones really existed in the nature of things. While I do this most unwillingly, let no one say that I, a private man, am acting as censor or reformer of a work approved by the public authority of the Church for the common use of the faithful, so long as the same church judges that labor should be applied to its repeated revision. The Mistress of truth admits even a private counselor, provided he so propose the documents and monuments found by him that he himself wishes nothing defined, whatever phrase he uses, except what she herself at last shall have determined. Indeed I had thought to refer the aforetitled Martyrs, exempted from the common order of others more certain, by way of an Appendix to the end of this 22nd day: but because that in St. Meletius and his companions was done by me on the 25th of May, although most have approved it; as less certain. I hear nonetheless that it is disapproved at Rome by some as if it were an express reprobation of a cult approved in the Roman Martyrology: which I certainly by no means intended. Lest even hence an occasion of carping be given, those of whom now it is treated I refer in their order; now, as also then humbly subjecting myself and my writings to the judgment of the Apostolic See, and so I begin to give to the press what after Henschen I have, having commented on this argument, gathered onto paper.
PART ONE
On the Saints crucified on Ararat.
The Martyrs crucified on Mount Ararat. The Samaritan Martyrs in Palestine under Gosroes.
BY D. P.
§. I. How little ancient to the Western peoples, and to the Eastern not even now known outside Armenia, is a passion of this kind.
[2] Armenia, a region of Asia most well known among Writers, called by the Hebrews Ararat: of which word the etymon there is Aram, which means high and lofty. And Armenia is a very high region: on whose mountains the ark of Noah after the flood is indicated to have settled, Armenia called Ararat, in Genesis chapter VIII, verse IV: where, while it is said to have settled on the mountains of Armenia, in Hebrew it is "on the mountains of Ararat," and thence commonly the name began to be taken not for Armenia, but for some particular mountain of Armenia: of which, thus, among other ancient writers no mention is found nor even among more recent ones, except that Tavernier in Baudrand says it is now by the natives called Mesesousar, that is, the mountain of the ark, and says that it is part of the Caspian mountain near Media between Artaxata and the marsh Arsissa. taken here for a mountain: And hence the first occasion of controverting the truth about this Martyrdom is taken. The revisers of the Roman Martyrology under Gregory XIII ascribed it to the 22nd of June with these words: On Mount Ararat, to which 10,000 crucified Martyrs are attributed the passion of the holy Martyrs ten thousand. In the Notes the Martyrology of Bede is cited. This we published genuine before volume 2 of April, from very many codices of the best note: and there it is treated only of St. Alban, Martyr in Britain [nor anything about such a Martyrdom in his Additamenta to Bede has Florus; nothing Ado, Usuard, Rabanus, and Notker, nor anyone more ancient than the 11th century]; only in the Martyrology, under the name of Bede thrust into the light (which is nothing else than a compendium of Ado, somewhat increased by Saints added from elsewhere in the 12th or 13th century), toward the end are read these words: The passion of the holy ten thousand Martyrs. Which words however our Heribert Rosweyde deleted, because they were lacking to the manuscript codex of the monastery of Richeberg in Bavaria, with which he had collated the whole. Martène, in "On the Ancient Rites of Monks," book 4, chapter 6, cites the Customs of the Dionysian Monastery in which is read the Feast of the 10,000 Martyrs of three Lessons, and the Colbert Codex and the Customs of St. Cornelius of Compiègne where 12 Lessons are prescribed: but in the Lérins Calendar three Lessons of St. Acacius and his Companions, which all are not of great antiquity and authority.
[3] Some eulogy of these same Martyrs was published by Peter de Natalibus, in book 5 of his Catalogue, chapter 137, which Catalogue he completed as Parish-priest of the Church of the holy Apostles at Venice; therefore before the 16th of May in the year 1371, by Peter de Natalibus in which Peter was created Bishop of Equilio. This author very many followed in their Martyrologies, both manuscript (which it does not please to bring forward) and others printed. Among these can be reckoned the Martyrology of Bellinus, according to the custom of the Roman Court printed at Venice in the year 1498, where these things are read at this 22nd of June: At Alexandria on the mountain, which is called Ararat, the Passion of the holy ten thousand crucified. There soon followed other Martyrologists, and others more recent. Greven, Maurolyco, Felici, Galesini, Canisius, and in the same words as Bellinus Molanus in his Supplement to Usuard: who toward the end of his Annotations adds these things: "To the Passion of the Ten Thousand a manuscript is inscribed as to the version of Anastasius the Librarian. Yet to the learned some things displease in it."
[4] Under this general title of certain Doctors, seems to be comprehended Radulphus de Rivo, Dean of Tongeren; The history of such a Martyrdom who wrote at the end of the 14th century a book on the observation of the Canons: where in Proposition XI he enumerates the apocryphal Acts of various Saints, and by no means to be read in the Church; namely the Passions of SS. Barbara and Catherine; And, he says, of the ten thousand Martyrs, in which (I will say fabulously, until I see otherwise) are feigned all kinds
of the passion of Christ to have been endured on Mount Ararat near Alexandria: nor is their passion noted in any authentic Martyrology, nor could I find their day at Rome in any Calendar. It is said indeed that Anastasius the Librarian translated that Passion from the Greek; it is not found in Greek but deservedly we doubt, whether truly: for hitherto Acts of this kind in Greek nowhere have we been able to find, nor have we been able to detect even the least indication or trace of them lying hidden anywhere or seen by anyone. But that such things ever existed in Greek, how shall we believe, who in so many Menaia or Synaxaries of the Greeks, of the Arabs, even of the Copts and Ethiopians, see those Martyrs wholly passed over, nor is there an epitome in the Synaxaries, and also by any other Greek historians whom all, especially the collectors of Synaxaries, who would say abstained from them because they judged the Acts fabulous? since they everywhere exhibit as legends the Epitomes of Acts equally fabulous, as are the Acts of St. Meletius and his eleven thousand two hundred and eight companions, which in Greek-Latin we gave by way of an Appendix to the 24th of May; and the Acts of the twenty thousand citizens of Antioch, who are feigned to have been gathered in the church on the night of the Lord's birth, and together with it itself burned by Diocletian. Both on the faith of the Greeks into the Roman Martyrology the reformers of it, in which however the fabulous Acts of others are not lacking. aforesaid, received, that both had been omitted would have been better; which in Meletius I have demonstrated sufficiently, in the Antiochenes posterity will easily demonstrate, if they only attend to this alone, how little credible it is, that the Christians had, while the persecution raged, a church capable of so enormous a multitude; or that Diocletian, more cautious and provident than was fitting, in the same city, where the accidental burning of his own palace, imputed to the Christians, he had pursued with such severe inquisitions, would of his own accord have kindled so vast a pyre, whence the whole city or a great part of it could have been consumed, especially in winter, when stronger winds reign.
[5] These things and others more absurd than these, since without scruple the compilers of the Synaxaries received them; we ought not to think that they abstained from the ten thousand Crucified, because of the fabulousness of the Acts; But neither is it known to the Armenians except from Latin writers. but only because they had no knowledge of them; consequently it must be believed to have been born among the Latins, among whom alone such a narration was known, which Latins communicated this in the 12th and 13th centuries to the Armenian Christians on the occasion of the holy wars in Syria, joined for the union of the Roman Church, to whom, destitute of almost all literature, the same to be now most celebrated asserted to us a certain Archbishop of theirs in the year 1699 making an excursion to Antwerp: thus Clemens Galanus makes us think: who, occupied almost from adolescence in the Apostolic Mission among the Armenians, and imbued with knowledge of the Eastern languages, Turkish, Iberian, Colchian, and Armenian, strove by the study of many years to excerpt the Ecclesiastical history of the Armenian nation, from its Codices sought from everywhere. For he in that work, which at Rome he published in both languages in the year 1650 under the title of the Conciliation of the Armenian Church with the Roman, at chapter 2, number 3, treating of the Martyrs of whom that nation had knowledge before St. Gregory, who suffered under Constantine the Great; in the first place indeed those ten thousand Martyrs he puts; but on the sole faith of the Roman present-day Martyrology, as if destitute of every other support for corroborating their Martyrdom. But as for the interpreter Anastasius praised by Baronius in his Notes; not easily will anyone believe him truly produced, whoever shall consider, that neither in this passion, nor in another of St. Peter of Alexandria, which to the same Anastasius Baronius ascribes, is found any similarity of style, with the Lives of the Pontiffs Gregory IV, Sergius II, Leo IV, Benedict III and Nicholas I, which, in the judgment of John Ciampini, in his Examination of the Liber Pontificalis, are without doubt his. Since therefore from a Greek Author about the veneration of those 10,000 we cannot fish out anything; we are forced to confess that among the Latins alone is found knowledge of them, nor received from elsewhere than from the Acts, on every side as will soon be shown, wavering.
[6] In Laurentius Surius, who died in the year 1578, in the first and second edition of the Lives of the Saints, nothing at all about such Martyrs was published. The original passion is found in the 3rd edition of Surius But at last in the year 1618 some Acts were published from a manuscript codex of the Cologne College of the Society of Jesus, with a long apology, such as also exists in the Notes of Baronius: which all there can be seen. Meanwhile it pleases to indicate the places, in which the said Acts are found. William Camden, who flourished in this 17th century, and in the year 1606 with his learned pen published Britannia illustrated at London; asserts that he found the Passion of the ten thousand Martyrs, and receives it in various manuscripts. crucified on Mount Ararat, and transmitted it to Heribert Rosweyde: for he in the year 1607 had published the Calendars of the Saints, whose Lives he had found in the Belgian Libraries, and by his own silence about them sufficiently indicated, that not yet had he seen a Passion of this kind. We it, as it was sent by Camden, afterward collated with a remarkable manuscript codex submitted to us by Nicolas Belfort: and likewise with our codices acquired from elsewhere, from the month of May to the end of December containing various Lives of the Saints. And in these three manuscript places of "Anastasius" it is said that "Athanasius the Librarian of the supreme and Apostolic See" translated it from the Greek; which one is said to have rendered into Latin but it seems to be a copyist's blunder: certainly John Ciampini, after the examination of the Liber Pontificalis published at Rome in the year 1688, in a Catalogue gathering the names of all the Librarians of the Holy Roman Church who could hitherto be found, found no Athanasius anywhere. The same or similar Acts had once James Sirmond, and offered them to us. They exist also in the manuscript codex 79 of the Queen of Sweden, as also at Rome in the Vallicellan Library of the Fathers of the Congregation of the Oratory in Lectionary A. and at Soest in the Marches of Westphalia among the Father Preachers.
[7] But in the manuscript codex the Prologue of the venerable Anastasius the "Armarista," Anastasius or Athanasius the Librarian. that is, the Keeper of the books of the Apostolic See, to the venerable Father the Bishop of Sabina, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, upon the Passion of the ten thousand Soldiers and Martyrs crucified, concerning whom Jerome in his Martyrology on the 10th day before the Kalends of June. But in vain is the Hieronymian Martyrology cited, and is said to have dedicated it to Peter Bishop of Sabina or Gabii: since in the four copies, now openly extant, no mention of them is found; as neither in other primary Martyrologies, or (as Radulphus calls them) authentic, that is, venerable by some antiquity and authority.
[8] Moreover he who in the aforesaid Osnabrück manuscript, with the title of "Father" is indicated as Bishop of Sabina, elsewhere called Peter; but there was no Peter of Sabina before 1216, but without mention of the Cardinalate, is found neither in Ciaconius nor in Oldoinus. Ferdinando Ughelli, for volume I of Italia Sacra and its Appendices, on every side having searched out the names of the Bishops of Sabina; and having pursued them quite happily from the time in which lived Anastasius the Librarian, without any notable gap, found no Peter before the year 1216; to whom in the same and the following century soon six others of the same name succeeded. To one of these this Version could be believed dedicated, if then any Athanasius or Anastasius were found, who had made it. Baronius, while he mentions those same Acts, as found by him in the monastery of St. Cecilia across the Tiber, but of Gabii none at all. says that there is read "Peter of Gabii": and so too John Mabillon testifies to have found, in his Musaeum Italicum, page 80, lest you should think a typographical error had crept in at the place aforecited of Baronius. There was Gabii, before Rome was founded an opulent city, and under the Tarquin Kings midway between the City and Praeneste, as Appian describes it: but they had so failed, already long since dissipated by Tarquin, that in the time of Augustus Caesar, in which Dionysius of Halicarnassus lived, not the whole of their city was inhabited, but only that part which along the road is frequented with inns. That they afterward rose again so far, as to deserve to have a Bishop, is shown by no argument: but now the memory has so vanished, that where that city was is controverted among the learned. It is found indeed in the body of the Councils, under Hilary the Pope in the year 465, "Asterius of Gabii," and likewise in the year 501 under Symmachus, "Mercurius of Gabii"; but since "of Sabina" among those there named nowhere appears, who does not see that it could have happened that in the first letter the copyist erred? Especially since that the Bishopric of Sabina is most ancient is established, while "of Gabii" is nowhere else named. Besides the Compendium, which I said was related by Peter de Natalibus, there exists one, two hundred years ago published by Boninus Mombritius; Some Acts have only 1480 martyrs. but three others we have copied from the Utrecht Codex of St. Saviour, the Trier of St. Maximin, and of the Richeberg Monastery. We have also copied, from the codex 6075 of the Vatican library, the Passion of the holy one thousand four hundred eighty Martyrs, as many as are precisely reported to have seized the faith of Christ, and, accused to the Emperors, as Christians made by the idols being rejected: and this number is noted in the manuscript Vatican, number 3 and 4; yet there, number 18 and thereafter, are mentioned ten thousand Martyrs. Whence the said variety arose, is not established. What if the Acts be said to have been received from various manuscripts, of which some had only the Passion of the holy one thousand four hundred eighty? Such a number certainly and no greater is found in the Sacramentary, of which, as written about seven hundred years ago, Mabillon makes mention, page 69, where these things he noted to be found; "In the month of June on the 22nd day of the holy Martyrs One Thousand 1480." The same number likewise is had in an older Cassino manuscript, in the same Mabillon, page 80.
§. II. What kind of authority accrues to a passion of this sort from the present-day Roman one even after the silence of the ancients about it has been considered, and the fabulousness of the Acts themselves acknowledged.
Godefrid Henschen, before in the year 1680 in the month of October he was seized by paralysis, had somewhat commented on these Martyrs, Thus far Henschen had begun to comment, from the more recent Martyrologies, where he had found their memory; dissembling what he himself about the whole matter thought. But afterward when, somehow restored to himself by the clemency of spring, in that very infirmary he was revising the remaining Acts of the latter half of May, prepared for the press by his and my labor; and had vehemently approved my plan for the 24th day, about the Acts of St. Meletius and his companions to be deferred to the end of that day and refuted; he judged that something of the same kind here too should be done by him, if ever, some faculty of walking recovered, he should return to the Museum. But in fact what he had proposed he began, ten or twelve days before his death, writing some part of the former Paragraph, but which was of little use to me, having many other things not yet observed by him. wishing to reject the whole matter as apocryphal to the Appendix: But there remained the chief labor, by which it might be demonstrated that the Acts themselves which already he had acknowledged to be by no means ancient, but always unknown to the whole East, were fabricated by some Latin writer, under the falsified title of an Interpreter
under the name of Anastasius, as if from the Greek; and that so licentiously, that he seems to have wished to surpass by many parasangs the figments of the Greeks about the passion of Meletius. Thinking on this he was touched by a new attack of paralysis, and made an end almost at once of writing and of living, an octogenarian old man, as in his life I explained before the last volume of May, number 34, handing on moreover to me the torch to be borne.
[10] Having entered upon the matter, before all things I judged that I should read what Cardinal Baronius in his Notes on the Roman Martyrology heaps together, I resume the writing from the beginning to introduce some appearance of probability to such a Martyrdom, already received into the tables of the aforesaid Martyrology. And first I greatly wondered, when I read, that "the Greeks also treat of those ten thousand Crucified in the Menology on this day." For I knew that nothing of the sort is had, not only in any Greek Menologies which I saw all at Rome and at Milan; but nor in that which William Sirleto had quite hurriedly composed in Latin, for the use of those who were going to augment the Roman Martyrology, being ignorant of the Greek language; [being certain that there is no treatment of those crucified in the Greek Menology which Baronius] which Menology Heinrich Canisius afterward caused to be printed, in the year 1602 in volume 2 of the Antiqua Lectio, from Sirleto's autograph. There was cited also by Baronius, besides Maurolyco, the learned Pietro Galesini: of no great authority otherwise with him, having often experienced his excessive confidence in asserting: yet I wished to see what Galesini in his Notes here had, and I read; "Of SS. Acacius and the 10,000 Martyrs, as it stands written in Greek in the Horologion." Galesini published his Martyrology at Venice in the year 1578, therefore that will have been older, if any Horologion he saw, either written by hand or printed. We have seen no such: but, nor in the Horologion which Galesini cites; if it be permitted to argue from this that there too was printed in the year 1607, equally gratuitously is cited by Galesini the Horologion, as by Baronius the Menology, and neither of them saw with their own eyes. For indeed in that which we have, as I said, the Horologion, twice are recounted the Saints of the several months, and in both places St. Eusebius of Samosata is found alone on this day. But books of this kind, as often as they are reprinted, are wont to be increased rather with Saints than diminished. Deservedly therefore we shall suspect, that Galesini, lapsed in memory, wrote there not what he had read, but what he falsely imagined himself to have read.
[11] From producing Authors (of whom the scanty number Baronius begins with the supposititious Beda) in the aforecited Notes one proceeds to Radulphus and his words above, number 3, cited are quoted, that there was also no Roman Martyrology in which this passion was referred to, asserting, (until he sees otherwise) that what is held about the ten thousand Martyrs is fabulously feigned, and adding that their Passion is "neither in any authentic Martyrology noted, nor their day at Rome in any ancient Calendar found." To which Baronius; We wonder, he says, that a man otherwise learned and grave, so hastily about these Martyrs uttered a sentence, who at least by the authority of the Roman Martyrology ought to have been restrained; nor in vain to make exception about the Roman Calendar: since one is the reason of the Martyrology, another of the Calendar, where only those Saints are wont to be written, whose ecclesiastical Office is recited. Hasty indeed here this very Baronius might be called, when he died, Radulphus de Rivo reprobating these very Acts in the year 1403. saving the reverence due to him. In the year one thousand four hundred third, on the day of St. Humbert, namely the third day of the month of November, died Master Radulphus of Breda, otherwise de Rivo, Dean while he lived of the church of blessed Mary of Tongeren, of the fatherland and diocese of Liège; as in the Calendar of the church of Tongeren is found, by the witness of Melchior Hittorp, who inserted that very book of Radulphus at Paris in the year 1610 into the Collection of ancient writers on the divine Offices and Mysteries of the Catholic Church. He wrote therefore in the 14th century. But then no Roman Martyrology was yet named: but throughout the whole City was read Usuard, increased at the discretion of each transcriber, all used Usuard, in whose copy however in none does Radulphus assert that those Martyrs were found by him; and in this a learned and grave man (which his works testify) altogether deserves to find credence: nor in vain also did he name the Calendars. For just as various churches at Rome then worshipped some Saints proper to themselves, not yet inscribed in the Martyrology of Usuard; so too some could have inscribed in their Calendars the 10,000 Martyrs, if any Office about them they had made at Rome, such as we shall see below the Poles somewhere assumed.
[12] First Bellinus of Padua the Augustinian, having obtained from some Master of the Pontifical Chapel (which office then was, and is even now, among the Augustinians) a copy of that Martyrology, [which under the year 1498 Bellinus caused to be reprinted according to the use of the Roman Court] which perhaps then that Chapel used; reprinting Usuard about the end of the 15th century, prefixed the title of the Martyrology according to the use of the Roman Court; but whether to it he added nothing of his own, is not clear to us: this we know, that from such a beginning began to be named the Roman Martyrology, which was nothing else than Usuard moderately and by private authority only interpolated: in which, since many things were faulty, more lacking, everywhere grieved all the most renowned churches throughout Italy, and by the decree of Trent, desiring to conform themselves to the use of the Roman Breviary and indeed also the Martyrology; it pleased Gregory XIII to mandate to certain learned and pious men, of whom almost the chief was Baronius, that they should not only revise the Martyrology hitherto in use, and which by the authority of Gregory XIII greatly increased, and purge it from errors if any were found; but also supply Saints of great name that were lacking. This they did indeed liberally, from Sirleto's manuscript Menology, from Molanus's Additions to Usuard, from the Tables of particular Churches; nay even they assumed many, of whom hitherto no cult had existed in any Church, nor was the day of death known; but whose virtue and singular holiness was found commended by the sacred scriptures or the holy Fathers.
[13] The work thus composed, and for the narrowness of the time, in which it was permitted to attend to it, accurately diligent, the Roman Pontiff sanctioned to be published; it is not free from many errors that can still be corrected; just as before he had ordered to be published in like manner the revised and increased Breviary; testifying to the diligence applied for the time, which he could truly testify; but of the certitude of the individual histories there touched, nothing: otherwise there would have been no place for so many corrections afterward made in both, nor would there be so many new ones, which the Cardinal Presidents of the sacred Rites, and their Secretaries, not unwillingly acknowledge still remain to be made. A whole and perfect correction, the most learned Florentinius judged was then at last to be hoped for, in his Admonitions prefixed to the older Martyrology of the Western Church, page 51, when, the work being completed which we are endeavoring to undertake, after one century namely, nor can it be held as a rule of the history to be maintained about the Saints, another most wise Pontiff will again mandate the Roman Martyrology to be emended and enriched. And so by the authority of this which now we use, we are so far from being forbidden, if there be any doubtful or false things, to note them; that we are even the more spurred to strive with all our strength in aid of so desired a correction. And let these things be said to those, who by excessive weakness either of mind, or by pertinacity in defending their own prejudices, grieve, that not all whatever in the Martyrology and Breviary are now read, are received with closed eyes, and held as it were canonized, against the known and often-indicated mind of the Roman Pontiffs, favoring our endeavors.
[14] Now while thus on every side the pretended antiquity of the witnesses falls, while the examples brought forward to prove the number do nothing, asserting the 10,000 Crucified; nothing greatly, to confirm the probability of the number, does that multitude of Jews, of whom daily five hundred the Romans crucified, during the siege of Jerusalem; or the two thousand of them, by their own King Alexander; or as many thousands of Tyrians, by Alexander the Macedonian; or finally the six thousand slaves, by Augustus Caesar, if we believe Orosius, ordered to be fixed to crosses. For who would believe Orosius, a writer of the 5th century, about so great a butchery, ascribed to the mildest of Princes, in the silence of so many writers near him and treating the affairs of Augustus most accurately. Of the Jews under Titus so great a number, yet successively, to be crucified; appears a far different cause; the rest, and those perhaps much exaggerated beyond the truth, are only a fifth part of those, who are said to have been crucified on Mount Ararat. especially in a history so doubtful as this is: But that ten and more centuries after the time of the Emperor Hadrian, the history of such a Martyrdom first published into the light, to anyone might seem credible for the number, if not precisely that, yet some great one; ought it not at least to be such, as, consonant in other circumstances to the more certain history of that time, would have nothing besides the number about which one could doubt? But not even Baronius himself dares to deny, that in these Acts there are some things which need some emendation, but slight, says he, "which in almost all others happens." This therefore let us see whether by him who shall attentively read each thing, which to the hurrying Baronius perhaps there was no leisure, it could prudently be so esteemed, that those things are such, as need only a slight correction.
[15] The chief parts in this tragedy are played by Hadrian and Antoninus the Emperors, having nothing in common between themselves, where Hadrian and Antoninus are badly joined much less the Empire, except that the former adopted the latter, six months before his death, undergone in the year 138, as Caesar with the right of succession. Against these are said to have rebelled the Gadarenes and the people of the Euphrates, of whom these held the last province of Syria toward the North, otherwise Commagene; those the first toward the south in Coelesyria; that is, by the interval of almost all Syria, and indeed by a space of almost eighty leagues, or 200 and more miles, separated from one another. The Gadarenes and the people of the Euphrates: Against these with nine thousand the Emperors advanced, and at the unexpected meeting of a hundred thousand terrified, with seven only men took to flight, nine thousand remaining in the field; and after taking up the faith of Christ, preached to them in that very place by an appearing Angel, attacking the enemy intrepidly and routing them. And such and so dangerous a war, by so few so quickly finished, should have merited no place in the Roman histories in Dio, about whom a hitherto-unheard victory is miraculously related, Xiphilinus, Capitolinus, namely the same who the victory divinely reported over the Marcomanni, under Marcus Aurelius the successor of Antoninus, so magnificently described; although they dissemble that it was obtained by the prayers of the Christians, of whom one whole Legion consisted, from the event called the Thundering? as at length pursues Baronius himself at the year 176.
[16] Victory thus won, the Angel of the Lord led the Saints to the summit of Mount Ararat, which towers above all the mountains of Armenia, and is distant about five hundred stadia, that is, hourly leagues about 24, from the city of Alexandria. This
space distant is Alexandria of Syria from Taurus, the mountain of lesser Armenia, which thence, by ridges continued through Greater Armenia, is connected to Caucasus or the Caspian mountains, where is believed to have settled the Noachic ark. Moses in Genesis VIII wrote "the Mountains of Ararath" in his own language, which the Vulgate reading turns "the Mountains of Armenia"; by the 9,000 afterward led to Mount Ararat by the Angel: so that not of a mountain but of a region the name that seems to be, and indeed by the sole Sacred Writer used 14 centuries before Christ was born: but afterward known to none of so many of the ancient Geographers of the gentiles, nor even to Christian Authors, except insofar as they take that passage of Scripture to be explained by them, and seek the place of the Ark resting, from which the aforesaid Alexandria is distant not by stadia, but by five hundred miles. Plainly so that the Author seems to have affected a foreign name, in naming the roots of the mountain Taurus near Syria, ineptly altogether and out of time. But let this be reckoned among the lighter matters.
[17] Graver it is, nor to be digested by any stomach however iron, against whom the five Kings summoned brought 5,000,000 within 30 days. that Hadrian and Antoninus the Emperors, against their soldiers sought and found to be Christians, and unbending from the religion taken up, by written letters summoned five other Kings; namely Sapor the Greatest, Hadrian, Tiberian and Maximian. These within the thirtieth day, from which the Saints had ascended the mountain, gathered and brought an army, in which were numbered Soldiers with a rustic band a hundred thousand fifty; to whom, besides the Kings themselves, there were Prefects ten, Patricians fifty, Counts and Masters of soldiers and Tribunes two hundred. For an insipid writer indeed, who in so short a time, which would scarcely have sufficed for bearing letters into diverse kingdoms, believed so great a multitude gathered! more inept, that with such great forces prepared close at hand the Emperors led out only nine thousand, against the rebels' hundred thousand. The other faults, not to say falsehoods, of the inelegant fiction, the Reader will easily judge for himself; nor do I doubt that, all things weighed, he will judge the whole fiction emendable by no correction, so as to put on some appearance of probable history.
[18] But since there is almost no fiction, which has not some foundation elsewhere; nor hitherto am I able to divine, why to the aforesaid Crucified the day of June 22 was assigned, The fable seems taken nowhere in the Acts of whatever kind expressed, but only in the title; it pleases me to suspect that some Companions of that St. Acacius or Agathius the Soldier, of whom as having suffered at Byzantium we treated on the 8th of May, were brought into Italy; and since of them and of their Leader no Acts existed (for those which we now gave in Greek-Latin seem by no means ancient, and composed indeed with greater judgment, but with knowledge in no way more certain, as most Greek ones) since, I say, no Acts existed, of that St. Acacius, that there was one who would invent certain things of his own, so unhappily as we have seen; encouraged perhaps by the success of the Acts of St. Meletius, from the Acts of St. Acacius, 8th of May. everywhere received though most fabulous they be. With these certainly each Acacius has in common the Emperor Hadrian and Maximus the Leader or King; visitations and heavenly voices, and the burial of all cared for by Angelic ministry. It can also be, that just as that Acacius suffered with his companions at Byzantium; so another with a retinue of many suffered in Armenia; and the Relics in the time of the holy war were carried to Europe to Squillace in Calabria; and there (for it was a town of Greek language and rite) were written in Greek such absurd Acts which some impostor under the name of Anastasius or Athanasius the Librarian translated into Latin in the 13th century.
§. III. How the cult of these so doubtful Martyrs was propagated among various peoples, nay how even Relics were believed to be had: and how most were drawn to Spain.
[19] Whoever was the Author of the Acts hitherto ventilated, used a most apt invention for moving popular devotion, Therefore the things which they are feigned to have prayed when dying, in that he made the pretended Martyrs (as also the other Saints are feigned to have done, whom we commonly call Helpers) ask of God, about the time of their passion, that whoever should celebrate the memory of their passion with fasting and silence, might merit … health of bodies and of souls, and in their houses an abundance of all goods, and that the day of that fast might conclude one penitential year for those observing it. But this, since it was greatly esteemed at that time, in which the use and zeal for seeking similar Indulgences prevailed; had credulous faithful everywhere, there being added probably the approval of some Pontiff. Thus in a Sacramentary of years, if not seven hundred, certainly five hundred, which at Rome Mabillon asserts he saw, and other Calendars it is written at this 22nd day that their Vigil, (namely of one thousand 1480, where the number ten before "thousand" could by the carelessness of copyists have dropped out) with fasting and silence is to be celebrated; and it was granted to those, who should so celebrate, or to the very Martyrs praying for it, to remit one year of penance.
[20] These privileges thus asked and obtained (as was presumed), since others added many other things, about which below, through almost all the Churches of the West of them equally as of others, The 10,480 Martyrs are reckoned among the Helper Saints whom Helpers from a similar cause I have already indicated to be called, prevailed a most renowned cult, even into Denmark and Sweden. Thus we understand that the feast is celebrated, and indeed under the rite of a double with an Office of 9 Lessons, in Poland at Cracow and at Włocławek; thus at Paris in the church of the Celestine Fathers, these things are read in French: "The Reverend Father in God, Lord Charles de Bourbon Cardinal Archbishop of Lyon, laid the first stone of this church, in honor and reverence of the ten thousand Martyrs, whose feast is celebrated before the Vigil of St. John the Baptist." Thus Jacques du Breul in book 3 of the Antiquities of Paris, page 918, relating consequently two Distichs thus written, in the Chapel of those very Saints, whose Dedication is recalled on the 10th of October: "Of the worthy Pontiff Louis of Paris, the fabric which you behold, dedicated by his mouth, shines, 1482. This divine chapel, to the ten thousand Crucified, from the gifts of the people freely was built." This is Louis de Beaumont, ordained in the year 1473, deceased in the 92nd of the same century: Bourbon from the year 1470 to 88 governed the Church of Lyon.
[21] they began in various places to be more solemnly worshipped; I have also a fragment of a Missal anciently printed, where among several other sequences is placed the proper of the ten thousand Martyrs, and that quite long with this beginning: "The harmonious voice of jubilee, solemnizing the kingdom of God, let it penetrate the heavenly things." and, after their Passion described in a similar rhythm, at the end it thus concludes: "Like sheep they are made victims, they are spat upon, they are scourged, Bound, they are crowned with thorns, the balsam of charity: Crucified, pierced with a lance, glad to suffer the death of death, The Spouses born without a father hasten into the bridal chamber. Whatever they wish to obtain they can with the Saving One, with a proper sequence, to give to their suppliants the protections sought. O you who are partakers of so many triumphs of the heavenly court, us, intent on your feasts, deliver (for you can) from all destruction: Lest we endure a repulse, when the last day is at hand, Lest with the guilty we be exiled, but with the worthy obtain the choice of glory. Amen." From another Missal our Rosweyde received two proper Masses, one for the Vigil, the other for the feast: and in this the first Prayer is such: "May the glorious supplication of the holy Martyrs help your Church, O God: with a proper Mass. and may we feel the intervention of those whose wonderful triumph we receive on this present day, with your clemency." Then for the Preface, after "Almighty eternal God," it is prescribed to be added: "Who the pious contests of your holy Martyrs to a copious victory you lead, and a perpetual triumph you bestow on them, that to your Church they may always be for an example. Grant us, O Lord, eternal King, that through the intercession of those, whose feasts today we celebrate, we may feel the gifts of your piety, through Christ our Lord. And therefore." Finally after the Utrecht Compendium this Collect is read: "O God, who to imitate the example of your holy Passion, made the ten thousand Martyrs undergo the gibbet of the cross; grant propitiously, that we who venerate their passion, may obtain the remedies of your passion."
[22] Moreover from the conjectures placed above it nearly appears, what can be answered to various Churches which think they have the Relics of St. Achacius or Acacius and his Companions, and religiously venerate them; What further is to be thought about the Relics at Prague? namely, either that they are of another Acacius, or of other Anonymous Martyrs, handed over and received under that nomenclature, in good, but all too simple faith; and that such a cult, without injury to anyone and with the certain praise of God and the Saints, may be continued even for this day. At Prague, in the Metropolitan church of St. Vitus, its Dean writes that there is had one head and some fragments, tied in a little bag; and two notable parts. Likewise one reliquary of wood gilded, full of their bones of notable quantity: another also of wood with glass, full of the Relics of the same Saints. Among those of Karlstein also diverse parts, and one specifically from the jawbone. Our College of Emmerich has among those Relics, of which only from the name affixed it is established, nor is it known whence or by whom they were brought, a bone from the hip, broad, and another almost whole from the Company of St. Achacius; and these, enclosed in a copper chest skillfully made, it sets forth on the altar on this day. At Avignon too we have heard, in the Metropolitan church of St. Mary of the Gifts, there is had an arm of one of those, and therefore an Office double is made. Likewise at Rome in the Gallican church of St. Louis, and at Bologna in various sacred buildings, by the witness of Masini: at Emmerich, Vienna and elsewhere also at Abbeville in Normandy, and at Cologne Agrippina on the Rhine. Nay at Vienna in Austria at the Cathedral Basilica four Bodies are believed to be had, as became known to us from a Lipsanography sent thence. The same one may opine about the Church of Le Puy in which a double feast is celebrated on the 23rd of June. And that one indeed and another perhaps several not yet known to me, suffer those, whose Relics it holds, to be Anonymous. But the people of Sutera in Sicily, by the witness of Rocco Pirri, volume 2, page 150, likewise in Sicily, glory that they have of St. Achirio, one of the ten thousand Martyrs, two bones, and some of his fingers. But I, treating of St. Pulinus their fellow-patron, at the Life of St. Paulinus of Nola, judged that Achirio and his two companions, there named, have nothing in common with Acacius, the Primicerius of the aforesaid 10,000, as the Acts call him; just as neither with St. Paulinus of Nola.
[23] About the Spaniards I have already said, at May number 10, before the Acts of St. Acacius of Byzantium: that they believe, that his Relics are those, which they have in the churches of Avila and Cuenca: but the Portuguese, as it is in Cardoso, and in Spain, think that they have the Relics of that Acacius, who is worshipped on this day: whence in his Notes he writes thus. In the church of the Holy Trinity of Lisbon, there was had once a part of him so notable, that the Religious celebrated the feast under the rite of a Double; which part afterward was translated
though by a pious theft greatly diminished, into the chapel of All Saints. But also at Barrauci, in the Bishopric of Coimbra, is kept and renowned for various miracles, with great concourse it is honored, on the first Octave of the Easter of Flowers, on account of the Jubilee which the Prior of the place obtained from Rome; and in Portugal. and on account of a public fair. Where the Easter of Flowers seems to be called, what to the Italians is the Easter of Roses, that is, Pentecost: for Palm Sunday, otherwise also wont to be called "the flowery Easter," what Octave can it have? Cardoso goes on: Of St. Eliodus too, the leader next after Acacius, the head is had in the convent of the Poor Clares of Cetrobriga, together with an indulgence for this day granted by Paul V, under the date of the year 1607. But whence then was it known that he pertains to this day, when twenty years before, writing of that Convent, Francisco Gonzaga, then General of the Order, says page 1014, Not content with these, the Pseudo-Dexter and his followers that there is kept the head of a certain unknown Martyr of Christ, as very many wish, or of the Divine Eliodus, who shed his blood for the Catholic faith. But the companion of Acacius in the Acts is called not Eliodus, but Eliades. Finally the Nuns of Celas, says the same Cardoso, in the territory of Coimbra, are most devoted to those holy Soldiers, from time immemorial celebrating this their feast; on account of the many which they continually work miracles through their Relics, together with others of other Saints kept in an elegant silver case, which in the year 1532 the Lady Abbess of that place, Eleonora Vasconcellos, took care to have made.
[24] It had escaped the Author of the whole fable, to name the fatherland of so many and such Martyrs; and so not to be omitted seemed that occasion to the compilers of the Dextrine figments, they feigned that most were Spaniards, and that something should be dared by which either all or part of them they might draw into their Spain. Since therefore in the Palencia, and some other Spanish old Breviaries, was read a certain Epitome of the Acts published under the name of Anastasius; where besides, nay against the very sense of the Acts, it was said, that there suffered with those ten thousand, St. Hermolaus the Bishop (the Codex of Rebdorf says Archbishop) who had baptized the holy Martyrs; whom also their proper Hymns mention, published from the Compostela Breviary by Tamayo; since, I say, these things there were read, and instructed by Hermolaus Archbishop of Toledo their Pseudo-Dexter was ordered thus to write, at the year 134: "Ten thousand Martyrs on Ararat, their Master and Companion Hermolaus Archbishop of Toledo": to which added equally the Pseudo-Maximus, "These holy Soldiers were for the greater part Spaniards"; and the Pseudo-Julian, "of whom he had converted a good part by his preaching to the faith, or had baptized in Spain: wherefore, leaving Aulus Pelagius Agrippa successor of his diocese, he follows to Rome, and thence to Armenia."
[25] All these things, that he might reconcile them with the Acts, Tamayo feigned, that that youth, who promised to those about to enter the battle victory, if they should embrace the faith of Christ, and that the bodies were buried by Audentius the successor. and who after the victory more fully instructed those led back into the mountain, confessing himself an Angel; was Hermolaus: who "as the Angel of the Lord stood among them." Then, the pseudo-chronicle of Julian going before him, Tamayo adds that, after much time, Audentius, Bishop of Toledo (I know not who), having followed the exiles into Armenia, knowing that his (Hermolaus's) relics lay buried without honor (when yet in the Acts it is feigned that the Relics of all alike there by Angelic hands merited burial) caused those to be honorably placed, in the year 396. And hence perhaps Sancho Davila Bishop of Avila so firmly believed, that in his Oratory he had two heads and something of garments, namely brought by Hermolaus, returned to Spain: which the same one could have estimated about the rest, which under that title throughout Europe were had, as other Relics. Meanwhile nothing about Hermolaus, nothing about the ten Thousand knew the ancient Armenians (as I have said); which alone almost could suffice to hold the whole matter at least suspect. Yet lest you only suspect it, but also know it; behold for you the very Acts.
ACTS
From our parchment manuscript, once of Vaucelles, collated with various.
The Martyrs crucified on Mount Ararat. The Samaritan Martyrs in Palestine under Gosroes. BHL Number: 0020
AUTHOR D. P., FROM MANUSCRIPTS
HERE BEGINS THE PROLOGUE
of Athanasius (or Anastasius) Librarian of the Apostolic See. On the Passion of the ten thousand (otherwise one thousand four hundred) Martyrs.
To Peter, distinguished Bishop of the holy Church of Savina, Anastasius, Librarian of the supreme and Apostolic See, greeting in the Lord.
[1] After I had translated, at the request of your Holiness, the Passion of the chief Doctor and Martyr d) Peter, Patriarch of the City of Alexandria, it pleased You to command me, that the Passion of the holy e) many, of whom among the Greeks there is a remarkable record, we should hand over in Latin speech. But considering the inexperience of my little knowledge, first indeed I did not presume to undertake this; but afterward, The Interpreter, after rendering into Latin the Life of St. Peter of Alexandria avoiding to appear to your Paternity disobedient, I obeyed; and what you commanded, helped from heaven, I fulfilled; preferring among the learned to be reprehended for ignorance, than before your Paternity for disobedience to be shown culpable: especially since your Holiness, burning in love of these Martyrs, does not attend to the rusticity of a foreign tongue, transformed into Attic speech, of which the Apostles before their calling were not without, as is manifest; but their triumphs, which from that less urbane skill they can somehow know, undertakes to turn this passion also. they are able to consider, in what manner to the multitude of these holy ones they may show the greatest veneration, who desire to be partakers of them in the kingdom of heaven. May your Paternity long well prevail in the Lord, and may he deign always to pray for us. Amen.
Receive, Father, kindly, the deeds of many pious ones: which a rustic pen from the Achaean volume f) has turned.
NOTES OF D. P.
a) "Athanasius" in ours, "Anastasius" in the Vatican manuscript. Here only 1400, there 10,000 are reckoned: and the same number, in both is repeated under the same diversity, before the beginning and after the end of the Acts.
b) Our manuscript wrongly "from the region"; elsewhere too for "Peter" is "to the distinguished Father," what if it should be read "to Father Gregory"? which name the writers may have corrupted. Such certainly among the Bishops of Sabina are found in four centuries consecutively, namely in the year 826, 929, 1078, and 1163.
c) In our manuscript "Savinensis," in the Vatican "Gavinensis," in both with u in place of b, according to the use of the Middle Ages in which these were first written or feigned.
d) The ancient Greek Acts of St. Peter Francis Combefis published, quite different from those which commonly are had in Latin, and he doubts whether those are which Anastasius says he translated: which can be examined on the 26th of November; meanwhile I already warn that the published Latin ones differ in style from those Lives of the Pontiffs, which it is established are those of Anastasius the Librarian.
e) In the Vatican here only is written "of the holy four hundred eighty Martyrs," the thousand also being omitted.
f) These verses are had in the Vatican alone, but the Greek volume nowhere hitherto could be found; and whether any ever existed, is deservedly doubted.
CHAPTER I.
The victory won by the Saints instructed in the faith: and their prayer, when they understood the coming of seven Kings against them.
[2] Therefore, our Savior Jesus Christ the Lord, the Son of the eternal and true God, appearing in the world, as the Psalmist sang, "Truth has arisen from the earth, and great Justice has shone from heaven" upon the earth-born, rousing the just to piety: of whose number were the most blessed men Acacius a) the Primicerius, and Eliades the Leader, and Theodore Master of the Soldiers and Carterius b) the Camp-instructor, with their other nine thousand comrades, who on one day for the name of Christ were slain. Ps. 84. 12 But how they suffered, and in what order also they merited to come to the heavenly seats, the following discourse hastens faithfully to set forth. c)
[3] When Hadrian d) and Antoninus governed the reins of the Roman Empire, the Gadarenes and e) the people of the Euphrates, withdrawing themselves from their dominion, began to rebel. When this had been made known to the aforesaid Emperors, The two Emperors with 9,000 having set out against the rebels, moved with excessive anger, immediately against the enemies they pitched camp, having in their army nine f) thousand men, of the greatest valor and robust, whom the secular warfare held strenuous in warlike affairs. So came the day of battle: and behold, both armies for fighting came into the field. Now the said Emperors had with them images of Apollo and Jupiter, by whom they trusted that they could obtain victory over their enemies. coming into the field against 100,000 they take to flight. But when they perceived the very great multitude of the enemies (for they were a hundred thousand) struck with strong faintness, and inwardly stricken with excessive fear, with seven g) men only they take to flight.
[4] Their army also flees, The Emperors turned to flight, the Primicerius named Acacius and Eliades the Leader, turned to the nine thousand, said: O brother men, what seems good to you, either to take to flight or to stand as brave soldiers? Come therefore and let us sacrifice to our gods, that through them over the enemies we may be able to obtain a triumph. And as they sacrificed a kid of a she-goat, with more abundant fear they were dismayed, so that the rush of flight they seized. But when into flight they were turning, there is present the Angel of the Lord before their face, running like a young man: who said to Acacius: Why has fear invaded you, sacrificing to your gods, so that you were forced into flight, making a great laughingstock of yourselves? But hear me, men; and this, which to you I lay open, but admonished by the Angel to invoke Christ, quickly fulfill. Try to invoke the heavenly God, who stretched out the vault of the heavens, and founded the earth upon its stability; who also through his Angel a hundred and eighty- five thousand, of the army of Sennacherib King of the Assyrians, slew, and put him to flight. Therefore believe, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the immortal King; and he himself will fight for you, and will make you safe.
[5] When these words the Angel had conferred in their ears; Acacius said to Eliades and the rest of his comrades: What then, Brothers, seems good to you? Eliades said: Let us try the experiment of this counsel; and, as this youth has spoken to us, let us do. Then all with one mouth cried out, he wins the victory. saying: We believe in you, Lord, and those things, which to us this youth has set forth, we promise that we will do in your name. But the Saints believing in the Lord, and making an assault on the enemies, all their adversaries, his Angel bringing help, fell, and many perished in a lake which was near, Translated by the same to Mount Ararat, but others perished by a precipice. The adversaries being consumed by diverse deaths, the Angel of the Lord receiving the Saints, led them to the summit of the mountain which is called Ararat, glorying in the power of the Lord: but distant is Mount Ararat from the city h) of Alexandria about five hundred stadia i).
[6] But the Angel sitting in the midst of the Saints,
the heavens were opened, and there descended seven Angels among them: and he is confirmed in faith. whom when the Saints had seen, with great terror they were dismayed. But the Angel, who first had appeared to them, strengthening them; Do not fear, he said: for they are Angels. Then for the first time that Angel too, who spoke to the Saints, was recognized by them; but those Angels took care so to manifest themselves, as the fragility of the human condition is able to grasp. And teaching them and saying: Blessed are you, who have believed in the living God: we announce therefore to you, the things which are about to be. After the third day you will be sought and into the sight of Kings led: but do not fear, because God is with you: for he keeps the bones of those, who believe in him. When the Angels had finished these things, from their eyes they were taken away. Then, seized with terror, the Saints, with a great voice confessed their sins.
[7] But three k) days having passed, the Emperors sought them, The Emperors, this being heard, saying: What do you think those soldiers have become? For we, fleeing, in no way prevailed. What therefore shall we say? or what shall we do? After these things they sent certain soldiers to seek them. Who, going, came to the mountain, on which the Saints were: and beholding them, they recognized that they were Christians: for they heard them glorify and bless the Lord: and descending from the mountain, they reported to the Emperors. When they had heard this, dismayed with excessive grief, they put ashes and dust upon their heads, they summon five other Kings, and for five days took no drink, wasted away with dire mourning. But five days having passed, they treated among themselves, to convoke five other Kings, and before seven Kings there should be an examination of those Saints. And as they sat, they wrote a letter, containing this sense: To the most invincible Kings Sapor, Maximus, Hadrian, Tiberian and Maximian, the Augusti l) most renowned of the Romans, Hadrian and Antoninus, greeting. We make known to you, that we had a war against the Gadarenes and the people of the Euphrates, in which nine thousand of the strongest we had: but when we beheld the multitude of the adversaries, greatly terrified, the protection of flight we seized with seven soldiers; m) but there remained in the contest nine thousand fighters: and joining battle, letters being sent to them about the deed done. which is marvelous to hear, a hundred thousand of the adversaries being laid low, the victory they obtained. We hearing these things, great victims poured out to our gods, for so great a victory celebrated, and with great joy rejoiced. But afterward we fell into the worst straits, hearing that they had become Christians, and on a high mountain dwell, which towers above the other mountains of Armenia. Come therefore to us, and thence deliberate with us what is to be done. Farewell.
[8] The letters being received, therefore, the five Kings and read, with great sadness were beset: and gathering a very great n) army of strong men, they came to the aforesaid o) city, in which were the already-said Emperors. They are present with a very great army. First indeed victims to the gods they immolated, and afterward they dined, and then to seek the new soldiers of Christ they busied themselves. But those who were sent, ascended the summit of the mountain, on which the Saints dwelt entreating the Lord. But when they perceived them coming to them, Acacius said to his comrades, Rise, brothers, and let us give heed to prayer: for the devil has directed to us his own army.
[9] Bowing therefore their necks, they prayed with bent knee, saying; O incomparable God and incomprehensible, who formed man from the clay of the earth, and conferred on him the honor of your image; [he directed your Holy Spirit to the virgin Mary, that it might overshadow her, in order that from her might be born the dearest Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. Hear us, omnipotent God, who to us deigned to send your holy Angel, that he might show us the way of truth: through whom also over our enemies, your servants, you granted victory, and led us out onto this summit of the mountain, and nourished us with heavenly food through the circle of thirty days. Do not permit us to fall under the servile snare of the enemy, The Saints understanding that they are sought lest his audacity be able to conquer the constancy of your servants; that, insulting, he may by no means be able to say against us, "I prevailed against them." Come, Lord Jesus, and share with us in our passions, and snatch us from disturbance and fear, and extinguish the ferocity of the wicked Kings. You, Lord, who deigned to say and pronounce through your Angel, that we are to be judged before seven Kings. From now and unto the age, praises and ineffable thanks, to you God omnipotent we render. Amen. As the Saints said these things, a voice came down from heaven, saying to them: I the Lord, and they are encouraged by a heavenly voice. glorious in the council of the Saints, have heard what praying you have asked: and do not fear those who kill the body, but to the soul they can by no means make an impediment: for I the Lord am with you, comforting you. But the Saints hearing this voice given them from heaven, with great joy rejoiced and exulted in the Lord.
NOTES OF D. P.
a) In the Vatican always "Acatius," or "Acacius."
b) About the Camp-instructors see Du Cange in his Glossary: they err who think it should be written "Camp-leaders": although these too are known in ancient writings.
c) The beginning of the Vatican manuscript is in a few words thus completed: "Our Savior Jesus Christ appearing, great justice arose, rousing the just to piety. But I shall say how the holy Martyrs suffered; on what occasion too they merited such grace." And so more often through the course is found contracted that manuscript; and therefore ours, though more recent, I preferred to follow.
d) Although one year before his death, in the year 138 of Christ, Antoninus adopted Hadrian; yet he was not of such health, being grievously dropsical, as to be able to set out to war, about which see Aelius Spartianus.
e) Only the people of the Euphrates names the Vatican manuscript: in number 7 are prefixed to them the Gadarenes, whence it appears by the carelessness of the copyist they were here omitted.
f) The same: "They chose one thousand four hundred eighty men, powerful in strength," and yet Acacius is said soon below to address nine thousand.
g) There: "With seven thousand": and this too below, number 17, is repeated, and it would be more congruous to nine thousand, led out into the field.
h) The same: "But the mountain is distant from the city Aratha," of which city there is nowhere any knowledge. But Alexandria, how far it is distant from Armenia (namely the nearest Syrian one, for others are farther off elsewhere) I have already premonished.
i) The Vatican "about five stadia"; and certainly the author, wishing to indicate the situation of the mountain, ought to have named the nearby city: but in Armenia there is no Alexandria.
k) The same "four," less congruously to the number prenoted.
l) More ineptly is read in the Vatican manuscript "to the most renowned Augusti," and the names of the writers contrary to custom are omitted. It is not however foreign to the reign of Hadrian for Kings to be named: for Aelius Spartianus in his Life names various, with whom he cultivated friendship, and "left all things beyond the Euphrates and Tigris by the example of Cato, who pronounced the Macedonians free, because they could not be held … to the Armenians he permitted to have a King. The Albanians and Iberians he held most friendly, because he pursued their Kings with largesses. The Kings of the Bactrians sent legates to him for the sake of seeking friendship." But it is ridiculous, that to all are given Latin names, except the first of them, Sapor.
m) Here again, and thereafter several times, in the Vatican it is "with seven thousand"; and those who remained are said to have been one thousand four hundred eighty.
n) Below, number 12, "a hundred thousand fifty": but the Utrecht Compendium says that the army of the Kings was 30 thousand.
o) The Vatican "into the city Aratha," as above.
CHAPTER II.
The Saints, having steadfastly professed the faith before the tyrants, are scourged and crowned with thorns.
[10] Then there came to them the soldiers of the Kings, saying: The Emperors sent us to you, and the Kings who are with them, The Saints are exhibited to the Kings: that coming you may descend to them. And descending from the mountain, they stood before the standard of the King, having whole hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. But the Kings seeing them wept. And Hadrian said to them: Why, good soldiers, did you wish to do this? Make plain to me, who persuaded you to forsake the Gods, and believe in the Crucified? Do you not know that we have power to put you to death today? whose Leader Acacius, Blessed Acacius answered: Well, King, have you spoken, that to you power is given of putting to death: for truly the death of the body you can inflict; but the soul no one can put to death except Christ, who has the power of putting to death and of making alive. But if you wish to know, how in Christ we believe, now to you all the truth of the matter we make known.
[11] As we were going into battle, Hadrian and Antoninus, fearing the multitude of the adversaries, took to flight together with seven soldiers: but we, he explains how they were converted to Christ. having images of Jupiter and Apollo, sacrificed to them one kid, thinking that their help would be present to us: but it profited us nothing, so that, invaded by greater fear, we took to flight. But the Angel of the Lord, appearing to us in the likeness of a man, chid us, why we should fear sacrificing to idols. To whom answering we said, that no help from them could we find. Who said to us, Believe in the God of heaven, who is powerful in battle. And when he had evangelized to us Christ the Son of God, we believed in him: and at that very hour fell our enemies: and they fell into a deep lake, and some of them by a precipice perished: and all the enemies being taken away, the Angel of the Lord lifted us up into Mount Ararat. and he scorns their threats. But as we stood on the summit of the mountain, we saw the heavens opened, and there descended into our midst seven Angels. And as we feared, the Angel who was with us said: Do not fear: for they are Angels, my brothers. For these said to us: Blessed are you, who have believed in the living God. We prophesy therefore to you the things which afterward you are to suffer. After three days the Emperors will seek you; and in the sight of seven Kings you will be judged. But do not fear them, because God omnipotent, your helper in all things will be. These things the Angels having spoken, departed from us, and ascended into heaven. But we were sustained with heavenly food on this mountain. This is the certain knowledge, by which we have known the heavenly God: and thence is that we about your threats and torments by no means care.
[12] Hadrian the Emperor said to Acacius: O enemy of our gods, The same insult Eliades. how greatly have you philosophized, so that into our ears to inflict deafness you have not feared, who are reckoned to be lords of heaven and earth. Acacius answered: You seven Kings, to seven foxes you are likened, lording it over hens, who, always placed in ambush, do nothing else but, by the stumbling-block of frauds, seize whomever. For he who of heaven and earth has power, of all his creation the Lord and King of the ages and Judge
of the living and the dead is. Hearing these things the Kings were troubled against the Saints. Then Eliades said: O Kings, why are you troubled in vain, over the truth uttered? But Hadrian, kindled with fury, said to the Saints: I call to witness all my gods, that you will not escape my hands: and Pharetrius. and because you all believe in Christ, without doubt his punishments you will endure. But one of the company of the Saints, Pharetrius by name, the Camp-instructor, answered: Blessed shall we be, if we be worthy to be purified by such torments, because we shall merit to share in the passions of Christ. Now there was a very great multitude which then was gathered together; that is, seven Kings, ten Prefects, fifty Patricians, Counts and Masters of soldiers and Tribunes two hundred, but soldiers with a rustic band a hundred thousand fifty; who all with one voice cried out, saying, Let these be taken from the midst with their tricks.
[13] Silence being made, Hadrian the Emperor said to St. Acacius: Acacius, did you not hear the cry of the multitude? The 1,050 thousand crying out against them, Go and sacrifice to the gods, that there be no longer a cry of this people against you. Acacius said: The cry of this people does not disturb us: but hear, Kings, the vision which I saw. I saw in a vision as it were nine thousand eagles, flying in the air; and I saw also a copious multitude of birds on the earth: but the birds, when they perceived the eagles, strove to take to flight; but until they flee, they must be disclosed and torn to pieces by the eagles. But the Kings hearing these things, said: O what a wicked company, which seven Kings, and casting stones in vain. not only foxes, but even hens does not fear to call! Hadrian the Emperor, kindled with anger at these things, ordered the Saints to be overwhelmed with stones, saying: The vengeance of Jesus Christ, that Nazarene, I will bring upon you. But the Saints when they were stoned, the stones turned back upon the faces of those stoning. And Hadrian said to the Saints, What will this vanity profit you? sacrifice to the gods, and be freed from torments. But standing, Minas the most noble Standard-bearer and Acacius the Primicerius said: O enemy of God, and contrary to all truth, does it not suffice you and Antoninus to judge us? But five Kings with their armies provoking, you have reckoned to terrify us, and to make us deviate from the way of Christ? whether in many, or in few, we will hold the same faith which we have received.
[14] Antoninus said, O enemies of all religion, do you think, or those who are with you, to escape our threats? The Saints are scourged And immediately he ordered the Saints to be gathered. And as they approached he said to them: Boys, sacrifice to the gods. Speusippus the Count, the greatest among the four who were in the army of the Saints, said to the Emperor: Withdraw from us, wicked man, because your desire is diabolical; eating the bread of hanging and drinking the cup of treachery, you dare not utter a sentence against us. But hearing these things the Emperor, raged in anger against the Saints, and ordered them to be scourged. And as the holy Martyrs were beaten, a certain one said, Drachorius by name, a) who was the brother of SS. Acacius and Cliades: Pray, at whose prayers holy men, for us, because grievous are the torments which we suffer. To whom Acacius said, Persevere, Brothers, in this confession, in which now you stand: for he (as the Savior says) who shall persevere even to the end, he shall be saved. And he prayed the Lord, saying: Lord God, great and eternal, judge of the living and the dead, who do not despise those who hope in the wonderful name of your knowledge: who broke the strength of the devil on the cross, the earth trembling, who stopped the mouths of lions and rescued your servant Daniel; hear us sinners, Ruler Lord, and rescue us from the hand of the wicked: because we are your handiwork, the works of your hands. You grant us perfect perseverance, and hasten us in your mercy, because you are our blessed God, through all ages of ages. Amen. This prayer being finished, there was an earthquake, and immediately were withered the hands of those scourging the Saints.
[15] There was there in the army b) of Maximian the King, a certain Master of soldiers, by name Theodore, having under him a thousand soldiers: Theodore is converted with another 1,000 who, struck with amazement at this miracle, cried out to the Lord, saying: Lord God, King of heaven and earth, who the aid of your mercy conferred on nine thousand, Lord, with whom is mercy without envy; deign to number us sinners with your Martyrs. Saying these things and raising his voice and his insignia, with his thousand soldiers, he transferred himself to the Saints: and so omnipotent God completed his vine of ten thousand branches. When the Emperors had seen this they were troubled. and so now the full number of 10,000 Maximian said to Hadrian and Antoninus: O Emperors, how great an injury I suffer from you! For behold my army has departed from me. To whom Hadrian said: Patiently bear, Lord King: for he who took my army away, the same has taken yours also. Yet let not your heart fall by this: for if it please your highness, I am ready to give you a thousand pounds of gold: but if not, a thousand men I give you. Hearing these things Maximian, his fury mitigated, was silent, and orders to be presented to him the whole company of the Saints.
[16] But as the Saints went, there were present with them Angels of the Lord accompanying. And as they stood by, Maximian said to Theodore; they are forced to walk barefoot over iron caltrops: What have you gained, Theodore, by deserting me? Theodore answered: Many goods have I gained, by knowing the true God. Maximian, turning to the rest, said: Hear me, ten thousand, lest you think that you can lightly be finished off: therefore I exhort you, that you sacrifice and live; and escape my anger, lest you perish badly. Acacius said: A gnat's fury does not prevail against a bull's neck: for having the living God we care nothing for you. Kindled therefore with excessive fury c) Maximian ordered to be made a multitude of triangular sharpest nails, and scattered through thirty stadia, that the army of God should walk over them with bare soles. But as they were prepared to walk over this kind of torment; the Angels sent by God, going before, walked, making a mound out of the fixed nails, plucking them up and heaping them into one, but the caltrops are scattered by the Angels. lest they be driven into the feet of the Saints. But the Saints seeing this, rendered praises to God, saying; We give you thanks, omnipotent God, who on us your servants deigned to confer various and so unheard-of prodigies of miracles in all ages. But when the Kings had recognized this miracle, they said: Our gods wished to do this by their providence, that they might manifest themselves to the ten thousand, that they are omnipotent gods. Blessed Eliades said to the Emperors: O without heart and without understanding, whom Satan has blinded, that they can by no means recognize the works of the Lord.
[17] Caesar Maximian, troubled by the constancy of the Saints, said to the ministers: I have heard of Christ crucified, whom these call God, d) that on his head he bore a crown of thorns, and that his side with a lance, or as others wish e) to assert with a reed, was opened: in like manner we command, The Saints crowned with thorns that these wicked ones suffer the same penalty. Then the ministers composed as many crowns of thorns, as had been ordered them … f) Holding therefore in their hands sharpest reeds, they opened the sides of the Saints, and placed on each the thorny crowns on their heads. Afterward they took the ten thousand men, and twice through the whole city, beating them with whips, g) and excessive injuries. But the holy Martyrs, patiently sustaining the injuries inflicted on them, rendered praises to God, saying; Glory to you, Christ: because though we were unworthy, you have made us worthy to receive your passions.
[18] Led therefore to the Emperors in the palace, h) they began to insult them, and all the crowd, saying: they insult the tyrants. Hail Kings of the Jews: what has Christ profited you? Can he rescue you from the tortures and injuries inflicted on you? To these things the ten thousand Saints, as with one mouth to the Emperors said: O images of God, but sons of the devil, petty and importunate flies! O thought of Satan, which daily separates you from God! O greatest net of malignant error, in which you are daily bound! O work of God, dissolved by idols! O great crowd, which the devil deceives! O numerous people, and violated by the greatest sins! O wicked harvest, from which are germinated tares, and the fruit of Gehenna sprouts! O most insane and vain Emperors, and numerous and heavy people, who by no means recognize the true God, but worship stones and wood, the works of the hands of men. As the Saints said these things, their blood flowed down to the earth from their sides. Which they taking in their hands began to anoint their bodies and their heads, saying to the Lord: Ruler Lord God: may this blood be to us here the mystery of baptism, unto the remission of sins. And there was a voice in the same hour saying: As you have asked, my dearest friends, so let it happen to you. But the Emperors hearing and the crowds this voice, said: An earthquake has happened with thunder.
NOTES OF D. P.
a) The Vatican "Germanus and Drachorius said."
b) So the Vatican manuscript; in ours both above number 7 and here and thereafter it is always written "Maximus," and so are placed two Kings called Maximus: it pleases us more that the names be distinguished, that the persons be distinguished.
c) There, "Emperor": and here below, number 17, he is called "Caesar," but in the Vatican again "Emperor."
d) The Vatican adds: that he was clothed in purple.
e) How ridiculous in this place in such a person is the accuracy, which would scarcely fall to a lay Christian man, however knowing of the Gospel history.
f) I expunge these words which disturb the sense of our manuscript: "Because the adorned army of the Saints seemed in persons."
g) In the Vatican "with pomps they mocked them."
h) The same: "But loosing them from the pomps, they came to the Emperors. But the Emperors seeing them, bowed their heads with the crowds, saying, Rejoice Emperors of the Jews and of the whole world."
CHAPTER III.
The crucified Saints ask many things for their worshippers: the dead are buried by Angels.
[19] Carterius exposes the vanity of the idols, But the space of one hour passing, Sapor said to the holy Martyrs: Repent of your wicked deeds, and be converted to the true most omnipotent Gods, through whom all things were created a). To these things a certain youth, named Carterius, the Camp-instructor, said: If our elders bid me, I will dispute with you. Said St. Acacius: Speak, youth, for it becomes you to preach the word of God. To these things Carterius thus began to speak, saying: O wisdom of the King which is horror and perdition! Have you not heard the Scripture saying, The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the works of the hands of men, may those who make them become like them? Tell me, King b), which is made first, the house or the man; Sapor the King said: O madman, first indeed
a man is born, and then the house is made. Carterius answered: If therefore the man is judged to be prior to the house, it is manifest that likewise also to the shrine. For just as the house is made by the man, so also the images by the art of men are made. Behold how the wisdom of the wicked is swallowed up c)! For Christ coming into this world, was born of a Virgin, that the things which were lacking in the old Testament, he might fulfill: for he himself is the fullness of the Law, who made both one, who also into the abyss will condemn the impious. Man therefore is from God, and from him received that he should be good, and that his will he should always do.
[20] Hearing these things King Sapor, against the holy man of God Carterius boiled with dire fury, and all are condemned to the cross: and with grim countenance busied himself to exterminate him, for these answers. To whom Blessed Carterius, a youth indeed in age, but in morals aged, answered saying: The speech which I have brought forth, in dead ears has sounded, since into a malevolent soul wisdom will not enter. Sapor the King, over words of this kind blazing with fury, persuaded the Emperors and Kings and the armies, that the bodies of the ten thousand men of the Saints should be crucified together into one. But the sentence being given, confidently the Saints the way to the passion, as if invited to a bridal chamber, with exultation and gladness of heart receive: and with them the crucifiers, twice ten d) thousand, innumerable crowds being sent ahead, flocking to the spectacles of so many Martyrs, up to Mount Ararat, Led therefore to Mount Ararat, where they had been ordered to be crucified. Coming thither they bound them to stakes fixed to the rocks, until all should be crucified. Now the mountain itself is rough and most harsh. But the soldiers crucifying the holy Martyrs, guarded them, as had been ordered them.
[21] Now there were in their army Primicerius one, Leader one, Masters of soldiers four, Counts five, Tribunes nine, Princes eleven, Camp-instructors two, Domestics and Cornicularii twenty. Opening his mouth St. Eliades: and more fully instructed in the faith by Acacius, after they had been crucified, said to Acacius the Primicerius: Since on the Cross of Christ triumphing we exult, I beseech you, to expound to us something about the faith. St. Acacius thus to all began his discourse saying: Vessels sacred and purified, hear the utterance of my faith. For just as each one faithful in heart ought to believe, so also that interior credulity of the heart with the mouth outwardly he ought daily by saying to set forth. I believe in God the Father omnipotent, and his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, the redeemer of the world; and in the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, because from the substance of the Father it shone forth. The Word of the Father was sent into the earth, and he who sent it is God the Father, and he who was sent is the Son of God. He was born of Mary the Virgin; clothed with flesh, recreated carnal man: who both through the Prophets was announced and through the Apostles was demonstrated and crucified, died and was buried. In the tomb thus he rested, that rising on the third day he might loose the pains of death and resurrection demonstrate to the dead. He ascended to the heavens sits at the right hand of God the Father omnipotent. The same coming in the second advent to judge the living and the dead and the whole age, and to render to each according to his work. He who possesses this faith through good operation, his shall be the portion with the Angels of God. As he said these things there came to them a voice from heaven saying: Well have you said, Acacius: for so the truth has it.
[22] But at the sixth hour of that day an earthquake was made great: and the earth and the rocks were rent. But the holy Martyrs, pouring out to the Lord a prayer, e) said: Lord God, remember us on this gibbet of the cross, and receive our petition, they pray for those who will celebrate their Passion, and the things which from you we ask; that whoever shall celebrate the memory of our passion with fasting and silence, may merit to obtain from you a fruitful reward, bestowing on them health of bodies and medicine of souls; and in their houses of all goods abundance grant, and let the day of the fast of our Passion conclude one penitential year for those observing it. This we ask of you Ruler Lord God. Scatter, Lord, every occupation of Satan and every unclean spirit, and every infirmity expel because glorious and praiseworthy is your name through all ages of ages. And as all answered, Amen, there was a voice from heaven saying: The things which you have asked, most beloved of God, know that you have obtained: rejoice also and be glad, knowing that your prayers, before Christ the immortal King, are heard.
[23] But about the ninth hour the souls of the Saints were translated to the heavenly palaces, and the heavens were opened and a great light over the bodies of the Saints shone forth. and likewise the dead But soon the Lord, the light of heaven being sent before, Was present, surrounded duly by Angelic throngs, Standing in the midst of the Saints on the summit of the mountain. The Saints rejoice, encompassed by so great solace, Whose souls he gives to the heavens, and their bodies to the earth f) g) … And again there arose an earthquake, on the mountain itself, so that the bodies of the Saints from the gibbets were loosed, by the Lord's command; and the Relics merited to receive burials there by Angelic hands, they are buried by Angels. whose souls likewise with God and the Angels glory in the heavens. To omnipotent God the Father, with the Son and the Holy Spirit, be praise, honor, glory, power, virtue and victory, through all ages of ages, who advances his soldiers assiduously and honors them. Amen.
NOTES OF D. P.
a) The Vatican makes Sapor speak thus: "Looking to the splendor of power and to the greatest Gods, because theirs are all things. For heaven Jupiter made, but the earth Apollo; the figment of men is Aesculapius's, and the sun Artemis's, and the moon and stars Venus's: the beasts of burden and the wild beasts and the birds of heaven Serapis possesses. If there is one wise among you, let him answer me to these things." Carterius the Camp-leader said &c.
b) The same thus continues: "Behold, King, first is the man and afterward the images: how do you say, The making of men is Aesculapius's, so also the Manichees say man is from Ascalon. Be confounded, wicked ones, mourn and weep and be converted, you who were first sons of Gehenna, then Manichees. Tell me King, A house is &c." But how ineptly here are introduced the Manichees, whose name first began to be heard a century and a half after the Empire of Hadrian?
c) There "of the Pagans," and there follows: "But I will speak also to the Manichees. They say man is from Ascalon. Ascalon is an inconstant demon. Hear, Manichees, what the Prophet says: I the Lord am the firstborn: and after these things: For Christ &c."
d) There "nine times ten thousand": but in the Utrecht manuscript is added that while they were being crucified, the enemies cut down a whole forest: and at last one cross was lacking, and an Angel carried a cross that it might likewise be crucified.
e) This prayer, and the hearing of the prayer, in the Vatican is placed a little before the close of the whole Legend, in this manner: "But do you wish to know the merits of the Martyrs? I will tell you also the prayer with which the holy Martyrs prayed to the Lord at the hour of their end: Lord God &c."
f) All these things in prose and in few words has the Vatican manuscript, and is added at the end: "But thus the holy Martyrs finished their passions, and went on to the Lord: for him it becomes &c." In the English and Utrecht manuscripts the verses are continued.
"Again the mountain trembled, shaken utterly from its foundations: The holy bodies fixed to the stakes are loosed: By Angelic hands the earth is made firm with sepulchres; And all in their own little tombs are laid in the mountain. Now they hold the heavenly kingdom, you Christ being their leader."
PART II.
On the 1480 Martyrs in Palestine under Chosroes.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATION.
The Martyrs crucified on Mount Ararat. The Samaritan Martyrs in Palestine under Gosroes.
FROM MANUSCRIPTS.
[1] In our Chronological History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, published before Volume III of May, the Reader will find how in the year of the Lord 614, the Persians invading the holy places in the year 614 the Persians the places of Jordan, Palestine, and the holy city, by force of arms subjected; and by the hands, as some assert of the Jews, to ninety thousand Christians slaughtered, by the witness of Theophanes. There will be found the Letter of St. Modestus, on behalf of Zacharias, carried away into Persian captivity, sitting amid the ruins of the overthrown city, and cherishing the remnants of the citizens; in whose beginning when he had shown, that those left there almost more grievously, than those who had been led away captive, 90 thousand Christians slaughtered, grieved; when namely the saving buildings to the ground demolished they beheld with their eyes, and themselves of the Cross, the Shepherd, the Flock, at once and in almost one moment destitute saw; nor that only but also the multitude of corpses in the city, and the stench which they exhaled, not lightly tortured them, especially those whom they could know.
[2] These things being premised, "Of these things, he says, which we have said, a renowned witness is, our younger Nicodemus, and his wife, so to speak, Magdalene, and are buried in heaps. a distinguished pair and zealous: who indeed a deed, worthy plainly of memory and of the monuments of letters, brought forth. Let those who wish interrogate these; and they will clearly learn the things then done at Jerusalem. These namely, these worshippers of virtues and of God, when the enemies had gone out and into Persia had departed, surveying the whole city round about and the villages, and so beholding the remains of the Brothers lying, prepared for themselves a reward, to be consecrated by eternal memory. For the corpses cast scattered everywhere together heaping, in a cave they deposit, which is before the gate, to sixty- five thousand. If anyone therefore, the things which for certain they know wishes to know, let him inquire of them: and openly they taught and will say the things which we too have beheld, namely in what form and condition were lying the Blessed laid on the ground, That horrible slaughter. who about the same time at Jerusalem merited to be slain. One from the head to the heart had received a sword wound, another from the shoulders to the belly. Another had five or ten blows in his intestines; another was cut in the middle and divided into two. Others, the belly pierced through with a sword, all the intestines were poured out; another, like a sheep in the shambles, the dire executioners had cut into several pieces. But what of other more miserable things? Others in the streets lay as a spectacle, others in oratories were killed: others, when into the Holy of Holies for the sake of help they fled; one holding the Lord's Body, another the Cross of Christ. One into the baptismal Font having entered was butchered, another hiding under the altar, was made a victim."
[3] All these things, not in a great part of the year, nor in a whole month, but within a few days happened, says the compiler of the Chronicle, commonly called Alexandrian, ending in the year 632, wrought within a few days and so nearest to the deed done: but he says it happened "About the month of June" about the month of June; perhaps the 22nd of May, for it is established that the forty-four Monk-Martyrs of the monastery of St. Sabas were slaughtered on the 16th of May, one week before the holy city was occupied, as Antiochus the Monk says
then living and writing. To the number of this day therefore some may have added a week of days and to the 22nd of May ascribed the Jerusalem disaster. it seems to have been ascribed to the 22nd of May. Then the next month, and the same day, the Author of this fable may have taken, on which the constancy of the Samaritan Christians by the ministers of Chosroes was tried, and they at last led to Jerusalem, as if to the tyrant then reigning there; although from what has been said it is now established that he made no stay there, except as much as was needful to gather the treasures and captives which into Persia he might transport and lead away. Hence are feigned, one month later, the Samaritans led into Jerusalem, I call it a fable, for although it is probable that the Persians acted no more mildly in Samaria, and through the rest of Palestine, than they had acted at Jerusalem, Heraclius vainly attempting through Legates sent to obtain, that they should spare human blood; yet the matter could not be more reduced to the appearance of a fable, and clothed with more inept circumstances, than this Martyrdom of the Samaritans he palliated, who the aforetitled Legend compiled, such as from a manuscript Legendary of Orvieto found at Rome, we have taken under this title: In the month of June on the twenty-second day, as 1484 having suffered similar things; the Passion of the holy Martyrs 1484: and likewise a transcript sent thence from elsewhere, preserved in the Vallicellan Library, volume X, where the Passion of many Martyrs, who in the context are said to be of promiscuous sex, in number one thousand four hundred eighty: and they not of the holy City, but inhabitants of Samaria and indeed recently to the faith of Christ converted, which is incredible.
[4] Moreover the Author did not conceive the matter, as accomplished in a few days by military fury: but by a slow progress, legates being sent once and again, who the Samaritan people to defection from Christianity should solicit: but when these too had given their names to Christ, and that under Maxentius the son of King Chosroes, such as he did not here have. and had received baptism, by the miracles of a few Priests there caring for the Catholic cause and by reasons overcome; at last Chosroes himself, with his son, not Mardesanes who it is established came as companion to his father, but Maxentius they bring in, after the occupation of Jerusalem, brought there from elsewhere judging the Christians before his tribunal, and altercating with them in that manner almost, in which commonly the contests of the Roman Martyrs are described, in certain Acts of inferior note and of lesser faith. But the whole narration has nothing in common with that tragedy, which is said to have been enacted on Mount Ararat, except that likewise the Samaritans, about whom here it is inquired, Yet from such a narration are feigned before death to have made vows for those who shall have fasted their vigils, and celebrated the feast day: and likewise a voice from heaven was heard, saying to the Athletes of God, "Heard are your prayers." Meanwhile in the Roman Martyrology, after those ten thousand on Mount Ararat crucified, finding in the Roman Martyrology noted these words, "Of Samaria, of the holy one thousand four hundred eighty Martyrs, under Chosroes King of the Persians": I am compelled, under the same caution with which I examined the former Passion, to undertake to examine their Passion also, namely that, which Baronius in his notes asserts exists in the same most ancient manuscript codex which about the ten thousand Crucified he had said he read, found in one manuscript or another placed in the monastery of St. Cecilia across the Tiber, and that more briefly it is had narrated with him. If something more Baronius had found, to establish their truth without doubt he would have cited it: but I moreover the Orvieto codex have already noted: and in the preliminary commentary to the Acts of the 10 thousand, number 8, I indicated that of these too the Passion in more than one place sets forth that lesser number of one thousand four hundred eighty: nay even from Mabillon I taught that this same number seven hundred years ago in an old Sacramentary is exhibited, and also in an older Cassino one. And hence first I note that it is done without any mention of Chosroes or of Samaria, so that an old knowledge of such a number for the day of June 22 alone seems to have shone forth before to the later composers of both Acts, of whom the former, on account of their greater admirability which they set forth, more widely scattered, found credence even with the more recent, as I have said, Martyrologists; the others by them were not received before the Gregorian revision of the Roman Martyrology, there were referred 480 into the present-day Roman one. those Acts which Baronius showed being studied. But it is marvelous that those doing this so perfunctorily read them, that to Samaria they ascribed a Passion which those Acts, number 19, ascribe to Jerusalem, where all at last had been ordered to be led bound neck to neck, and shut up in the pool of Siloah: but with what probability, or rather with what evident falsity, that their reading alone could teach. And so it seems worth the labor to exhibit this composition too to be read, and to leave to the sacred Congregation to estimate whether it is worthy on whose faith so many other unknown Saints should have augmented the Martyrology. Whatever errors of this kind the brevity of the time conceded and expended on the aforesaid revision easily excuses: but could not the same not only excuse but rather vehemently commend the zeal of the Church of those, who through one whole century (for Heribert Rosweyde applied himself to this before Us for several years) roll this stone that for a new revision of the Martyrology they may supply material just as Alexander VII desired them to do "with all diligence and faith"? With this confidence therefore according to this examination I proceed.
ACTS.
From the manuscript Passionary of Orvieto.
FROM MANUSCRIPTS
[1] In the times of Chosroes the most impious tyrant, he and his son, by diabolical fury against the holy city Jerusalem kindled, [Chosroes about to destroy all Christians, began] to persecute those, who serve the most sacred sepulchre of the Lord, and in the temple of the Lord are: and to destroy the wood of the Holy Cross, and to blot out the name of the Lord from the earth they set forth. For when he had subjugated every kingdom to his Empire, he began to go round all the cities, mandating [by] a letter with the seal of his ring, to seek out the Saints, that they should adore his gods, Jupiter, Apollo b) and Diana: and whoever should not come to his aid to destroy the Christians, and the name of Jesus the Nazarene from the earth, alive to be burned, or sawn with a saw, or with a sword: he commanded to be slain. And they came indeed into Samaria c) the city, where were all those trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[2] Then the Governor said to them: Chosroes, our most pious Emperor, has directed me to you, that you may come to his aid the Christians to destroy, and the Nazarene name to destroy, whom the Jews a little while d) ago crucified, he asks aid for this from the Samaritans: and a crown of thorns upon his head placed, and with a lance his side pierced, and dead buried, and his disciples stole him, and said that he rose. There answered him e) Arthios the Priest, and said: Why did you not say? that he whom the Jews crucified, did many wonders among them, the blind he enlightened, paralytics he cured, the deaf he made hear, Lazarus four days in the tomb having been, he raised: There answered Saton the Governor and said: If those wonders among them he did, why did they crucify him?
[3] There answered the Priests Arthios, Messias, Sophyr, Manuel, and Adonas; and they said to Saton the Governor: Those and many other signs among them did he, The five faithful Priests, who once for them ten plagues to Egypt gave, and for them through the Red Sea a way made, and Pharaoh and his army into the sea cast. Forty years in the desert from heaven manna rained on them, and innumerable miracles for them he worked: but after many times, as John the Evangelist testifies, into his own he came, and his own did not receive him. The Son of God came into the womb of a virgin, and his own parents did not believe in him: because they are blind in mind. For also your gods, whom you worship and adore, are vain: about whom we have it written in the Psalm, Like them may those become who make them, they dispute with the Governor sent for this and all who trust in them. There answered Saton the Governor, and said to him: Well have you said, that like them we are, by sharing with them: There answered the Priests: O Saton the Governor, why do you not recognize the living and true God? Do penance, because you have come to destroy holy things; and you will rejoice in the heavenly kingdom, where are Angels and Archangels, and where the Saints and the Just; where is an inestimable odor, and glory without end.
[4] But that very night Saton saw heaven opened in sleep, and the holy city Jerusalem, and the wood of the holy Cross of the Lord, who, having seen a horrible thing, terrified, which the impious Chosroes wished to destroy: and from his mouth a horrible fire went forth, and a fiery iron chain on his neck he held, and round about him dragged. Seeing this the Governor trembled, and awakened sent to the Priests, and with great fear said to them: By God I conjure you, who was crucified and rose again; that whatever law you have received, such you give me: because in sleep heaven opened I saw, and his judgments God to me deigned to reveal. Prostrating themselves the Priests on the earth, they adored; glorifying God and saying; God who gather the scattered, and the gathered preserve, who sent your only-begotten Son into the earth, who the gibbet of the cross for us endured, he is converted to the faith of Christ: and us to free deigned from the hand of the devil; who founded the earth, and to the sea set a limit, and the heaven stretched out; who sent your sleep upon Adam, and Eve from his rib formed, and from his origin separated all men: deign to send your heavenly love into us, that we may all know that you are the true Lord, who with your only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit, live and reign through the immense ages of ages. Amen. And there answered all the men and women with great joy: Amen.
[5] In that hour the Priests began to give thanks to God, who deigned to join the impious among the choirs of the Saints: together also the people of Samaria, and there came Arthios, Messias, Sophyr, Manuel, and Adonas the Priests, and said to the people, Hear us, men and women, little ones and elders. Be prepared, because we all have one God. Watch in prayer, watch in fasting, in chastity, in silence: because our God like a thief in the night so will come. And they fasted together twenty-five days in the Lord, and the Priests began to inquire among themselves, what law they should receive. Answering Sophyr and Manuel, said: f) The Lord said to Nicodemus; who are likewise baptized to the number of 1484 Unless one be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he will not enter into the kingdom of God. And they began to consider what baptism, and came to the river Excutius,
g) which proceeds from one cistern: and there is a deep lake, and they blessed the water, and all together believing gave their names, and were baptized in the Lord. Then the Priests offered the Body and Blood of the Lord, and all communicated, and in the Lord were comforted: and there were baptized of promiscuous sex in number one thousand four hundred eighty-four, and with glory returned to their own homes.
[6] Then Julius and Marciscus, John and Agapitus prayed to the Lord: Lord Jesus Christ, and brought to Maxentius in Jerusalem, good Shepherd, who to your disciples said; Do not think, when you stand before Kings and Governors, how or what you shall speak, because the Spirit of your Father will speak in you. Give, Lord, your counsel and your knowledge upon us, do not permit us to err, like sheep not having a shepherd. Therefore the most impious Chosroes commanded and Maxentius his son, that Saton the Governor should come with all his army, both upon Jerusalem and upon Samaria, and should blot out the Nazarene from the earth. Saton the Governor, with the Priests and with all the people, said: May God blot him out of the book of life, who wishes to blot out the name of the Lord from the earth. For let the wicked Chosroes consider, that he is a Companion of Annas and Caiaphas, of Judas and Herod, because what was done concerning them, this concerning him shall be done: and behold they are buried in hell. There answered the wicked peoples and said to the Princes: Let some be punished with beheading, and others alive to burn make: because if these live, every kingdom to themselves they will subjugate.
[7] And words most sweet they spoke to Saton the Prince: they steadfastly profess the faith Senseless one, foolish you have become, because you have departed from the kingdom of glory, and to destroy you wish the flower of your youth: come and adore the gods who can save you, and depart from a man dead. There answered the Priests, Arthios and Messias, and Saton the Governor, and said: Well have you said, that we should believe in God the Savior of the world, and the vain and deaf idols spurn, which neither to themselves nor to others profit. There answered Marcius h) and Marcellianus, who were sent by Chosroes the Emperor, and said to the people: What wonders among you did he do, that you believe in him? The peoples said, many wonders the Lord did, the blind he enlightened, the dead he raised, and to us great wonders he showed, when into our breasts to reveal he deigned his holy wisdom. and they make a two-year-old boy speak for them. Now there was a certain Stephen, by his widow mother named Theones, whom they made speak, and the word of life preach, who was of two years and three days.
[8] Marcius and Marcellianus, when they saw him so much say and such things, smiling at him said: Speak to us, you, Boy. Stephen answered: In the holy Gospel the Lord says, The Governor obeys and confounds the King's ministers: Walk while you have the light, that darkness may not seize you. And he said: Little children, do not let yourselves be seduced, but believe in us, and be baptized, and accept penance, because you have blasphemed the true and living God. Marcius and Marcellianus patiently listened to his words, and ingeniously pretending, said: Stephen, if you, a boy, believe us, and cease so to act, gold and silver, and inestimable garments we will give you. Stephen answered them, saying: If you believe in my Lord Jesus Christ, gold and silver to you I will give, and a perpetual kingdom to you I promise. Then they began to circumvent him, how they might catch him out; and the more they disputed with him, the more knowledge and wisdom from his mouth were heard.
[9] Marcius and Marcellianus seeing such wonders in Stephen, and he converts them, ran to the feet of the Priests, and with weeping began to ask, that they would baptize them. Then Saton the Governor, with Arthios and Messias the Priests, gave glory and said, We give you thanks, omnipotent God, that to us through your mercy you have granted, that men who in demons believed you make them return to themselves. Sons, let us fast and pray to the Lord, that he may receive us among his servants. And they fasted six days: but on the holy Lord's day were baptized Marcius and Marcellianus, with others of promiscuous sex twenty-five. Their eyes lifted up to heaven, Marcius and Marcellianus saw the Lord sitting on a throne, two crowns indeed on their heads bearing, and a most sweet odor was in the crowns, and they saw King Chosroes with his army, like horrible flies, among the feet of the Saints going round about.
[10] When Chosroes had heard that Marcius and Marcellianus had believed, and been baptized; exceedingly angry and inflamed against the Saints, he sent through all his armies, which Chosroes hearing, and directed them to that city, that all with the sword should be punished; "because all dwelling in it I know that they believe and adore the Nazarene, and with them let perish Saton the Governor, together Marcius and Marcellianus: greater and lesser, all with the sword let them be struck." Which hearing Arthios, Messias, Sophyr, Emmanuel and Adonas the Priests, Marcius and Marcellianus, Julius and Marciscus, John and Agapitus, gathered together that whole city; and said to them: Sons and Brothers and Sisters, be prepared; because behold the time has come, in which you are to receive the crown of martyrdom. Comfort yourselves, and stand in faith; he decrees death for all, and do not fear those who kill the body, the soul and the body they cannot destroy in Gehenna. There answered the peoples and said: Behold the glory, which always we have desired: we have no confidence and hope, except in God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who made heaven and earth. For all we are prepared to the palm of martyrdom to enter. Behold we daily have wished to come to that glory.
[11] Therefore the most impious and most wicked adversary came, Chosroes, and coming to Jerusalem with his army: and entered into the holy city with his son Maxentius: and filled with excessive fury they seized the whole people, and their hands turned, all bound they strike with blows: and angry they said to them, Behold you are blinded, senseless ones; and foolish, because you adore the dead Nazarene, and have forsaken the God Jupiter and Apollo: and the King's commands you have despised. But the Saints cried out: Christ, help us, because we do not adore except the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; the vain idols, mute and deaf we spurn, made by hands, he commands the boy Stephen to be cudgeled: they help neither themselves nor others, but damn; and the King's commands we will by no means do. Blessed Stephen with a clear voice said, Do not cast your pearls before swine, Brothers, because they trample them with their feet. Then Maxentius full of fury said: Therefore are we also swine? And he ordered them at once with violence with cudgels to be beaten.
[12] His mother Theones, when she had seen Stephen her son with the rest of the Saints with cudgels beaten, Theones his mother encourages him: raising her hands to heaven, her breast striking with her fists, her head beating to the earth, at once kissing said: I give you thanks, Christ the savior and Ruler, because my son I see to be your servant and a partaker of the kingdom heavenly. I beseech you, Lord Jesus Christ, that I be not separated from my only son, neither in this age nor in the future. But at once Theones before the governor was brought: to whom the Governor said: You see deluded by the magic art the son and mother, the gods aforesaid they despise, nor do they fear the precepts of the Princes nor keep them. Then Maxentius at once and the governor said: At once bring the boy to the temple of Mars outside; and if he refuse to sacrifice, with beheading let him be punished. Theones with the rest of the Saints with one voice said: Do not be afraid, son, because today you will receive the crown of life. Then with stones the mouth of Theones striking, they sent her away; and Blessed Stephen was led outside the city that he might adore.
[13] The Emperors ordered bears and lions to come into the amphitheater, that they might make an assault on Theones and the rest of the Saints. Theones when she saw was afraid. But Blessed Stephen said i): Do not fear the fury of the beast, mother, because the Lord will crush the teeth of the beasts, and with him she is led to the beasts: and reproves the counsels of the Princes. But when to the temple Blessed Stephen the Martyr had come, he said: Why, wretched ones, does the devil constrain you, who say to a Christian man, that he should forsake the Lord his creator, and adore stone statues both deaf and dumb. Then the holy Priests, and Saton the Governor in secret prayed: Lord Jesus Christ, who upon the sea walked, and it made be silent and rest, permit these lions and bears and their furies to be quiet and silent; that these may know, who are proud and swollen, that you are living and true, both remain unharmed. who reign in the ages of ages. Amen. But there were released bears two and lions three. Stephen and Theones his mother in the midst stood. There ran the bears and lions to the feet of Blessed Stephen and Theones his mother, and licked and kissed their feet. But the Kings inflamed against them, ordered the lions and bears to be killed. Seeing this deed the Christians, comforted in faith, cried out: Blessed be the Lord, who has comforted his servants. But the peoples standing by and recognizing the power of the Lord, believed in the Lord, twelve men; awaiting a place that they might enter to the Saints.
[14] Then by the command of the Emperors father and son were seized Arthios, and Messias, Sophyr, These and the Priests being led elsewhere, Emmanuel, Saton the Governor and Marcus, Julius and Marciscus, John and Agapitus, Stephen and Theones: and these were separated from the rest of the Saints. But the people seeing these from themselves segregated began to lament, and they kissed one another, and said: Behold you go to eternal life, and we wretched what shall we do? There answered Arthios and Messias the Priests, and said to the people: Sons, do not weep, because we are not separated from you, but we go to prepare for you heavenly mansions. Behold the time which we always desired, and wished to come to that glory.
[15] There approached the most impious King where was the whole congregation of the Christians, the people are solicited to defection: and with a clear voice he said to them: Behold fools, why do you not depart from your madness, and what I command you do, as your Priests? They consented to me, and fulfilling my commands forsook you, and the propitious God Jupiter adored; their possessions they received, and safe were made and our friends, they enjoy goods with us. Do also you my will, and adore our God, and enjoy likewise your goods: because if you do not believe me, by the God Jupiter you
I will cause to be burned. To whom holy Verillus answered: Impious tyrant, why do you not blush to say so great evils, Verillus answers for all, for such are your brows like a dog that does not blush? for you say that we should forsake our author the Lord Jesus Christ, and adore a stone statue made by hands. Angry, Chosroes at once ordered the tongue of blessed Verillus to be cut off; which holy Verillus gladly suffered: and when long he was beaten, lifting his eyes to heaven, he said: I give you thanks, omnipotent Lord, because you have deigned to join me among your servants. But the people, when they saw the wonders which were done, blessed the Lord, who saves those hoping in him.
[16] But those twelve, who believed in the Lord, began to ask of King Chosroes, that he would give them into their custody: and he converts some of the gentiles. because if they refused to sacrifice, they would undergo the capital sentence. Hearing this the King was made glad, and ordered at once to seize the Priests and to send them into their power. And when they led them into their house, washing and kissing the feet of the Saints, he said: We adjure you by the omnipotent God, that you give us your Law, because it is great; and your God great and glorious we have known to be. There answered the Saints and said: Great and true is the Lord Jesus Christ, but we have such a law, to believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that you be baptized and forsake the devil and his pomps. There answered George and Sergius, Donatus and Peter the Exorcist, k) and Marcellinus his brother: We all believe in the living God, that he may deign to receive us through his mercy.
[17] There answered the Saints: We know that merciful is the Lord and does not wish the death of sinners, These too being baptized, but that they be converted and live; and he did not come to call the just, but sinners to penance. There answered George and Sergius: We have known that he is true, bears and lions he overcame, and without a tongue a man made speak. The Saints of God said: Concerning our Lord we read, Upon the asp and basilisk you shall walk, and you shall trample the lion and dragon, for if you believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit with your whole heart, you can obtain eternal life and the remission of sins. George and Sergius said, We have always desired to receive the sacred baptism in the name of the holy Trinity, with a free mind. Arthios and Messias the Priests prayed to the Lord, and said: We give you thanks, omnipotent God, because to us you have given your grace to overcome the devil, and Chosroes the adversary who desires to destroy us. Look upon us, Lord, according to your mercy. And at once they catechized them: and water being taken they blessed it, and said to them: Do you believe in God the Father omnipotent, creator of heaven and earth? They answered, We believe. And in Jesus Christ his Son, the only our Lord, born and suffered? They answered, We believe. And in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the resurrection of the flesh? They answered, We believe. And they received l) names, and were baptized, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Their eyes lifted up, George and Sergius to heaven, beholding the glory of God, said: We give you thanks, omnipotent eternal God, because you have deigned to join us among your servants, because you have demonstrated to us your mercy.
[18] But King Chosroes mandated to George and Sergius, saying, that to the palace they be brought to sacrifice to the immortal gods. George and Sergius said to Arthios m) and Messias, and freely confessing the faith of Christ, Saton the Governor and Marcius and Marcellianus: Chosroes the most impious has mandated, that you to the palace we bring. There answered the Saints and said: Sons, be prepared, because behold the time of receiving eternal life. There answered George and Sergius, Why do we not cry out, that we are Christians? The Saints of God said: Sons, do not let the blandishments of this age seduce you, but be prepared in the Lord, and when we shall call you, come to us; and be solicitous when we shall die, and bury us, and afterward glorify the name of the Lord. Then George and Sergius received the blessing from Arthios and Messias the Priests, and took food with exultation, and came to the King saying: Behold those whom you gave us. Chosroes said: Have they sacrificed to the immortal gods? There answered George: Speak you with them. Said the King to Marcius and Marcellianus, Sacrifice to the immortal gods, and be our friends, and let rejoice your soul, and you will live forever. There answered the Saints: Why does the devil constrain you, that you say that we should forsake the God living and true, who made heaven and earth? This being heard the King, angry said. By the God most invincible Jupiter and Apollo and Diana, that no one will rescue you from my hands, but alive I will cause you to be burned with fire. There answered the Saints of God: What you say, impious one, do, because we will by no means fulfill your commands.
[19] Chosroes having attacked Jerusalem At once the impious King ordered the Saints to be bound neck to neck, that to the city of Jerusalem they should bring them, and shut them up in the pool of Siloah, and they bound them there. Chosroes began the holy city Jerusalem to surround, and with deceit a false peace made, and there entered his soldiers into the holy city, and laid it waste, and there was made a great desolation: and he seized the gold and silver of the temple of the Lord, and the wood of the holy Cross, and precious stones. in it deceitfully occupied he wishes to be adored as God. And he ordered a tower to be built of gold and silver and precious stone which from the temple of the Lord he had taken: and on the summit of the tower a glass heaven to be constructed, n) and water there through a pipe to ascend he commanded; of horses at once and of swine he made the course there, and as it were thunders of voice were heard. To be bound near himself the wood of the holy Cross he appointed; crowned he sat, to pour out waters from that glass heaven by art he commanded with voices and thunders.
[20] Seeing these things the Peoples said: That there is no other God except Chosroes, who rain gives and thunders makes. To whom the Saints said, O fools, why are you blinded, who forsake the God true and living who made heaven and earth; Which madness of his the Saints exploding, and adore a man who is dung and a worm, and to God you him liken. For if he, as you pretend, God is, either let him heal a sick man, or raise a dead man. This hearing the King, exceedingly angry, ordered that the Saints of God with cudgels be beaten. And while long they were beaten, a voice from heaven was heard: Come to me all who labor, and are burdened, and I will refresh you. The Saints hearing this, said: We give you thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, because you have deigned to console your servants. Then Marcius and Marcellianus said to Chosroes: Fool and senseless one, why do you not recognize the life-giving and Holy Cross's wood, which after you you have, in this age; but damnation to you will be in the future, and prepared for you will be eternal punishment.
[21] Then the King with his son Maxentius ordered for themselves a seat to be prepared before the temple o) of Mars, and the Saints of God to be presented bound, to whom they said, and despising the threats of the tyrant, By the power of the God Apollo and Diana, if you do not sacrifice, soon by my sword you will perish. Blessed Stephen said: Wind is your anger, King, and nothing will harm us: because from our God prepared we have a kingdom and glory without end. Angry the impious King sent, and ordered to come the gladiator soldiers, and that all they should pierce through the Saints far from himself. There came to the appointed place Arthios and Messias, Sophyr and Emmanuel, and Saton, Marcius and Marcellianus, Julius and Marciscus, John and Agapitus, they offer themselves to death, and began to adore to the Lord saying; Lord Jesus Christ, send upon us your mercy: and do not confound us, but make us to your mercy to come. But we beseech you, omnipotent God; that whoever shall fast our vigils, and celebrate our feast day, write them, Lord, in the book of life, and blot out their sins, and from whatever tribulation they shall cry to us, Lord hear them, who live with the Father and with the Holy Spirit in the ages of ages; and there answered the Saints, Amen. And a voice from heaven was heard, Athletes of God, heard are your prayers.
[22] Then the Saints of God stretching their necks to the cruel executioners, shedding their blood, were beheaded, and a great crowd of Saints was beheaded. and with the rest they are beheaded. By the command of the most impious Kings Chosroes and his son Maxentius the tyrants, by the sword suffered men and women, in number one thousand four hundred eighty-four: but the bodies of the Saints, by dogs to be eaten, and by beasts and birds to be torn, in those very places were left; and no one dared them to bury; but throughout the whole day they were guarded. But George and Sergius by night, with twelve men who by the saints of God were baptized, gathered the bodies of the holy Martyrs, and put them on litters: and where baptism they had received, with the utmost diligence they buried them, where their prayers p) flourish up to the present day. But of the blessed martyr Stephen, son of Theones, the hair being made, every year the locks of the head q) are shorn, up to the present day. The holy martyrs of God were beheaded by the sword, on the tenth day before the Kalends of July, reigning our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, through the infinite ages of ages. Amen.
NOTES OF D. P.
a) The son of Chosroes below "Maxentius," in reality called Mardesanes.
b) These were gods of the Romans, not of the Persians: and so another manuscript bids the Sun be adored.
c) Our transcript "the Holy city"; but another manuscript suggests "Samaria" which was anciently called Sameron; and the necessity of correction is plain below, number 6, where Jerusalem and the Holy city are named as distinct cities: and again number 19 where the Saints are bidden to be led from their city into Jerusalem.
d) Nay, almost six hundred years before.
e) Why not rather Zacharias, then Patriarch?
f) As if indeed not yet all were Christians and baptized.
g) Another manuscript "Abanna," in 4 Kings 5 Abana and Pharphar are called rivers of Syria; but these, watering the Damascene territory, are twice as far from Samaria, as Jerusalem itself.
h) At least Persian names this fabler would have imposed on these Legates.
i) How was he here present, already led outside the city?
k) These seem mutually taken from the 2nd of June, on which are worshipped Marcellinus the Presbyter and Peter the Exorcist, Martyrs at Rome under Diocletian.
l) As if it were the universal custom to receive new names in baptism.
m) Here was written "Arthemius," which would please more if it recurred more often.
n) These things are transferred hither from Cedrenus, who in the 13th year of Heraclius narrates how Heraclius took Gazacum a city of Media, where the treasure of Croesus had been laid up by Cyrus; and there he found the simulacrum and effigy of Chosroes, in the form of a globe representing the dome of the palace, as if residing in heaven. Around were the Sun and Moon and Stars, by whom that unhappy one made himself worshipped as God, Angels bearing sceptres standing about him. Moreover the impious one had prepared machines, which from that place would emit drops like rain, and render a sound rivaling thunder. Where while in Greek is read "to whom as Gods he served," which would be "to whom as Gods he served"; I think it altogether an error, and that it should be read "by whom as God he was adored."
o) Who, unless wholly delirious, would conceive that in the time of Chosroes a temple of Mars existed at Jerusalem?
p) This is a formula common to most Legends, written long afterward, which how unfittingly it is here adapted, gather from the preceding.
q) That even on the dead hair has sometimes been seen and read and heard to grow: but not so, that once shorn it should grow again; and indeed repeatedly; whether that of any Saint be true, whence it could have been received, I do not know.