ON ST. URPASIANUS, MARTYR AT NICOMEDIA IN BITHYNIA.
CIRCA AD 295
CommentaryUrpasianus, Martyr, at Nicomedia in Bithynia (St.)
[1] Before we come to the Martyrs of Nicomedia, whom the flame of persecution consumed in droves, to be recorded for this day from the most ancient martyrology of St. Jerome, it is useful to recall to the reader's memory those things Urbasianus, at Nicomedia which Eusebius narrates at length in book 8 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapters 4, 5, and 6, and from him Nicephorus in book 7, chapters 3 and 4, concerning the beginnings of this conflagration, spreading both elsewhere throughout the East and especially at Nicomedia; by which first a few of the more illustrious men from the military and the Palace were summoned to the contest, and chose not only to lose their rank, but even to meet death in defense of the true faith. But after the tyrants had attacked more openly, no speech or power of words can express at the beginning of the persecution, what and how distinguished Martyrs of Christ one might have seen with one's own eyes. From those few first martyrs we do not doubt that Urpasianus was one, since the Menaea say that he suffered not long after Maximian Herculius was taken on by Diocletian as partner in empire and cruelty; which
Theophanes writes at the beginning of his Chronography was done in the fourth year of Diocletian, the two hundred and eightieth year of the Alexandrian Era, which is the year 288 of the common Era; and that seven years later the horrible persecution against Christians was stirred up by both emperors, which dispatched many myriads of martyrs through exquisite torments of every kind.
[2] The contest of this Urpasianus for the faith is set forth in the printed Menaea, and from them by Maximus Cytheraeus "in the Lives of Saints," in approximately this sense when rendered into Latin: stirred up by Maximian: Maximian had recently assumed the insignia of empire and was exercising his tyranny around Nicomedia, having declared himself a most ardent champion of the idols. For his intimates and drinking companions were fanning his fury against the Christians like a great fire. Wherefore, having summoned nearly all who lived under his rule, both Senators and Ecclesiastics, to an assembly, he thundered at them in this manner and terrified them: If any of you has lapsed into that superstition which the Christians profess and refuses to worship the most gracious gods diligently, let him loosen his belt in the sight of all and depart far from the palace and from this our city; for this city has learned from its ancestors to worship the gods, not one alone, and him crucified. Then horror seized all who believed in Christ, and it was possible to see who were trained above the common run of men in the Christian faith. For some secretly slipped away from danger, while others succumbed to the torments. But those who cherished sincere love for Christ, scorning the tortures and mocking the tyrant, cast their belts upon the ground and withdrew from him.
[3] Among these was one great-hearted man, distinguished by an adamantine strength of mind, Urpasianus, of the number of the Senators; having professed himself a Christian by casting off his belt, when he had cast off both his cloak and his belt, he addressed the Emperor in a loud voice in this manner: Since, O Emperor, I today profess myself enlisted in another service, to serve under the command of the heavenly Emperor, my Lord Jesus Christ, take for yourself both the belt and the rank and the glory -- all transitory things that will profit the soul nothing. When the Emperor Maximian heard Urpasianus speaking such words unexpectedly, he stood for some time as if bereft of his senses and mute; then rubbing his forehead and regarding the Martyr with a fierce countenance, like a monstrous beast he broke forth in a voice like thunder, and said: Hang up this abomination, he is beaten with ox-hide whips, and tear his flesh with ox-hide whips. When this was being done, and the Martyr was being torn for a long time and mercilessly with ox-sinew whips, his eyes fixed on heaven in the manner of one praying, so calmly that the torments could not even draw a groan from him; the tyrant ordered him to be taken down from the rack, and turning to the bystanders said: Cast this senseless fool into a dark and strong prison, and there, neglected, waste him away, until I decide by what manner of death he is to be removed from my sight. The Martyr was therefore detained for some days in prison, rejoicing and exulting, and praying to his Lord Jesus Christ.
[4] suspended in a cage, he is burned: Meanwhile the impious one ordered a torturing device to be prepared, namely an iron cage, and the Martyr to be brought out of prison and cast into it and suspended on high, and surrounded by blazing torches on all sides, by which his entire body would be burned. Thus suspended in that iron device and adoring God with suppliant prayers, he was roasted to such an extent that his flesh melted like wax and mingled with the earth disappeared; while his bones, shattered like dust on a threshing floor, were scattered and perished; while his soul, released from the body, filled the air with a most sweet fragrance and ascended to heaven, visible like a star; ashes scattered in the sea: as certain of the faithful were deemed worthy to see. But the execrable Emperor, hateful to God, persisting in his fury, ordered the very soil into which his flesh had fallen and the ashes of his bones to be carefully heaped together and scattered before his own eyes into the sea. These things were done in the city of Nicomedia, situated on the Propontis.
[5] The device on which the Saint was hung is called in Greek klobos, klobos and kloubos, a cage, which we have translated as "cage" following the opinion of our Rader, who interpreted this eulogy, and of Johannes Meursius, who cites his Greek-Latin Glosses, whence in the scholiast on Oppian's Halieutics klobion, the diminutive, stands for a fishing basket; for the filaments crossed in lattice-fashion have the appearance of a cage made of lattices. The word is new and barbarous, but frequent in the Middle Ages, and more often written kloubos; which, however, led us to translate it as "bolt" in volume 2 of February, folio 772, in the Life of St. Auxentius, number 11, on the authority of the aforementioned Meursius, or an enclosure of lattices: who interpreted kloubon as "seal." We nevertheless noted that it is also taken to mean a cloister. But now, having been advised by our Reinoldus Dehnius, a man most skilled in the Greek language, we do not doubt that the last meaning is the only true one; and therefore, instead of what is read there, "He ordered a small cell to be built for them (the boys coming to him), and a bolt to be placed on the outside of the cell, in which he also was enclosed," we would prefer it to be translated thus: "and a cage or enclosure, in which he himself would be enclosed, to be made outside the cell," namely that of the boys -- so that, as it were, he might follow in the footsteps of the monk John, who, as is said in number 2, stood near the Hebdomum in a kloubos, where it is clear that not a bolt, but a cloister or a place enclosed with lattices is to be understood, in the manner of a cage -- indeed, a true cage.
[6] The same Dehnius suggests various passages by which this is confirmed, and first of all that of John Climacus, whence kloubo-machein, to fight in a cage, who in step 8, page 173 of the Rader edition, says that he heard of Hesychasts who in their cells, out of bitterness of soul and anger, fought like partridges in a cage (kloubo-machountes). The playful combats of partridges among the ancients are well known, says he in a certain letter, even from Lampridius in the Life of Alexander Severus, whose chief delight he writes was that puppies should play with little pigs or partridges fight with one another. Indeed, the passage of Tzetzes, Chiliads 5, verse 602, which Meursius alleges for himself, is actually against him; for what does it mean that the Grand Drungarius Constantine is said to have treated Tzetzes' grandmother, whom he begot from his second wife, equal in honor to a certain daughter of his whom he greatly loved, begotten from his first wife, and to have caused them to enter the same kloubos together? What, I say, is this if you must understand it as a seal, and not rather as the latticed enclosures proper to women of princely rank both at home and abroad in churches and theaters, so that only those equal in honor and rank would be found together within them?
[7] and peri-kloubizein, to cancel: Nor can perikloubizein in the Ecloga of the Basilica, book 7, be understood otherwise than as we would say in Latin "to cancel," that is, to delete by drawing lines across in a lattice pattern; for although ta perikloubisthenta in the heading are explained in the text as ta pericharachthenta e perisphragisthenta e apaleiphthenta e me kata pronoian e edesin tou diathemenou, all of which are declared to be invalid, it is nevertheless clear that those words correspond to these Latin words of Ulpian, in the law "quae in testamento," in the Digest, "De his quae in testamento": "But that which has been written, drawn through, or erased without the master's order is to be treated as nothing." So that the word perisphra-gizein, simply meaning "to seal," must also be said to be taken metaphorically for enclosing or wrapping up so that it cannot be seen, and in the cited passage is the same as "to obliterate" or "to circumscribe"; and thus nothing supports anyone who wishes to render kloubos as "seal" or "bolt."