Paul of Cyprus

ON ST. PAUL, MARTYR UNDER THE ICONOCLASTS, IN CYPRUS.

ABOUT 760.

St. Paul, Martyr in Cyprus.

The Menologion of the Greeks, published by Henricus Canisius from the version of William Cardinal Sirleto, begins this 17th day of March thus: The Natal day of the holy Martyr Paul, who is burned with fire for the veneration of the holy images. From the Menologion Cardinal Baronius used that version before it was made public through the press: and, citing the Menologion in the Notes, he wrote thus in the Roman Martyrology: At Constantinople, of St. Paul, Martyr, who under Constantine Copronymus, transferred into the Roman Martyrology. since he defended the veneration of the holy images, was burned with fire; and then he notes that he is found to have suffered about the year eight hundred. We indeed do not so far know where this is found: the last year of Copronymus is a full twenty-five years from the eight hundredth; under him, while for twenty-four years he urged iconoclasm with obstinate rage, we know that many illustrious Martyrs suffered, namely Stephen the Younger and Andrew of Crete, whose illustrious Acts we shall give, the latter's on the 17th of October, the former's on the 28th of November: together with whom Peter also, scourged to death in the same cause and in the same city, is venerated on the same day as a companion, because his own day is unknown. The same persecution in the same royal city crowned Paul, but with a far different kind of punishment, and on the 8th day of the month of July: whose Body the Venetians now religiously venerate; for, having suffered many various and atrocious things, he at length had an end of life like that of the aforesaid Andrew, being dragged with bound feet over the rocks, in the year of the Incarnate Word 776: and these are those four whose common feast, as having suffered at Constantinople, the Menaea announce on the 21st day of October in these words: he is distinct from the Martyrs of Constantinople, Τῶν ἁγίων νεοφανῶν μαρτύρων Ἀνδρέου, Στεφάνου, Πάυλου καὶ Πέτρου, Of the holy new Martyrs Andrew, Stephen, Paul, and Peter. But from this number the extreme punishment of fire exempts the Paul of whom we make commemoration on this day: to which also alludes the distich added in the printed Menaea, expressing the kind and cause of the martyrdom:

Ζῆλος διεξέκαυσε Παῦλον εἰκόνων, Ὡς φλὸξ δι᾽ἀυτὰς ἐξεκαύθη καμίνου.

Zeal for the sacred icons burned Paul through: Therefore he blazed away like the flame of a furnace.

In what manner the thing was done, in what place and under what judge, it is well to borrow from the very Acts of St. Stephen, in Cyprus under the Prefect Theophanes as they exist in Lipomano and Surius: for thus it is narrated in them. One day, while the divine man Stephen was sitting together with the other captives, talk arose about those punishments which had been inflicted in various places on just men by the wicked Prefects of the most impious Emperor. For a certain Antony came forward into the midst, a native of Crete, a brave man, and one who had passed nobly through brave contests; In what way, he said, could I set before your eyes the illustrious contests of the monk Paul? or how could I recall them without tears? A certain Prince was Prefect of Cyprus, named Theophanes, surnamed Lardotyrus. When he had received the holy man to examine him, he led him to the praetorium of Heraclitus. There had been set out on the ground an image of Christ stretched on the cross, and with it likewise an instrument of torture because he refused to trample on the icon of the Cross which they call the catapult. And the Prefect said to him, with that wicked tongue, I say, and one speaking iniquity against the Most High: One of two things is set before you, Paul: namely, either that you obtain life by trampling on the image, or that you be tortured by this kind of torment. But in saying this he seemed to wish to terrify a lion with children's masks. For straightway that noble man, crying out with a loud voice, said: Far be it from me, Lord Jesus Christ, only-begotten Son of God, that I should tread with my feet this theandric image. And having spoken thus, tortured and burned: straightway bending to the ground he imprinted a kiss upon it; making plain in very deed how little

[4] But when, amid these jubilations, all were anxious as to what they should do, because the old tomb, from its fracture, seemed injurious to the dignity of the Virgin, while the new one, divinely shrunk, had ceased to be serviceable, at length the kindly helper dispelled these waverings, the broken tomb made solid again of itself and proved by a glorious miracle that she did not wish to be changed from her former resting-place. For that fissure, which could be penetrated right through by a knife or a reed, was so suddenly made solid again to wholeness that no trace of fracture appeared there thereafter. Here too the question of all was concluded. For they understood from so evident a sign that the Virgin did not wish to be moved from the couch of the ancient monument. she is translated So, the lid being set on and the sarcophagus carefully closed, with most joyful jubilation she is translated to her blessed sister Etheldreda from the old minster into the new, to the new church: and they place her most gratefully toward the east at her side. beside the other three bodies: In like manner also they lovingly associate her blessed sister Sexburga, and Sexburga's most holy daughter Ermenilda, worthy women with worthy companions, where both together and singly they dispense the heavenly benefits to those who pray.

[3] Meanwhile, when the lid was removed from the gaping fissure of the mausoleum, greater miracles terrified all: for the virginal clay, which was thought after so many ages to have been long since consumed, although clear report from old experience defended her, appeared whole in both limbs and garments, just as she had first been laid there: the wooden casket too, the body is found whole, with its garments and wooden casket: with which she had been carried to Ely, though its iron nails were eaten away, was preserved unharmed. Meanwhile some thought that, as it were, the unmoved dust of a burnt-out body only presented an image of wholeness: but at a touch the truth of a solidity enduring until then was made plain. For a certain elder from the Apostolic fold of Westminster, Warner by name, as had been agreed among several, approached with a wonderful boldness of faith, touched the virginal limbs here and there, reverently lifted the pliant joints at the feet, hands and arms, and, proclaiming the wonders of God, drew many persons of note to see. Nevertheless no one's irreverence touched with the eyes the comeliness covered with snow-white wrappings. The face, breathed upon with the breath of life, rejoices in the Lord with rosy cheeks; the breasts, standing in their wholeness, are in bloom; the unwed limbs flower with the loveliness of paradise. There came the most learned man aforesaid, Herbert [e], Bishop of Thetford; trembling he looked upon her, and blessed the Lord, glorious in his Saints; and many others [f] of conspicuous honor who were present stood by, whom we mentioned above, and beheld these wonders of God with their eyes. But let the fastidiousness of our hearers pardon these testimonies, which we have related as proof of the faith. At length the memorable Bishop Herbert set forth these joys, so wondrous and so new, to a most crowded people, and kindled all to the praise of God and to offerings of thanksgiving. Indeed, what would seem incredible to those absent, so great a grace from the dew of heaven prevailed here that rivers of tears ran from nearly all.

the threats of the judge might be delayed. He therefore, immediately boiling over entirely with anger, ordered the holy man to be stripped and stretched on the rack. Where, when the torturers had compressed him most firmly with two boards and had plowed his entire body with iron combs, they suspended him headfirst: and then, with no small fire lit beneath him, they thus at last made him a holocaust pleasing to God.

As is in the Acts of S. Stephen, This Paul, however, who suffered in Cyprus, not in Constantinople, was the one about whom the Menologion and the Menaea treat (and therefore Baronius too, following the Menologion, departing from the truth only in those things which he added from his own conjecture), this seems to be established from the memory of the Confessor Theosterictus, which immediately follows the aforesaid commemoration of Paul in the Menaea as well as in the Menologion, and likewise in the Acts of St. Stephen. having suffered in the year 767. Nothing therefore remains but to advise the reader that Paul has been set down by us as having died about the year 760, because St. Stephen underwent Martyrdom in the year 67 of the same century: and the sequence of the narrative set forth requires that this Paul of ours reached the palm some time before him.

St. Theosterictus, Confessor among the Greeks.

[1] On the same day St. Theosterictus, having been consummated in peace for the defense of the same images, passed to the Lord, The name inscribed in the calendars says the author of the Menologion; or rather, on the occasion of Paul already related, since the day of his death was unknown, he is commemorated as having passed on this day: lest the names of those whose contests were found written together should be recalled separately. The printed Menaea, following this, sing to him a distich.

Στήριγμα πῖςοις καὶ μεταςὰς ἐκ βίου Τὰς σὰς Θεοςήρικτε πρεσβέιας δίδου.

Let your prayers support the faithful people, Prayers which, Theostericte, upheld by God, you will offer.

Allusion is made to the name of Theosterictus, which signifies "upheld by God": that he obtained no empty appellation his manifold contests show: In the monastery of Pelecete the first indeed endured in the monastery of Pelecete, which is in Asia, when Lachanodracon, the minister of Copronymus's cruelty, making an assault on the fold of Christ, attacked with great fury the flock of monks gathered to celebrate the most holy mysteries on the very day of the great Thursday; and he ordered thirty-eight chosen ones to be bound, to be tortured more exquisitely, whose feast day we have kept with the Roman Martyrology on the 12th of January: his nostrils cut off and his beard burned the rest he partly tore in cruel fashion with blows, partly burned off their beards smeared with pitch, after first cutting off their noses. Whose number I myself also increase, as the marks of my face most surely witness, says Theostrictus himself, narrating the deed in the words brought forward on the day already cited, before St. Stephen in his Life; with whom he was then a sharer both of prison and of hardships, having suffered many things both before and afterwards. These, because they were not committed to writing, have now indeed come into oblivion among men, but remain in every way most well known to God: he narrates it in prison before St. Stephen. to whom and to those above it is known also whether he too obtained the palm of Martyrdom after St. Stephen, which is quite credible of many of his fellow-captives: or whether, as the calendars of the Greeks hint, leaving the Church at peace under the most pious Irene and her son Constantine, he too rested in peace, to show to God the supreme judge of the contest his nose cut off and his cheeks smeared with boiling pitch and bitumen and wretchedly burned: so that it must be said not that he failed martyrdom, but that martyrdom failed him. Ferrari mentions him on this day in the general catalog, and, citing the Menologion, wrongly names him Theotenistus.