ON THE TEN THOUSAND HOLY MARTYRS AT NICOMEDIA IN BITHYNIA.
CommentaryTen Thousand Martyrs at Nicomedia in Bithynia (Saints)
When or where they suffered, the Menaea do not explain, whether the printed editions from Venice or those which exist in manuscript at Dijon in the possession of Pierre-François Chifflet: both, however, expressly declare the manner of martyrdom, both in the title, which is as follows: They are remembered as slain by the sword Τῇ ἀυτῇ ἡμέρᾳ ὅι Ἅγιοι μύριοι τὰς ἀυχένας τμηθέντες τελειοῦνται. On the same day the holy ten thousand, having had their necks cut, are perfected: to which this distich is appended.
Δεκὰς χιλιὰς τὸν ἀυχένα τμηθέντες, Ἀπῆλθον ἔνθα μυριόμματοι νόες.
Their necks cut, ten thousand went Where the ten-thousand-eyed intelligences dwell.
If from what follows one were allowed to make some conjecture, we might suspect that these were from among the innumerable persons whom the flame of persecution, blazing beyond measure, At Nicomedia. kindled at Nicomedia by the tyrant Diocletian, and not extinguished by any blood however copious, consumed. But there is no need for conjectures regarding the place, and from this it will be possible to form a more probable opinion about the time: since the Greek Menologium, published in Latin translation by Cardinal Sirletus and edited by Henry Canisius, expressly states: On the same day ten thousand struck with the axe at Nicomedia were crowned with martyrdom. Slightly altering these words, Cardinal Baronius inserted them into the Roman Martyrology thus: At Nicomedia, of the Holy Ten Thousand Martyrs, who for the confession of Christ were struck with the sword. Most probably under Diocletian, Nor indeed is it to be wondered at, he says in the notes, for the Emperor Diocletian, stirring up that most savage persecution, resided at Nicomedia, and there exercised a most inhuman slaughter of Christians, as the Acts of the Martyrs attest, and Eusebius in Book 8, specifically in chapter 6, where treating of the martyrdom of Saint Anthimus, Bishop of Nicomedia, to be commemorated on April 23: To this man, he says, a great and numerous band of Martyrs was joined, and indeed because in those very days, by some chance, the royal palace of Nicomedia was set ablaze, and from a certain suspicion a rumor had been spread that this crime had been committed by our people: whence, by the Emperor's command, of the faithful After the burning of the palace: who were there, some were slaughtered in heaps by the sword, others perished from the heat of flames cast around their bodies. If nonetheless, even on such an occasion, in so populous a city, under so cruel a tyrant, the number of ten thousand slaughtered at once should seem too great to anyone; let him consider that for a cause much lighter than what was here alleged, in the city of Thessalonica, by the precipitous command of Theodosius, a Prince otherwise most mild, seven thousand of the common people gathered for a spectacle were slaughtered.