ON THE HOLY MARTYRS WHO SUFFERED AT ALEXANDRIA UNDER THE EMPEROR CONSTANTIUS.
YEAR 342
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Martyrs who suffered at Alexandria under the Emperor Constantius (SS.)
[1] The tables of the Roman Martyrology for this twenty-first of March have this: At Alexandria, the commemoration of the holy Martyrs who, under the Emperor Constantius and the Prefect Philagrius, Sacred cult when the Arians and Pagans burst in, were slain in the church on the day of Good Friday. The persecution was stirred up on the occasion of Saint Athanasius being restored to the See of Alexandria, and the author of the immense joy with which all the Orthodox Christians of the Church of Alexandria and of the remaining provinces subject to that See exulted. Saint Athanasius was the primary target of his enemies. But he, sustained by divine protection, secretly withdrew, and soon described that entire tempest precisely in an encyclical letter, which he directly addressed to all the Orthodox. The slaughter described by St. Athanasius: That letter exists in the first volume of his works in both languages, Greek in which he wrote, and Latin, with Petrus Nannius as translator: which Cardinal Baronius inserted entire into the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 342. Much of the same Athanasius inserted in his second Apology and in the Life of Saint Anthony written by him, because Anthony had foreseen this affliction two years before. It is called in section 105 a lamentable vision, to be mourned with every fountain of tears: upon the exposition of which he adds: And without delay, the effect follows the vision: for after two years the savage fury of the Arians burst forth. Then came the plundering of churches, then the profanation of sacred vessels, then with the polluted hands of Pagans the sacred ministries were polluted, then the resources of Pagan craftsmen were marshaled against Christ. With the bearing of palm branches (which is the mark of idolatry at Alexandria) Christians were compelled to go to the church, so that they might be believed to be the people of the Arians. O crime! the mind shudders to repeat what was done: the modesty of virgins and matrons was violated; the blood of the sheep of Christ, shed in the temple of Christ, bespattered the venerable altars; the baptistery was polluted according to the will of the Pagans, etc.
[2] The time here indicated is assigned in the Chronicle of Saint Jerome to the ninth, fifth of Constantius, year 341 or the fourth year after the death of Constantine, as Sozomen observed in book 3, chapter 5, and Socrates in book 2, chapter 5, who names the Consuls Marcellus (to others Marcellinus) and Probinus. This is the year of Christ 341. the Arians having created Gregory the Cappadocian as Bishop Then for the dedication of the basilica of Constantine at Antioch, a conventicle of thirty Bishops was held: in which the Arians, having deposed Saint Athanasius, substituted as Bishop of Alexandria Gregory the Cappadocian: whose entry into Alexandria, says Athanasius in the encyclical letter, how many nefarious deeds it perpetrated, and of how many evils it was the author, you will be able to learn from our letters and from those traveling to you. When the peoples therefore bore heavily the outrageousness of these things, and accordingly gathered in the churches lest the treachery of the Arians be mixed with the faith of the Church; the Prefect Philagrius introduces: Philagrius, long since injurious to the church and to virgins, at that time Prefect of Egypt, formerly a deserter of our religion, a countryman of Gregory, a man of by no means upright morals, relying on the authority of his magistracy and ready to dare anything with its support, both an apostate and hostile and headlong against the Church, by his exhortations and great promises, which he duly paid according to the deeds performed, instigated against the Church the pagan tribes, the Jews also, and other insolent men, and sent them in a wedge formation with swords and clubs against the people in the churches... Flames were cast into both churches and baptisteries. And so there was great mourning, wailing, and lamentation throughout the city. The citizens bore what was done with indignation: they cried out to the Prefect, they protested the violence, because the holy and uncontaminated virgins with their bodies stripped suffered unspeakable things, violence is done to virgins, and if they resisted more stubbornly, danger to their lives was threatened: monks were trampled underfoot and expired; others were confiscated for the treasury; others were slaughtered with swords and clubs; others departed badly treated with wounds and blows.
[3] And upon the most holy altar, what great impieties and crimes were committed! others are killed For you would have seen them sacrificing birds and pine nuts, extolling their idols with praises: casting insults and verbal abuses upon our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God: burning the sacred books of the Scriptures which they found in the churches: entering the sacred baptistery — O heavens! — Christ-killing Jews and godless Pagans without any reverence, Christ and sacred things are scorned. performing with their bodies stripped such turpitude of words and deeds as would be shameful and abominable to relate. Nor were impious men lacking, emulators of the most bitter persecutors, who seized virgins and those living in continence, dragged and carried them off, and compelled them to blasphemy and the denial of the Lord, and those who refused to do so they cut down and trampled under foot... In sum, there was everywhere in the Church great devastation and a very great image of death.
[4] Yet the impious Arians were not moved by any shame at these things, the orthodox are afflicted in Lent, but rather heaped up still more dreadful and atrocious deeds. For you would have seen Presbyters and laymen dragged into court: virgins torn from their community, carried off to the tribunal of the Prefect and cast into prison: others confiscated for the treasury: others beaten with scourges: bread denied to the ministers of the sacrifices and to virgins. These things were done under Pascha in the sacred season of Lent, during which time they were devoted to fasting... Certainly on the very day of Good Friday that distinguished Gregory entered a certain church with the military commander and Prefect of the pagan peoples, and on Good Friday. and having perceived the hatred of the people, who abhorred his violent entry, he showed himself the author and counselor to the most cruel Prefect that at that same hour thirty-four virgins and matrons, as well as free-born men, should be publicly scourged and cast into chains: among whom he ordered a certain virgin devoted to study, still holding a Psalter in her hand, to be publicly scourged: the book was torn from the virgin by the executioners, and she herself after the scourging was shut up in prison.
[5] These things having been perpetrated in this manner, they did not remain idle for the remaining time either: Saint Athanasius escaped and wrote these things. for in that other church, in which I myself was primarily residing during those days, they plotted the very same things, their fury having been let loose even upon the temple, and they did everything to intercept and destroy me. Nor would it have been otherwise, had I not experienced the propitious and helping grace of Christ: whence, having thus escaped, I was permitted to recount these few things from among the innumerable evils.
ON SAINTS FORTUNATUS AND JOHN, MARTYRS IN AFRICA.
21 MARCH.
CommentaryFortunatus, Martyr in Africa (S.)
John, Martyr in Africa (S.)
[1] Among the illustrious and very ancient Martyrologies which we transcribed at Rome in the year 1661, we found two in the library of the Most Eminent Cardinal Francis Barberini. The first of these, headless, begins from the Ides of March, written in the monastery of Agaunum, as we gather from the day of September 22. To this another was prefixed, which extends from the month of January to the Nones of May. In this Martyrology, compiled for use by the Cluniac or Jouarre monastery, where the relics of Saint Paul the First Hermit are honored, at the day of the twelfth before the Kalends of April the following is read: On Mount Cassino, of Saint Benedict the Abbot. In Africa, of Saints Fortunatus and John. We suspect that their bodies were translated from Africa to Gaul, and perhaps to that monastery to which the Martyrology belonged. We have given on the twelfth of March a John with forty-four unnamed companions: whom we said were ascribed to Africa in the more ancient Martyrologies. We have also given Fortunatus Martyrs in Africa on the ninth, seventeenth, nineteenth, and twenty-seventh of January. But nowhere joined to John: therefore we present these to the reader as we found them.