Alexander and Antonina

ON THE HOLY MARTYRS

ALEXANDER AND ANTONINA

TRANSLATED TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

A.D. CCCXIII

Alexander the Soldier, Martyr, translated to Constantinople (St.)

Antonina the Virgin, Martyr, translated to Constantinople (St.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

These two Saints also have most celebrated cult at Constantinople: and that, as we have from the MS. Synaxarium of the Clermont College at Paris, ἐν τῆ μονῇ τοῦ Μαξιμίνου, διακειμενῃ ἐν Κωνσταντινουπόλει, On account of the Relics they are venerated at C.P. on June 9 ἔνθα τὰ τίμια ἀυτῶν κατάκεινται λείψανα, ἐξ ὧν καὶ πολλῶν θαυμάτων ἰάσεις ἀναπηγάζουσι, in the monastery of Maximinus, situated at Constantinople, where their venerable Relics are deposited: from which also the miracles of many healings flow. So the aforesaid MS. on the IX day of June. The same day the rest which we have seen preserve: especially the MS. of Emperor Basil, which the Russians follow in their figured Calendar. Similarly it has been done in the metrical Ephemeris, although I cannot prove it, the verses of this and the following day being lacking in the printed Menaea, whence we receive them; yet that very omission of the said verses brings the suspicion, in some on the 10th or 8th. that the Menaea, while they wholly occupy this day with the Office of S. Cyril of Alexandria, the Office of these Saints having been thrown to the following day, have something not commonly common at Constantinople, and proper perhaps to that one church alone, from whose codex this month was printed. Which one may also suspect of another exemplar, whence Sirletus in his Menology at Canisius took the day VIII June: if however he had another, and did not (as elsewhere often) err in transcribing.

[2] Only this Menology of Sirletus did Baronius see and follow, when in the Notes on the Roman Martyrology he wrote, that the Greeks treat of these on VI Ides of June. The day itself however he did not think to be retained: Inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on May 3 but he attributed the memory of both Saints to the day V Nones of May, when the Acts, rendered in Latin in Lipomanus, and inserted into volume 3 of Surius, had them suffer Martyrdom: wherefore there he wrote thus. At Constantinople of the Holy Martyrs Alexander the soldier and Antonina the Virgin, as having then suffered under Maximian who in the persecution of Maximian under the Prefect Festus condemned to a brothel, and by Alexander, who had remained there for her, in changed habit secretly led out, with him afterwards was ordered to be tortured: and both together with hands cut off, were cast into the fire for Christ, the noble contest performed are crowned. I would not believe Baronius from mere conjecture took the persecution of Maximian, named nowhere else where these Saints are treated, from his own imagination. He may have found perhaps in other Acts of Greek Martyrs the famous name of the Prefect Festus in that persecution: just as the name of Arianus the Prefect in the Thebaid expressed in the prefaced Acts of SS. Timothy and Maura, gave us the cause of referring the same to the times of Diocletian and Maximian, in which Arianus the Prefect raged in the Thebaid was certain to us from elsewhere.

[3] We would willingly therefore yield to the authority of Baronius, in a matter otherwise uncertain, that we should place these Martyrs and the magistracy of Festus at the beginning of the IV century; were not against probability, offered to itself from every side, found an inexorable reason from the Acts, when it is said, that the holy Martyrs Alexander and Antonina completed their Martyrdom on V (or VI) Nones of May on Saturday; and that on the seventh day after Festus died and the persecution ceased. By no means can these things fall on the end of that persecution, which through the whole time of his Empire Maximian Herculius, Colleague of Diocletian, exercised in the East, and his successor Galerius Maximian most cruelly continued there. For he himself put an end to it before he died in the year CCCXI, when the beginning of May fell on the second Feria. There is however reason why we are unwilling to depart far from the opinion of Baronius, which rather should be said to have been done under Maximian and we can excuse him, that under the name of Maximian he comprehended also that storm, which a little after his death stirred up Maximinus, with difficulty induced by his Imperial Colleagues Licinius and Constantine, that he should make it cease in the East (where he almost alone was master of affairs) by a contrary decree promulgated, which Eusebius recites, in the year CCCXIII, when the day of Saturday fell on VI Nones of May, in the year 313 May 2 which is the most express reading of our MS. πρὸ ἓξ Νόννων, where in another codex Sirletus seems to have read πρὸ ε᾽, by the numerical letter responding to the Latin V. The same congruence perhaps will be found in the end of certain other persecutions, especially in that, which moved under the Emperor Severus, after the death of its author Plautianus languished in the year CCVI, and in the following year, when VI Nones of May was Saturday, altogether ceased. But until it is more certainly known that the age of Festus the prefect should be referred so much higher, I do not wish to depart from the times of those tyrants, whose most impure morals brought into more frequent use that Christian virgins (as is here done to Antonina) were dragged to brothels.

[4] Not so circumspectly and moderately, in correcting Baronius and defining the time of this martyrdom, do Francisco Bivarius and Juan Tamayo proceed: because after they found in the figments of Pseudo-Dexter, Others fictitiously place them suffering in Spain in the year 100 in the year one hundredth of Christ, this notable pair of Martyrs ascribed to the Olcades in Carpetania of Tarraconensian Spain; they did not doubt at all that the Prefect also and the time of their Passion were held in their hands: since the inscription of the bridge of Alcantara testified, that it was placed under Vespasian Imperator and … CALPETANUS, RANTIUS QUIRINALIS, VALERIUS FESTUS, LEG. AUG. PR PR. Where the last four letters Bivarius thinks should be read "Propraetor," and Tamayo asserts unhesitatingly that Festus was called Prefect of Spain. I should prefer to explain the doubled letters in plural, the title common to several last named, and that of a far inferior order, and to be called Primipili of the Augustan Legion. Certainly I see nothing here, that elevates Festus, the last of several Colleagues, to an office, by which he should be held singular before all.

[5] But why should it please us to dwell on these things, while it is now abundantly clear to learned men, and thence translated to Constantinople even in Spain, that the whole Chronicle of Dexter is spurious and a novel figment: whose author, that he might cling to the Roman Martyrology, as far as seemed allowable through the new right ascribed by him to Spain over the said Martyrs; says that they are venerated and worshipped at Constantinople as citizens, although elsewhere, namely in that imaginary Carpetania, they suffered. Here meanwhile in passing the reader should note the phrase and title of cult, first beginning to be used in the previous age, and in this age most used by the Spaniards; after by these and other figments it has come to pass, that the new Spanish Fasti, with very many Saints snatched up from everywhere, as if born in Spain or sprung from Spanish lineage, are filled. That they were born at Constantinople no author of good faith hitherto has taught us: their fatherland, on the contrary, the Acts which we give say Antonina was born from the village of the Brodamni or Crodamni; about Alexander's fatherland they keep deep silence: and unless the Menaea and Synaxaria named Constantinople, we should not even know now the place known formerly for the cult of the Relics. Whether Baronius judged them to be afflicted with martyrdom at Constantinople, or as they then said at Byzantium, I do not know: certainly Byzantium was not, in the year CCCXIII, uncultivated and ruined, the seat of Prefects or Proconsuls of Thrace; which yet it ought to have been, that that conjecture should rest on some foundation.

[6] The parchment codex of the Clermont Synaxarium of which I spoke, where the transcript reads κώμης Βρωδάμνων or rather Κρωδάμνων, But Antonina brought from the village of the Crodamni as in the MS. of Crypta Ferrata Sirletus found at Lipomanus (for as to the letter K all the other examples agree) has Κρωδάμων. Further from this depart the printed Menaea, and following them in the Menology Sirletus, where it is written κώμης Καρδάμου, in the Menology more corruptly expressed Cardemi. The reading of the Menaea, the matters not yet so accurately discussed, I followed on April XXVIII, treating of the similar contest of SS. Didymus and Theodora, performed at Alexandria under the tyranny of Diocletian and Maximian, which by error is placed in Thrace, I wrote that Alexander and Antonina who suffered on this III day of May, were sprung from the town of Cardamus: which when in the Geographic Thesaurus Ortelius wrote was a place around Thrace, I scarcely doubted that within Europe not so far from Constantinople the place of this contest should be sought. But while I consult book 23 of the Miscellaneous History, cited by Ortelius; I find there indeed much mention of Cardamus, but none of a castle, but a Lord of Bulgaria, so called.

[7] Let us therefore confess, that as far as the region in which Alexander and Antonina lived, nothing at all is established for us: and content with this alone which the Constantinopolitans suggest, when it seems rather to be sought in Asia around Ephesus. let us hope to receive more light from elsewhere about both, and likewise about the very monastery of Maximinus, in which the bodies are said to have rested, brought rather from any region of the East than from Spain. If anything must be said by conjecture; I should rather believe, that the village of the Crodamni is to be sought in Lesser Asia; and the Martyrdom performed in that city, in which the Prefect of the Province was accustomed to reside, namely at Ephesus; since in this city it is established that there was the principal cult of Diana, whose Priesthood is said to have been offered to Antonina by Festus. Because however the cult of Diana, with the example taken from the Ephesians, also through other provinces of Asia Minor flourished widely; I am content, if the matter is believed to have been done in the East. or at least in the East. For to Asia and the Eastern Provinces, not however to Europe, pertains that kind of punishment, which is repeatedly called in the Acts σπαθίζεσθαι, and is rendered "to be beaten with rods," not with any kind, but with palm-rods, which alone are called by the Asians σπάθας in this matter is known; nor less, what dire and lasting torture such inflict by the asperity of their points, as one may see in S. Athanasius, who calls them ῥάβδους τῶν φοινίκων, and in his Apology deplores the cruelty by which those forty citizens were scourged, of whom we have treated from him on March XXVI, in the matter of S. Eutychius number 5.

[8] We judge that the Acts were written before the translation of the bodies, because they make no mention of it; Acts from the Greek Vatican MS. yet we do not judge them altogether most ancient; nor for the simplicity of style, do they seem also to contain the most simple narration; but the author seems to have indulged his own genius, when he repeatedly reports voices made from heaven, now to the Saints, now to the Prefect, which it is probable were not, except for the most part, internal: and as these so other circumstances the writer may have explained according to his own grasp, whom you would by no means call Metaphrastes, if you know his style from the Lives, which Allatius proves him to have written. We give those Acts to which prelude is made through this distich:

Εὕρατο Ἀλέξανδρος ἅμ᾽ Ἀντωνίνῃ,

Τὸν βόθρον, ἀκάτιον εἰς τρυφὴν φέρον.

A pit Alexander together with Antonina,

Found, as a ship bearing to delights.

The author of the whole Canon distributed by Odes, the same who composed the Canon on SS. Timothy and Maura indicated above, S. Joseph the Hymnographer: Canon composed by S. Joseph. from whose age you may conjecture; the origin of celebrating the feast of these Martyrs more solemnly, indeed perhaps the very translation of them, was not much earlier than the ninth century of the Christian era, in which he flourished. The aforesaid Canon on SS. Alexander and Antonina is set forth under this Acrostic:

Ὕμνοις ἐπαινῶ τὴν καλὴν ξυνωρίδα. ΙΩΣΗΦ.

The beautiful pair of Martyrs in hymns I praise. Joseph.

ACTS

From the Greek Vatican Codex 655.

Alexander the Soldier, Martyr, translated to Constantinople (St.)

Antonina the Virgin, Martyr, translated to Constantinople (St.)

FROM THE GREEK MS. OF THE VATICAN.

When at that time there was persecution, and many of the Brothers were killed for Christian piety; Antonina the virgin, after no few days a Christian virgin, by the name of Antonina, from the village of * Brodamni, was led to Festus, a most savage Prefect: whom living honestly, God showed worthy of contests to be entered for the subversion of the enemy. For when she had been handed over, as I said; the Prefect began to flatter insidiously and to say: Lady Antonina, refusing the Priesthood of Diana offered by the Prefect Festus, since you are so chaste a virgin, I wish not only to make you Priestess of Diana, but also to confer gifts and honors on you, and that you should rule over my whole household.

[2] She was silent for some time, and at last scarcely breaking into words, said, Why do you promise vain gifts? Rather you, she asserts the divinity of Christ, Festus, become a sharer of my wealth: and believing in the Lord Christ, you shall obtain eternal riches. Far be it, replies Festus, that I should believe in such a God, and indeed crucified. I would not deny crucified and buried, she said: yet also on the third day he rose, and now sits at the right hand of his Father, as is written in Psalm CIX, The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. To these things Festus: These are vain artifices of words: rather therefore obeying me sacrifice, that you may live in quiet. Antonina replied and said: I do not sacrifice to such inanimate gods; for they are demons, as in the law of my God it is written, All the gods of the gentiles are demons, and struck with blows she is deferred for three days. but the Lord made the heavens. To whom Festus: Do you call our Gods demons? Most certainly, said she, since, those in whom no virtue, no subsistence is, are not gods, but demons. Then Festus, Fill her cheeks with blows, that thus at least she may a little blush: But by the Gods I swear, Antonina, that unless you obey the commands of the Emperor, most badly tortured I shall send you into the brothel, and then I shall consume you with flames: now I grant you a three-day delay, that you may consider, whether repenting of your beginning you wish to sacrifice: for what you now dare, many others have tried to do; but afterwards repenting they sacrificed. Antonina replied, Impious tyrant, do what you will.

[3] Therefore handed to four soldiers, she went joyfully to the prison: whose Prefect being secretly called to him the Prefect said, Do nothing evil to her at all, but persuade that with mind changed she may sacrifice; which spent in prayers, for the race of Christians is stubborn. Therefore leading her into the prison the Prefect, began to persuade her and to say; Lady Antonina, why have you obstinate your mind in your purpose? Be rather converted, and sacrifice, and so be safe. But she replied to him nothing, so that the Prefect was anxious in mind, thinking what this was. Thereupon B. Antonina, with knees placed on the earth, persevered praying day and night: but when the time of three days was filled, suddenly about the sixth hour there was thunder, from heaven strengthened by which the bolts of the prison were broken and the doors unlocked; a great light also shone in the custody, and a voice from heaven came saying, Rise, Antonina, and taking bread and water for refreshment be strengthened, and do not fear the impious Prefect Festus: for I am with you. Therefore rising and completing her prayer, with Amen added, she asked for water and bread, and ate and drank, and gave herself to sleep.

[4] But morning being come, the Prefect sat in his tribunal, and said, she is led back to the tribunal, Lead this sacrilegious woman here, that we may see in what mind she now is. The soldiers therefore went and brought her: but brought, the sitting Prefect ordered her to stand before him. Then B. Antonina looking up to heaven; I give thanks, she said, to you, Lord my God, because you do your will in me; do not therefore desert me unto death. And a voice from heaven was made saying: Go in your way, for I am with you. But the Saint approaching the place where the Prefect was sitting, smiled: which seeing he; Why, said he, do you laugh, Antonina. But she; Do you wish, said she, that I tell, impious one, why I laughed? I saw your throne overturned, and laughing at the Prefect she is trampled, and therefore I laughed at you. Moved by the insult the Prefect, ordered her to be trampled by feet: who lifting the eyes of mind to heaven, I give thanks, said she, to you Lord my God, because me a wretched and sinner you deign to receive into your inheritance with your Saints; but this bloody man you will quickly hand into the hands of the underworld, that he may know that vain are the Gods in which he hoped.

[5] Hearing these things that cruel man was more disturbed, and said to the soldiers, thence dragged to a brothel This impious and impure woman not only offends the gods, but afflicts us also with injury: wherefore lead her into a brothel, that whoever wishes may be filled with her lust. She was therefore led into a certain small dwelling. Meanwhile an Angel of the Lord appeared to one of the soldiers, young in age, since he was completing his twenty-second year, by name Alexander, and said to him: Alexander, speak to the Prefect and enter to Antonina, and clothe her with your chlamys, that going out she may escape the impious Prefect. He himself, who was a perfect soldier of Christ, said to the Prefect, Order that I enter to Antonina, if perhaps I can persuade her: if not, do as you will. Alexander with garment exchanged sends her out: The Prefect granted his petition: but Alexander entering into the cell, where B. Antonina was, fell at her feet, saying, Handmaid of God Antonina, the Lord has sent me to you, that I may say to you whatever he has spoken to me. She was astonished, and was vehemently terrified: but a voice suddenly came to her and said, Do not fear, Antonina, for he who has brought you to this contest, has by his benignity also acceded this Alexander to the communion of the same prize. Take therefore his cloak, and cover your head, and going out address the Prefect, nodding to the same: for he will not recognize you: because I shall conceal you from him. Therefore Antonina taking Alexander's cloak, was clothed with it, and wrapped her head with the same: and going forth she signaled with her hand, and said to the Prefect, Do what you will: and immediately, like a doe snatched from snares, she pursued her way rejoicing.

[6] Then the Prefect, judging that it was Alexander who said these things to him, sent to her four soldiers, ordering that they use her at their lust, then lead her out, to be afflicted with even greater contumely. who being arrested, But the soldiers entering to inflict rape on her, found none but Alexander alone; and astounded they said: Where is she? and how are you here? And seizing his hand, they led him out to the Prefect, and said: This one alone we found inside. But the Prefect looking at him, is interrogated and beaten with rods. and much disturbed, Tell me, said he, unhappy and miserable man, how have you done this to us? Where is that impious harlot? Wholly enjoying her embrace, you sent her away with your chlamys given, promising that you would have her as wife: but it shall not so be, for you shall not escape my hands. And when the Prefect had much deliberated within himself, he ordered Alexander to be suspended, and beaten with palm rods.

[7] But while he was being beaten the Prefect said to him: Where is that sorceress? But Alexander replied nothing, and again after 7 days brought forth, but only looked into heaven: and a voice came from heaven to the Prefect saying, Impious Festus, why do you torture this innocent man? Hearing therefore this voice he ceased to torture him, and laid down from the rack ordered to be held under custody, A delay, said he, we give him, that with space of deliberation taken he may be turned from impiety. But seven days passed, the Prefect sent for Alexander, and said: What have you decided? To whom Alexander, What was for me to decide? O impure drinker of blood. with Antonina freely presenting herself, But the Prefect: Where is she to whom you entered? Alexander replied to him, I do not know. But while they were still speaking, the Lord said to Antonina: Be strong, Antonina, and go to that place where the impious Prefect sits. She therefore went and standing before the Prefect said: Impure and unclean Festus, whom do you seek? me? Behold I am here, that I may dissolve your power.

[8] But he, on seeing her, was anxious in mind, and began to be much disturbed; and sending soldiers ordered her to stand closer, and beaten also with rods, and similarly suspended to be beaten with palm rods, wishing to know whether she was still virgin, or corrupted. But when she was beaten, she emitted no voice at all. Then taken down from the rack interrogating her the Prefect said: Tell me sincerely, whether you are a virgin. B. Antonina replied, O sacrilegious and cruel one, we have not yielded to your savagery and petulance, for the Lord by his clemency has preserved me uncontaminated. Then he, looking at her and admiring: If therefore you are virgin, sacrifice to the gods, and together with Alexander be safe. But Alexander and Antonina, lifting their voice as if from one mouth said: Not so far, unhappy Festus, do your torments avail against us, that you can persuade us to offer sacrifice to those vain gods, of whom there is no virtue. But the Prefect, with the tips of their hands cut off To both, said he, cut off the tips of the hands. They however, as generous soldiers of Christ, stretching out their hands said, We have foretold you, impure and impious, that no contrivance of yours could break our religious purpose: do therefore whatever you wish.

[9] Then the soldiers with sword drawn amputated the tips of their hands: which they not feeling as it was being done, began to glorify God, and said to the Prefect; Carnivorous and most wicked, we do not even feel the trouble which you wish to inflict on us: but you God shall shortly transfer to the underworld to torments never to be lightened. By which words and contumelies said to him moved to anger the Prefect, again she is beaten, ordered a deep pit to be dug: meanwhile he was saying: Suspended beat them with rods until they feel torture, then cast them into the pit full of fire. But while the Saints were beaten, and felt nothing but praised God, the impious Prefect ordered lamps to be brought, she is burned with lamps, and to be applied to their sides. But Alexander and Antonina exclaimed with a great voice, We indeed, unhappy one, suffer these things for piety toward Christ, believing that after death we shall receive a reward: but you God shall quickly destroy, because you torture his servants.

[10] No further did Festus contain his fury: but, Light, said he, in the pit a great pyre, and finally burned in the pit she is buried. that they may immediately be cast into it. The soldiers therefore did as had been ordered them by the Prefect, and reported to him that the pyre was prepared which he had commanded to be lit: to whom that merciless one commanded, saying: Immediately anoint them with liquid pitch, and cast them into the flame. Which when also it had been done and both cast into the fire, the Prefect ordered besides dry pitch to be cast in; So, said he, they shall be utterly consumed and even the very bones reduced to ashes; lest little women coming should gather anything of their bones, as is the custom with Christians. The Prefect seized by a demon is extinguished. Finally he ordered the pit, in which they had been burned, to be filled with earth; and went into his house, drinking nothing thereafter or eating and remaining mute. For an evil spirit, sent through avenging angels, until the seventh day was tormenting him: but seven days passed, amid great and grievous tortures he gave up the spirit, and they buried him; and so the persecution ceased.

[11] The Saints Alexander and Antonina underwent Martyrdom on VI Nones of May, at the ninth hour, on the day of Saturday, in the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honor in ages of ages, Amen.

* al. Krodamnorum