ON THE HOLY 44 MONKS
FROM THE LAURA OF ST. SABAS, MARTYRS IN PALESTINE.
IN THE YEAR 614
CommentaryForty-four, monks of Sabas, Martyrs in Palestine (SS.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
Among the monastic wrestling-schools of the desert of Palestine was eminent the Laura of St. Sabas the Abbot, of which by several things we treated March 20, at the Acts of the Martyrs twenty, there in the year 797 by the Saracens slain; which by Stephen a monk of Sabas excellently described, on the said day we edited in Latin and Greek. Long before these times others there were by martyrdom taken away: The Martyrdom written by Antiochus a coeval monk, of whom makes mention a coeval author, who with them in the same Laura lived, Antiochus a monk, whose works are extant Greek-Latin in volume 1 of the library of the ancient Fathers at Paris in the year 1624 printed. He in an Epistle prefixed to Eustachius Provost of the monastery of the Atalina city of Ancyra in Galatia, asked about these monks' life and slaying, undertook in brief to open, what to them pertains; and them thus he describes.
[2] But about the laudable life of them at present to treat the time does not demand, men all in virtue eminent nor my tongue those things could easily run through. This only I will say, that men they were truly divine (if men only them one ought to call rather than Angels) since in spiritual exercise and the monastic life and labors, which for piety they sustained, from their youth they had grown old: old men indeed venerable and with hoary hairs they had, but in mind more they excelled and in humility, honest, modest, truthful, irreprehensible, chaste, pious, from all turpitude and depravity strangers, with all good adorned and with divine filled love. Some of them here from years fifty and sixty had survived, nor ever from the Laura had gone out. Some also neither to the church had proceeded, nor the city any more had seen, from when the monastic life they had embraced. With so great also virtues they shone, that they seemed terrestrial Angels and heavenly men. Wherefore this end they attained and the victory's reward obtained.
[3] When the Ishmaelites to our Laura had come, one week before the holy city had been occupied; and all the sacred vessels of the church had plundered, in the inroad of the Saracens, most of the Fathers as soon as possible fled away. There remained moreover in the Laura, who the stronger had been Christ's servants, that sacred place to forsake by no pact willing. The barbarians indeed when them they had seized, many days inhumanly treated and with torments afflicted, monies by this pact themselves about to find thinking, with whom nothing of this age was found; together moreover when they understood, themselves at last of their hope and purpose to have fallen, into the most savage turned rage, to one each man limb by limb those blessed ones they cut to pieces. limb by limb they are cut to pieces: Who and with joy incredible suffused, and therefore with an alacrious countenance beaming, with all giving of thanks their souls rendered to the Lord: since they had not so long before in their prayers had to be dissolved and with Christ to be. The bodies indeed more than tragically slain, when not few days on the ground scattered, without the benefit of burial had lain, from Arabia thither even we hastened. And indeed the eminent Abbot Nicomedes, that spectacle miserable of the slain Fathers having contemplated, into a swoon of mind fell, and thence carried back dead nearly was. Modestus besides, and he himself most holy, honorably they are buried: our coming when he had anticipated, and of the Saints those had surveyed first the dwellings all, likewise with anguish of mind contracted, with many he bedewed himself tears: and the holy, which thus far had remained Relics embracing, in the higher Fathers' he placed tombs. He at these things, when he had performed the solemn and according to custom accustomed Canon, that soon oracle of Isaiah with a raised voice he brought forth: The just men are taken away and no one considers. Isa. 57 From the face of iniquity is taken away the just. There will be in peace his sepulcher. Wis. 3 And, their hope is of immortality full. In few things vexed, in many they will be well disposed: because God tested them, and found them worthy of Himself, and as a holocaust's victim received them, and in the time of their visitation they will shine and glitter. And these things about those Saints when he had expounded, each one of us to exhort he began, that not anywhere we should emigrate, of that place our deserters… We therefore humble and abject by the grace first of God, then by the serious exceedingly and accurate diligence of the aforementioned most holy Modestus, this sedentary we pass life in freer and more tranquil leisure, for these even now which a little happened before actions of thanks paying and glorifying God, who both mortifies and vivifies… The number of the holy Fathers, whom the tyrannical took away assault, the number 44. is forty-four. Their memory in May month is celebrated, on the tenth fifth of the month's day.
[4] Thus far Antiochus. The Greeks in the MS. Synaxary and other Menaea celebrate, not on the day 15, but on this May 16, the contest however of the monks in the monastery of St. Sabas slain. they are venerated May 16, Which same are read in the Menology of Sirletus, which cited these things in the present Roman Martyrology are read on this May 16: In Palestine the passion of the holy monks, by the Saracens in the Laura of St. Sabas killed. Where Baronius thinks in the Notes, above in Antiochus, by an error either of the typographer or copyist is read to be celebrated the memory on the day May 15. That these 44 monks were slain one week, before the city holy had been occupied, above it is related, and more clearly indicates the city's slaughter Antiochus in homily 107 on Compunction, where these things he writes: We therefore ought tears to pour of bitterness full, slain in the year 614. first indeed that the city holy Jerusalem by burning was consumed: the Cross also holy of Christ our God into Persia migrated: in their also grace who so many slain in wars perished, for to us they were of one body, and the same with us were marked by faith. Which happened in the year 614 in the Indiction II, of the Empire of Heraclius IV, as is indicated in the Alexandrian Chronicle of a coeval author: to which year this whole Antiochus relation is inserted into the Annals of Baronius, but as well there as in other editions all things are had from the interpretation of Godefridus Tilmannus the Carthusian, where we know not how about the enormous of those age are these words intruded: Some of them a hundred had exceeded years and fifty-six, in a quiet and monastic life when they had spent: since Greek thus is read: "Some of them having passed beyond from fifty and sixty years, not going out at all from the Laura." Some of them from years fifty or sixty (namely in the Laura) had survived: nor ever from the Laura had gone out. Some also neither to the church had proceeded, namely some public one, content with the domestic of the Laura oratory, nor the city, namely Jerusalem, any more had seen.
[5] Their memory in the Acts of the 20 Martyrs of Sabas, He who named at the beginning of the Sabaites twenty the passion described Stephen at no. 81 to St. Sabas, of that Laura the founder, congratulates such fosterlings; and when he had said, that unwonted to him it is not disciples to instruct for a contest and for martyrdom apt to exhibit: I attest, he says, the memorable times of the Persian inroad, when also intercepted the holy of Christ city was, and the venerable and adorable those places and temples by burning were consumed. For then from the number of your fosterlings not fewer than forty you brought to Christ, to the Martyrs to be associated; against whom rushing, the of fire and Mithras mad worshipers the Persians, on one stone together all they cut to pieces; preferring even themselves in their own Laura to die, than from the face of the enemies to run away, and from it by exile life to redeem by flight. There was shown namely still that stone, that to doubt we cannot but that this about it circumstance, by Eustachius omitted, from a certain of their tradition added Stephen: and so in them was renewed the example of the slaughter, by Abimelech once perpetrated in Ophrah, Judges IX, who killed his brothers, the sons of Jerobaal, seventy men upon one stone.
[6] and in Quaresmius but with a confused number. Francis Quaresmius of the elucidation of the Holy Land bk. 6 ch. 9 pilgr. 3 the very of Antiochus the monk epistle exhibits, the Datalena monastery calling, which Aralina written we found; about the present moreover of that laura state speaking, among other things thus has: There in a chamber or chapel, altogether however closed or walled up, lie the bodies of six hundred monks, by the infidels for Christ's faith slain, narrated to me the dwelling monks, when the holy place I visited. They added moreover, by the command of their Patriarch the holy place to have been altogether closed, lest those sacred pledges be carried off and into other parts borne. Thus he; whom I fear, lest either his memory deceived him, or they themselves their things too much augmenting the monks, and so from sixty (namely how many together in a round number were taken, who by the Persians forty and by the Arabs twenty were slain) to have become six hundred: whom a single chamber or chapel could not through tombs or sepulchers arranged, and in them conspicuous contain: for thus placed they were, indicates the care of closing that chapel, after so many ages first applied.
[7] more however in Ferrarius and Galesinius. Philip Ferrarius, in the Catalogue of saints who in the Roman Martyrology are not, on April 22 the memory places at Jerusalem of the holy thirty monks, Martyrs, under King Chosroes; alleging in the notes the Menology of the Greeks: and Galesinius corrects, who the same from the Greeks on the same day received, but for thirty, wrote thirty thousand Martyrs. We on that day neither one nor the other number found in any of the Greeks' Menaea and synaxaries, although at Milan and Venice we have seen all things, which Ferrarius could have seen, if he saw any: for I fear lest with the same levity he cited the Menology, with which he cites Galesinius, who in the notes to that day says himself those 30 thousand to have, not from the tables Greek, which on the same day for St. Nearchus the Martyr he alleges; but from a MS. Codex and the Annals of Burchardus the Dominican. Flourished this writer, by others Brocardus called, about the year 1260; and besides the description of the Holy Land, which we would wish to find, he wrote Annals on the affairs of the Emperor Frederick in the Holy Land, which equally we lack. We suspend therefore our about these judgment; although in the silence of the older ones deservedly we fear, lest, if that number truly Burchardus had which Galesinius expresses, the same to him happened which to Quaresmius: for what to the MS. Codex pertains, faith scant with us it has, on account of Galesinius's in Codices to be cited accuracy scant.