ON SS. SOLOCHON, PAMPHAMER AND PAMPHALON
EGYPTIAN SOLDIERS, MARTYRS AT CHALCEDON.
Notice of them transferred from the Greek to the Latin Calendars.
UNDER MAXIMIAN
CommentarySolochon, Egyptian Soldier, Martyr at Chalcedon (S.)
Pamphamer, Egyptian Soldier, Martyr at Chalcedon (S.)
Pamphalon, Egyptian Soldier, Martyr at Chalcedon (S.)
G. H.
The bare memory of Solochon alone is celebrated in the printed Menaea and some written by hand and in Maximus Bishop of Cythera: from which nothing is known, except that the Saint died as a Martyr. In the Menology truly of Basil Porphyrogenitus the Emperor an honest Eulogy, The name of Solochon in various, as of others there reported Saints, is produced: but the martyrdom of him and of his companions is most amply narrated in the Ms. Synaxary of the Constantinopolitan Church, which belongs to the Claromontane College of the Society of Jesus at Paris: some Eulogy too but more contracted is reported in the Ms. Ambrosian Menaea at Milan, and the Turin of the Duke of Savoy and the Chiffletian, and from similar ones into the Menology of William Sirletus passed. That from the foresaid Synaxary, as the more powerful, here first in Greek, then also in Latin receive.
[2] Τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρα ιη᾽. Ἄθλησις τοῦ ἁγίου Μάρτυρος Σολόχωνος καὶ τῶν
συν αὐτῷ. eulogy of all in the Ms. Synaxary, Οὗτος ἦν κατὰ τοὺς χρόνους Μαξιμιανοῦ τοῦ Βασιλέως, Αἰγύπτιος τὸ γένος, στρατιώτης τὴν τάξιν, τεταγμένος ὑπὸ Καμπανῷ Τριβούνῳ, μετὰ τρισχιλίων στρατιωτῶν τῶν συν τῷ Καμπανῷ κατὰ την τοῦ Βασιλέως πρόσταξιν, ἐξ Αἰγύπτῳ την Χαλκηδόνα καταλαβών. Κελεύσαντος δὲ τοὺς Ταξιάρχας καταναγκάζειν τοὺς ὑπ᾽ αὐτοὺς θύειν τοῖς εἰδώλοις, καὶ ἑκάστου τὸ ἴδιον τάγμα προσάγοντος ταῖς θυσίαις, ὁ Καμπανὸς την ὑπ᾽ αὐτὸν λεγεῶνα ηνάγκαζε τὸ πρόσταγμα τοῦ Βασιλέως ποιεῖν. Πάντων δὲ εἰξάντων, τρεῖς μόνοι ἀντέστησαν Σολόχων, καὶ Παμφαμὴρ, καὶ Παμφαλὼν, Χριστιανοὺς ἡαυτοὺς ἀνακηρύττοντες, καὶ ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον αἰκίζονται, ὡς ἐξ οιδῆσαι τοὺς αὐτῶν νώτους, καὶ την κεφαλην ὑπεράραι, καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ τῷ μαστιγοῦσθαι ἀποδοῦναι τῷ Κυρίῳ τὰ πνεύματα τόντε Παμφαμὴρ καὶ Παμφαλών. Ὁ δὲ ἅγιος Σολόχων, which teaches μικρὸν ἐνισχύσας, παῤῥησίᾳ τὸν Χριστὸν ἐπεκαλεῖτο, καὶ Καμπανὸν τὸν τύραννον εἰς ἀπόνοιαν, τὰ ἄψυχα θεοὺς ὀνομάζοντα· ὥστε ὀργισθῆναι τὸν Ἄρχοντα κελέυσει σπάθῃ τὸ στόμα διανοιγηναι αὐτοῦ, καὶ οἶνον τοῦ σπονδῶν διαχεθῆναι αὐτῷ. Ὁ δὲ Ἅγιος δακὼν τὸν σίδηρον, καὶ ἀποκοψας ἐξ αὐτοῦ μέρος, ἅμα δὲ καὶ τὰ περικείμενα δεσμὰ διαῤῥήσας, ἔστη ἐνώπιον τοῦ τυράννου ὀρθρῶς, την τοῦ Χριστοῦ θεότητα μεγαλυνων, καὶ την τοῦ Ἄρχοντος κακοδαιμονίαν χλευάζων. ἔνθα καὶ φωνὴ ἄνωθεν ἀνέχθη, αὐτὸν ἐνεπισχύουσα καὶ πρὸς τὸ μαρτύριον ἐπαλείφουσα. Ἔνθα πολλαῖς βασάνοις τιμωρηθεὶς, καὶ μαστιχθεὶς, καὶ τυφθεὶς ἀφειδῶς, καὶ κρεμασθεὶς μετὰ λίθου ἀπὸ ἕκτας ἕως δωδεκάτης ὥρας, ἐπεὶ τὸν Χριστὸν διαπρυσίως ἐκήρυττεν, δρεπάνῳ τὸ σχονεῖον τεμὼν αὐτὸς, κάτωθεν συν τῷ λίθῳ ὄρθιος ἵστατο. Ἤδη δὲ βαθείας οὔσης ἑσπέρας, θυμῷ ἀσχέτῳ λειφθεὶς ὁ Καμπανὸς, λαβὼν κάλαμον γραφέως, ἐπὶ τὸ οὖς τοῦ Ἁγίου ἐνέπηξε, καὶ συνωθήσας εἰς τὸ ἐνδότερον ἤλασε. Καὶ αὐτὸς δὲ συν τοῖς στρατιώταις ἀπῆλθε, δώσων τὸ σιτομέτριον· οἱ δὲ Χριστιανοὶ τὸν Ἅγιον ἀράντες ἐπὶ κλίνης, διὰ τὸ πᾶν μέρος λελῦσθαι αὐτοῦ, ἐν οἰκείᾳ χήρας τινὸς ἀπέθεντο. Ἔνθα ἄρτου μεταλαβὼν, καὶ τοῖς παροῦσι Χριστιανοῖς εὐχῆς μεταδοὺς ἀναβλέψας εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν, εὐξάμενος τῷ Θεῷ τὸ πνεῦμα παρέθετο.
[3] On the same day XVII May the contest of the holy Martyr Solochon and his companions. He was Egyptian by birth, under Maximian the Emperor a soldier inscribed in the Order, over which Campanus the Tribune presided, with three thousand other soldiers. When truly by the order of the Emperor Campanus with his men from Egypt to Chalcedon had come, and the same Emperor commanded the Captains, that they should compel the soldiers subject to themselves to sacrifice to idols, and each one with his orders sacrifices should offer; Campanus also his own legion which he led he was compelling the Emperor's command to fulfill. With all moreover sacrificing, three alone resisted, Solochon, and Pamphamer and Pamphalon. the first two are said to have expired during the beating, Who when they preached themselves to be Christians, on that account were so beaten with blows, that their backs swelled and their heads were turned. Under that flagellation failing, they returned their spirit to the Lord Pamphamer and Pamphalon: the Saint truly Solochon when he had recovered somewhat, confidently was invoking Christ, and Campanus the tyrant into desperation he was driving, because inanimate things he was calling Gods. Wherefore the President moved into wrath, ordered his mouth with a sword to be opened, and the wine of libations into it to be infused. But the Saint bit the iron, and broke off a part of it: and when the bonds, by which he was surrounded, he had broken through, opposite before the tyrant he stood, the divinity of Christ magnificently extolling, and the misery of the President deriding. Solochon survived the torments, Then also from above to him a voice descended, composing his soul and to martyrdom inclining. Then with various torments tortured, and flagellated, and cruelly beaten, and with a stone hung from the sixth hour to the twelfth, in all ways openly Christ he was preaching; and the ropes broken by a sickle, on the ground with the stone erect on the ground he stood. Afterwards being late evening the President, with too much fury incandescing, having received the writer's reed, into the ear of the Saint he infixed, and thrust into the inner parts, and there hid. And he himself indeed with his soldiers departed, about to give them the measure of pay; the Christians truly took up the Saint on a bed, of whom all the limbs were dissolved: and placed him in the house of a certain widow: where having taken bread, when for all the Christians present he had poured out prayers, and lifting up to heaven his eyes had prayed, his spirit to God he gave back.
[4] Thus far the Eulogy from the said Ms. Synaxary, which from the greater Acts of the martyrdom to be drawn prove some things, which here are not read, but are had in the other Mss. Menaea above cited and the Menology of Sirletus, namely that bound with ropes, in the stadium upon sharp shells he was dragged seven times, afterwards by the right hand bound on a beam of the house was hung, and with a stone bound to the left foot was weighed down; and then, what above is had, Inscribed in the Roman Martyrol. the rope itself broken on the ground he stood erect. The said Menology being cited these things are had in today's Roman Martyrology: At Chalcedon of the holy Martyrs Solochanus and Companion soldiers under Maximian. But in all the Greeks Σολόχων is written, and the companions Παμφαμὴρ καὶ Παμφαλὼν, in Sirletus Solochanus, Pamphamer, and Pamphalus. Are remembered on the day VI of January in the Ms. Florarium and in Greven in the Auctary of Usuardus, SS. Sulcanus and companion Martyrs, and in Maurolycus and Felicius S. Sultanus Martyr. Of whom defining nothing, we suspected they to be those whose memory we today recall, with the name of him who was principal in the contest somewhat corrupted, as often happens, that of Solochon: to whom in the Ms. Chiffletian this distich is sung. Φυγὼν Σολόχων τοῦ σατανᾶ τοὺς λόγους, Ἄτρωτος ἥκει πρὸς τὸν ὕψιστον Λόγον. Fleeing Solochon the satanic words, to God's supreme Word free from wounds he comes.