ON SS. CAESARIUS AND DACIUS AND COMPANIONS, MARTYRS AT DAMASCUS,
PERHAPS UNDER GALERIUS, IN THE YEAR CCCV.
CommentaryCaesarius, martyr at Damascus. (S.)
Dacius, martyr at Damascus. (S.)
Companions, martyrs at Damascus. (SS.)
BY G. V. H.
Again there occurs a glorious company of martyrs, celebrated by Greeks and Latins, whom the city of Damascus sent on, distinguished with the laurel, to Christ. Of whom we grieve that nothing to us except the bare names,
the honor of martyrdom and the place of the contest have become known.
Nor, for one searching through everything, does anything turn up by which we may be led to determine the year of the martyrdom or the time of the persecution. If conjectures are to be indulged, one could suspect that they are among the innumerable martyrs whom the most ferocious rage of the persecutors slaughtered under Galerius Maximian throughout all Asia, chiefly about the year 305, the fourth of that persecution. Caesarius and Dacius, whom alone the Roman Martyrology names, appear to have been the leaders of this glorious crown of martyrs: At Damascus the passion of Saints Caesarius, Dacius and five others. The Greek metrical martyrology has the name of Caesarius alone, to whom it adds six companions:
Σὺν ἓξ συνάθλοις τῆς ἀληθείας φίλοις Τέμνουσι Καισάριον οἱ ψεύδους φίλοι.
With six sons of truth they killed Caesarius, those sons of lies.
From the Milan codex D. 74. sup., p. 41, I have copied the following: Τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ (that is, 1 November) ἄθλησις τῶν ἁγίων μαρτύρων Καισαρείου, Δασείου, Σάβα, Σαβιανοῦ, Ἀγρίππα, Ἀδριανοῦ καὶ Θωμᾶ τοῦ νηπίου καὶ τῆς συνοδίας αὐτῶν ἐν Δαμασκῷ τελειωθέντων. On the same day the contest of the holy martyrs Caesarius, Dacius, Sabas, Sabianus, Agrippa, Adrian and Thomas the infant, and of their company, who were consummated at Damascus.
From this notice we learn two things: first, the names of the five companions whom the Roman fasti merely indicate; second, that other martyrs too are to be numbered with the first seven. The Synaxarion of Sirmond ends this notice thus: τῶν ἐν Δαμασκῷ διαφόροις βασάνοις δοκιμασθέντων κἀκεῖσε τελειωθέντων· ὧν ἡ σύναξις τελεῖται ἐν τῷ μαρτυρείῳ τοῦ ἁγίου μάρτυρος Θεοδώρου, τῷ ὄντι πλησίον τοῦ Τετραπύλου. Who at Damascus were tried by various tortures and were consummated there; whose synaxis is held in the martyrium of the holy martyr Theodore, which is near the Tetrapylum. The Menologion of Sirleto celebrates the memory of these martyrs in these words: On the same day (1 Nov.) the Natal Day of the holy martyrs Caesarius, Dacius, and five others. These holy men, held in the city of Damascus and examined by various tortures, were cut down by the sword. What is affirmed here of the tortures and the sword signifies only the general form of martyrdom, and the author knew nothing more than others here.