ON SS. LUCIUS AND CHAEREMON AND OTHERS UNNAMED, AT ALEXANDRIA OR PERHAPS ELSEWHERE IN EGYPT,
AT ALEXANDRIA OR PERHAPS ELSEWHERE IN EGYPT.
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE THIRD CENTURY, NOW ELAPSED.
SYLLOGE.
Lucius, at Alexandria or perhaps elsewhere in Egypt. (S.)
Chaeremon, at Alexandria or perhaps elsewhere in Egypt. (S.)
Others unnamed, at Alexandria or perhaps elsewhere in Egypt.
BY C. B.
The Sirletian Menology today celebrates Faustus, Gaius, Eusebius, and Chaeremon thus:
The birthday of the holy martyrs
Faustus, [Lucius and Chaeremon, who are today inscribed with others in the sacred calendars,] Gaius, Eusebius, and Chaeremon, deacons. These were disciples of the Great Dionysius, and deacons of our Lord Jesus Christ; and Gaius indeed and Faustus, having been driven into exile with their master and having endured many torments, received the end of martyrdom. Eusebius and Chaeremon, after their master's exile, visiting the Saints who were in the prisons and burying the relics of the martyrs, survived down to the times of Decius, enduring many trials for the confession of Christ, on account of which they were arrested and beheaded. With the Sirletian Menology the printed Menaea of the Greeks agree almost word for word; and although the Basilian Menology differs somewhat both from these and from the Sirletian in the particulars of the elogium with which it adorns the Saints, it nevertheless announces the same men today. The same is also done by several of the sacred calendars of the Latins, and among these by the present-day Roman Martyrology itself.
[2] This latter, moreover, which has frequently been enlarged from Saints taken over from the Sirletian Menology, they were originally drawn from Eusebius. supplies today the following announcement, most probably likewise drawn from the Sirletian, to which however Lucius, not expressed in the Sirletian, is added: At Alexandria, the holy presbyters and deacons Gaius, Faustus, Eusebius, Chaeremon, Lucius, and their companions; of whom some were made martyrs in the persecution of Valerian, while others, by serving the martyrs, received the reward of martyrs. The Saints brought forward in the sacred calendars which I have now reviewed are those who are mentioned by Eusebius in book 6, chapter 40, and book 7, chapter XI, and who with Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, endured very many things when the persecution against the Christians was stirred up at Alexandria and in Egypt. This is clear both from the fact that in the encomium already given from the Sirletian Menology at n. 1 they are said to have been disciples of the Great Dionysius, and from the fact that they are namesakes of those whom Eusebius, in the passages just cited, reports to have been associates or companions of St. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, in the hardships of the persecutions. But although those Saints, as you will rightly have gathered from what has now been said, were most probably drawn originally from the approved fountain of Eusebius, we are nevertheless not to treat here of all and each of them. For of Eusebius we have already treated on the third of July; and of Caius or Gaius and Faustus on the preceding day.
[3] certain things concerning Chaeremon from Eusebius Hence it now remains that I treat here of Lucius and Chaeremon alone; for as regards the unnamed Companions who are joined to the Saints expressly named in the announcement of the Roman Martyrology given above, since it is obscure which of them are announced nowhere else in the Martyrologies and could accordingly be given today, I shall declare nothing of them by name, content to assert from Eusebius that they were the companions of Dionysius of Alexandria in the hardships of the persecutions. And so, dismissing those Saints who are left unnamed in the Roman Martyrology, I dispatch what is to be said of Lucius and Chaeremon. Chaeremon, when the persecution against the Christians was stirred up by Valerian in the year 257, accompanied Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, to Aemilian, the Augustal prefect, before whom the latter had been summoned; and having fearlessly confessed the faith in the prefect's presence, he was driven into exile with Dionysius. This is taught in Eusebius, book 7, chapter XI, by Dionysius himself in his letter against Germanus, which therefore the diligent reader may consult. Further, Chaeremon, before he confessed Christ before Aemilian in the persecution of Valerian, had already earlier in the Decian persecution proved himself fearless in the most immediate dangers, and kindled with genuine charity toward his neighbor. This is taught again in Eusebius by Dionysius of Alexandria himself, in the letter which, while the Decian persecution lasted, he wrote to Domitius and Didymus.
[4] as also concerning Lucius. Neither died before the year 250, I set down here his words, since they teach at the same time what pertains to Lucius. They run thus: In the city (that is, Alexandria) there hid themselves, in order to visit the brethren secretly, the presbyters Maximus, Dioscorus, Demetrius, and Lucius … and as deacons, surviving after those who were consumed by disease, Faustus, Eusebius, Chaeremon. Now since from this it becomes plain that Chaeremon survived alive down to the persecution of Valerian, and Lucius likewise down to the persecution of Decius; and since the persecution of Decius began in the year 250, and that of Valerian in the year 257, it follows that Lucius and Chaeremon did not die before the year 250; and this is why I have written above in the margin "the middle of the third century, now elapsed." But, you will say, can the time at which the Saints exchanged this mortal life for the immortal not be more closely determined? The elogium recited above from the Sirletian Menology does indeed intimate that Chaeremon consummated his martyrdom in the Decian persecution. But since, from what has been said, Chaeremon survived alive down to the persecution of Valerian, that is most certainly foreign to the truth. As regards Lucius, the Sirletian makes no mention of him, and nothing occurs anywhere by which I might determine the year of his death.
[5] Nor can it better be determined in what place, and by what kind of death, violent or natural, the Saints closed their last day. nor can the year of their death or the manner of their death be determined. The present-day Roman Martyrology indeed assigns them to Alexandria; but since I have nowhere found any sufficiently solid foundation for holding that they died at Alexandria, I prefer to believe them to have died at Alexandria or elsewhere in Egypt, rather than in the determinate city of Alexandria. As regards the manner of death by which they closed their last day, of Lucius this is altogether obscure; but as regards Chaeremon, the Sirletian, with which the printed Menaea agree, says indeed that he expired by beheading; yet since it asserts at the same time that Eusebius — who nevertheless, as you will easily understand from what is said of him on the third of July, was made bishop of Laodicea and rested in peace — passed to the Lord by the same kind of punishment, it deserves here no credit at all. And so both the manner of death by which the Saints died and the determinate year in which they died are obscure, and nothing is known of them with certainty except what we have brought forward above from Eusebius.