ON SS. THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM: GEORGE, JOHN, JULIAN, AND COMPANIONS, UNDER THE SARACENS,
ABOUT THE YEAR 723.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
George, Martyr, at Jerusalem. (S.)
John, Martyr, at Jerusalem. (S.)
Julian, Martyr, at Jerusalem. (S.)
Their 57 Companions, Martyrs, at Jerusalem.
BY V. D. B.
§ single. The Acts of the holy Martyrs; the time of their life; the occasion of the martyrdom; the war between Suleiman and Leo the Isaurian; their cult in the church of St. Stephen at Jerusalem; the fortunes of this church.
Among the remains of our predecessors, which the Burgundian Library, or the royal library of Brussels, now keeps, These Saints became known from a Latin translation of a lost Greek codex; we have found a Latin copy written in the last century by an unknown hand, on the front of which is noted: From a very ancient codex of Pierre Séguier, chancellor of France. It contains the Passion or Martyrdom of the sixty holy recent martyrs who confessed the faith in the holy city of Christ our God, Jerusalem, under the tyranny of the Arabs, and whose solemn day the religious of Jerusalem used to frequent at the church of St. Stephen (as is related there at num. 10) on the twenty-first day of the month of October. But truly that copy is only a translation, and so Séguier's codex must have been Greek, not Latin; since in the margin of that copy many errors in the Greek words are noted, most arising from itacism, which are also ordered there to be corrected. Moreover that Greek codex itself was in the hands of our predecessor Bue; for in some places, where the Latin translator went astray, he corrected the translation, and likewise indicated some Greek words to be changed. But where that codex has now gone is wholly hidden from us; so that not even traces remain by which we might be directed to find it again. Since, however, he who wrote that copy, or rather prepared the Latin translation, most certainly (as is manifest from other papers of the same hand) cultivated Greek letters, and since besides Bue collated this translation with the Greek text, we certainly have something by which the longing for the lost Greek codex may be somewhat appeased.
[2] [and a certain John, a monk, perhaps the Damascene, had had the Greek text prepared from the Syriac.] For the rest, the Greek text itself is not the original work on these holy Martyrs; but, as a certain John, a monk, himself added at num. 11, having read this Passion in Syriac, he asked someone to translate it into Greek. But who was that John, a humble monk, shut up in his lowly cell, and the counsellor and author of preparing this translation? Was it John Damascene, who is so often designated in writings by the sole title of John the monk [Cf. Mai, Spicileg. Rom. vol. V, pref. page XIV and 340, or Acta SS. vol. VIII of Oct. page 854.]; who was much engaged in promoting the cult of the saints; who, being a Damascene and for some time counsellor or protosymbulus of the Caliph, must have been skilled not only in the Greek but also in the Arabic and Syriac languages; who, before he withdrew into the laura of St. Sabas, made a pious pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and certainly returned there often after taking the monastic wool, since he was also afterward created a presbyter by the patriarch of Jerusalem [Cf. the Life of St. John Damasc. with the notes of Lequien, Opp. vol. I, page IX and following, and D. Ceillier, Hist. gén. des auteurs ecclés. vol. SVIII, page 110 and following.]; and who, lastly, was living within that space of time in which that Greek translation was made? No one would deny that these are so many indications; but since the name of John and monastic profession were so common in every age, I would dare indeed to suspect that John Damascene is designated, but by no means to define it.
[3] This Passion labours under some difficulties; But whoever, in the end, had these Acts translated into Greek, their credit seems not to be held of no account, since they are ancient and were written in those very regions in which the events took place. They have, however, difficult passages; which, if we cannot wholly disentangle, we can at least point out. Namely, at num. 4 it is read that in the first times of the tyranny of the Arabs a certain tyrant broke out, by name Solomon, son of Anactodulus, to devour the Roman empire; and that, having undertaken the march and having reached a certain plain of the Roman region, he ordered his army to halt there; at num. 5, that the emperor Leo, the matter being learned, commanded that the wicked man should be overwhelmed by an abundance of waters, which flowed from distant and neighbouring springs, poured out on all sides; then that a pact was entered into between Leo and Solomon for a truce of seven years; toward the end of which, as is related at num. 6, the most holy martyrs, thinking the journey still safe, had gone on pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but on the return they were intercepted by the Saracens and, brought back first to Jerusalem, then to Caesarea, and lastly again, as we have at num. 9, to Jerusalem, they there at length laid down their life for Christ on the cross; having then been buried, as is stated at num. 10, at the church of St. Stephen in the suburbs. This is the sum of the Passion, or Acts.
[4] [Not the time when Suleiman and Leo the Isaurian reigned together, and the siege of Constantinople,] Further, Solomon, son of Anactodulus, is no other than Suleiman, the twelfth caliph and son of Abd al-Malik, whose name no one who has even from afar greeted oriental letters is unaware is rightly expressed word for word by Anactodulus. Now Abd al-Malik had obtained the caliphate in the year of Christ 685, and had laid it down with his life in the year 705, having obtained as successor his eldest son Walid I; and he having died in the month of February of the year 715, another son, namely that very Solomon, or Suleiman, of whom there is talk in our Passion and who put off life on October 3 or 8 of the year 717 [Art de vérifier les dates, vol. I, page 472; Lebeau, Hist. du Bas empire, book LXXXIII, num. 19, vol. XIII, page 302, Paris ed., 1770.]. And the emperor Leo, surnamed the Isaurian, put on the diadem on March 23 of the year 717; which he retained until the day of his death, June 18 of the year 741 Art de vérifier les dates, vol. I, page 722 and 723.. From which it follows that Suleiman and Leo, the former at Baghdad, the latter at Constantinople, reigned together only six months, namely from March 23 to October 3 of the year 717. Wherefore, if one had to adhere strictly to the words, the siege,
of which mention is made in the Passion at num. 4 and 5, and the seven-year truce agreed upon would have to take place within that space of six months, and consequently it would have to be said that the siege of Constantinople is meant, which was begun in the middle of the year 717 and then, prolonged even after Suleiman's death, lasted thirteen months, and so that the truce was made not in the time of Suleiman but of Omar II his successor. But in the history of this siege, collected most accurately from the Arab and Greek historians [Cf. Lebeau, book LXXXIII, num. 18 and following, vol. XIII, page 297 and following.], no trace of any truce whatever occurs; on the contrary, everything tends to exclude it. Add that likewise nothing is met with there about broken aqueducts and other things of that kind; although according to the Passion this matter would have to be reckoned among the principal circumstances of the siege.
[5] but the siege of Amorium and the usurpation of the imperial dignity We must therefore turn elsewhere. And indeed, before Leo had put on the imperial insignia at Constantinople, he had already been proclaimed emperor a whole year before, while the Saracens were besieging Amorium, at that time a city of Galatia Acta SS. vol. I of March, page 457.. For when Maslama, the brother of the caliph Suleiman, had invaded Asia with a huge army, he divided his forces into three columns: of which the first, under the command of Omar, was to hold the coastal route; the second, under a certain Suleiman as commander, was to surround Amorium with works and fortifications; Maslama himself was to follow behind with the third. Further, although there was no military garrison at Amorium, Maslama perceived that the siege would be a long one, having seen the constancy of the citizens. Wherefore, when Leo approached to free the city, Maslama proposed to him the imperial crown and peace, judging that a civil war would arise between Theodosius, ruling at Constantinople, and Leo, usurping the diadem in Asia, and that the strength of the Greeks would melt away through discord. Leo, therefore, came into the camp of the Saracens and was received with much rejoicing. This being learned, the people of Amorium are seized with a kind of frenzy, applaud Leo and proclaim him emperor from the tops of the walls and ramparts. Leo then saw to it that courage was given to the citizens through the bishop, and himself with wonderful daring escaped from the snares of Suleiman. Then, when the Saracens, exasperated against Suleiman, had raised the siege, he sent the general Nicetas with troops into Amorium: so that Maslama understood that he would attack this city in vain, when shortly afterward he was brought there with the third column. He therefore likewise withdrew, and turned aside into Cappadocia, which did not know how to resist his arms. Meanwhile peace was frequently treated of between him and Leo, until the latter, advancing toward Constantinople, compelled Theodosius to lay down the sceptre [Cf. Le Beau, Hist. du Bas-Empire, book LXIII, num. 12, vol. XIII, page 284 and following.].
[6] [seem to be indicated in the Passion. These Martyrs seem to have been natives of Amorium,] Now nothing greatly stands in the way of judging that what is read in the Passion of our martyrs about the abandoned assault on a certain city by the Saracens pertains to the siege of Amorium. In actual truth Amorium was defended not by Leo himself but by the general Nicetas, nor was it held invested by the caliph Suleiman, but by Maslama, the commander of the soldiers: but it has been found that what princes do through others is very often transferred by historians to the princes themselves. And that it is not read that Maslama, before raising the siege, agreed with the people of Amorium on a seven-year truce, ought to delay us little; since very little is known of this siege, and certainly nothing is read by which one might be persuaded that no truce was agreed upon. For the rest, in similar matters a probable conjecture by which difficulties may be resolved, not arguments by which the matter itself may be established, is to be sought. Led, therefore, by that conjecture, we judge that Maslama, having been roughly handled by the people of Amorium, established with them a seven-year truce, not indeed a general one, but one which within this space of time gave the inhabitants of the city free passage through Syria and the other regions obedient to the Saracens. Certainly there was in this age no truce or intermission of wars which pertained to the whole empire. We hold, therefore, that our martyrs were people of Amorium by birth and citizenship, yet distinct from SS. Theophilus the patrician, Melissenus, Aetius, Theodore the protospatharius, Craterus, Callistus, Constantine and Basoes, who in the middle of the ninth century, or in the time of the emperor Theophilus, were captured by the Agarenes, who had made themselves masters of Amorium by the counsel of a certain apostate, were led into Syria, worn down by a seven-year imprisonment, and at length beheaded: of these our predecessors have already spoken at March 6 [Acta SS. vol. I of March, page 457 and following; Cf. D. Ceillier, vol. XIX, page 566.].
[7] They were buried at Jerusalem in the church of St. Stephen; The sixty martyrs were buried at Jerusalem, in the suburbs, at the sacred church of St. Stephen; where John the monk, who gave the counsel for writing the Passion in Greek, piously visited their remains. In the middle of the fifth century this church had been founded by Eudoxia, the unhappy wife of the emperor Theodosius the younger, who in the year 444 had gone to Jerusalem, to give herself thereafter to piety and letters there Art de vérifier les dates vol. I, page 403.. Evagrius namely relates Hist. eccl. book I, chap. 22.: With many men of this kind (namely the monks of Palestine) the wife of Theodosius conversed, and she built many monasteries of this sort, as I said before: she repaired the walls of Jerusalem and made them more beautiful. She built besides a church to the memory of saint Stephen, the first both deacon and martyr, outstanding in splendour and beauty (which indeed is not a furlong distant from the city of Jerusalem); and in it, as soon as she had set out for immortal life, she was buried.
[8] whose fortunes are explained. How long this church lasted is difficult to say. In the older descriptions of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem it is very often passed over in silence. But somewhat before the middle of the twelfth century it still existed, as we have as witness James of Vitry; who, enumerating the holy places near Jerusalem, says Hist. Hierosolym. chap. 67, Gesta Dei per Francos, page 1081, Hanover ed., 1611.: The church of the blessed protomartyr Stephen, in the place where he was stoned by the Jews. But in the fifteenth century only a few traces remained. For in the Evagatorium of Felix Fabri, which Konrad Dieterich Hassler brought out of darkness in the year 1843, you have this [Evagatorium Fr. Felicis Fabri in Terrae Sanctae, Arabiae et Aegypti pereginationem, vol. I, page 370.]: A little way from that rock on which Saul kept the garments of those who stoned, we went down toward the brook Cedron and came to the place in which Stephen was stoned… In that place once stood a venerable church, whose traces, however, can scarcely be made out. For on the left some walls still remain. At the beginning of the seventeenth century not even traces remained: In these times, says Quaresmius Elucidat. Terrae Sanctae, book IV, chap. 2, peregrinat. VIII, vol. II, page 295., there exists no memorial of that church or of the tombs: all things have been consumed and demolished by age, and some ruins and foundations have been covered with earth: for near the holy place is a field. Much more is there no longer any memory there of the holy Martyrs; and indeed their names or feast day are not indicated in the Menology, or rather the Synaxarion, of Jerusalem of the tenth century, which Augustin Scholz published at Bonn in the year 1823 De Menologiis duorum codd. Graec. commentatio, page 5 and following., and much less in the Calendar of the proper feasts of the church of Jerusalem for the Friars Minor In Wadding, Annal. Min. at the year 1342, num. 49.; doubtless because their festival was entirely proper to the church of St. Stephen.
MARTYRDOM
Of the sixty holy recent Martyrs who confessed the faith in the holy city of Christ our God, Jerusalem, under the tyranny of the Arabs; first written in Syriac, then translated into Greek, and here rendered in Latin from the Greek translation:
George, Martyr, at Jerusalem. (S.)
John, Martyr, at Jerusalem. (S.)
Julian, Martyr, at Jerusalem. (S.)
Their 57 Companions, Martyrs, at Jerusalem.
aBY V. D. B.
By divine admonitions Blessed are they who diligently meditate on the law of God day and night and keep it; they will without doubt be brought to the right faith of Christ our God, and will walk in His truth. For, breathed upon by the divine Spirit, they listen to David singing: I have run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou didst enlarge my heart; and to the Lord of knowledge Himself saying: Search the scriptures, and you will find rest for your souls; and again: Ask, and it shall be given you; knock, and it shall be opened to you; seek, and you shall find; for he who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened. And in another place: Him who comes to me I will not cast out.
[2] trained, the sixty holy Martyrs Whence these sixty saints, lovers of the precepts of Christ our God and unconquered martyrs, conspicuous for noble birth, as sprung from the blood of archons, offspring of piety, namely born of parents most commended for the religion of Christ and for virtue, having meditated on the sacred scriptures from their tender years and diligently carried them out, all led by the Holy Spirit, sang this within themselves: The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? And this: I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me: and that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us.
[3] lived most piously; Trained and brought up in these and similar things, they shone like stars in the world, holding fast the word of life, advancing in virtues and shining with good works, adorning themselves with chastity and virginity of body, and beautifying their morals with the endowments of the soul; so that in them was fulfilled this saying of sacred scripture: So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven. For since they were full of good and pious works, of piety and right faith, they were held worthy of the crowns of justice which martyrs seize, and were declared heirs of the heavenly kingdom, and rightly made partakers of those who have pleased God from the beginning of the world. For which cause God is honoured in their sacred commemorations and on the yearly feast days of the Lord's day, and will be honoured for ever and ever.
[4] when war was prepared by Suleiman In the first times of the tyranny of the Arabs there broke out a certain tyrant, by name Solomon, son of Anactodulus b, planning to devour the Roman empire and to take plunder of the Christian nation, and to bring upon it a new servitude according to his own mind and will. When he had equipped his army with all zeal, and had called out into the line of battle generals skilled in the art of war, swordsmen, archers, guards and the common crowd of foot soldiers, supplying arms of every kind, swords, I say, and spears, bucklers and breastplates, helmets and greaves, bows and arrows, shields and slings, and had heaped up the other instruments of war, having undertaken the march and reached a certain plain of the Roman region, he ordered his army to halt there, and thought the soldiers should be exercised.
[5] against Leo the Isaurian, and a seven-year truce established: While these things were being done, the expedition against them, and whatever was being prepared, was reported to the religious emperor of the Romans c. The matter being learned, Leo of blessed memory commanded that the wicked man be overwhelmed with an abundance of waters, which flowed from distant and neighbouring springs, poured out on all sides. This having been carried out with great speed, on account of the unexpected misfortune that went against him, with danger threatening, the wicked and impious tyrant wavered, not knowing what he should do. When a certain eunuch, the most skilful and most cunning of his guards and faithful servants, saw him straitened by the difficulties of his affairs and the anxiety of his mind, he kept asking d that he might be commissioned to go to the tyrant, whom by industry and effort he would rescue from the pressing strait, and free from the flood of waters and their encirclement, packed together like a rampart. The tyrant, who had experience of his great spirit, transported with joy, delegated the eunuch, ordering that whatever he pleased be supplied to him, and that whatever conduced to the business be committed to him to be carried out. Presently the said apostate, who was a crafty and most cunning envoy, having met the most God-loving and most pious emperor, with many supplications persuades the most clement and benign emperor to a truce of seven years, that he might preserve the tyrant unharmed, and that the merchants of both regions and provinces might carry on their business with one another without loss or hindrance, and that those who wished to go to worship at the holy places of our God might come off free and unharmed. An oath having been given first, binding themselves by mutual vows, they entered into this pact. Then, therefore, holding back the waters on every side, they freed the tyrant from his unhappy attack on the region of the Romans and his deadly invasion. Thinking this freedom safe, the merchants passing to and fro on both sides carried on their business, with no one at all forbidding, and many went at their own will to the Holy Land, to the venerable places, I say, of Christ our God, to worship, and pressed on with swift course like stags to the fountains of waters.
[6] when it ended, 70 Jerusalem pilgrims are captured and led to Caesarea; In the seventh year from the making of the pact there went thither in good faith seventy nobles, kindled with the desire of revisiting the beloved places, borne in four-horse chariots and furnished with a variety of arms, with a suitable retinue of guards, mules laden with baggage, and much money. And when they had made the journey safely, and had hung up gifts at the holy places, and had distributed the greatest abundance of the things they were carrying to the poor, and had gone through all the rich monasteries of the desert, and had celebrated pious banquets in common, being refreshed as with a viaticum by the prayers of the holy fathers striving up even to heaven, they set out on the road to their native soil, to see their parents and friends again; and, not knowing that the seven years of the pact had elapsed, they came to the Fountain of the Colony e, distant about three milestones from the holy City of Christ our God. The Arabs living in the holy city, the enemy who from every age presses implacable war inciting them, roused to envy, invoked the truce decreed for a fixed time. They pursue them from behind in troops, as the pact being now obsolete, and seizing them proclaim that the truce has been completed, and, having brought them back to Jerusalem, cast them into prison, until they should report the matter by letter to the consul at Caesarea, who at that time ruled all Palestine and held the helm of government in it, making known to him in writing that the appointed time of the pact had run out. He wrote back that they should be sent to him with their goods; and when they had come to the chief city of Caesarea, he shut them up in the public prison. At once he writes to the governor for a summary sentence of death against them; but the latter writes back such a letter as commands that they first be removed from the Christian worship: If they comply, we order their arms with their horses to be handed over, but allow them to have the use and supply of their servants and mules. But if they refuse, and persevere in their faith, we command that, having been subjected to torments and death, they be at length fastened to the cross.
[7] whence, tried in many ways, Having received this letter, the governor of Caesarea, having brought the servants of God out of prison, recited the tyrant's mandate before them. Having heard it, with one mind and one voice they answered, crying out as from one mouth: We are Christians; we will by no means deny the right faith of our fathers; we adore, namely, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; we worship God three in the same substance; in three single persons we venerate one Deity, in which we were baptized for the remission of sins. We look also for the resurrection from the dead, and the life of the world to come, and the retribution of deeds: this is the true confession, apart from which there is no true faith. Behold, we are present before you today, and our possessions. Do to our bodies whatever you have decreed, for our souls, over which you have no power, we commend into the hands of God. Having heard these things, the exarch of Caesarea, enticing them with blandishments, allurements of words and every kind of inducement, and terrifying them with threats, when he had tried to overcome the spirit of the saints and had not been able to tear them away from faith in Christ, ordered them to be tortured, slain with the sword, and fixed to a stake.
[8] [at their own request they are sent to Jerusalem; where they arrange for a tomb to be bought for themselves,] Then three illustrious ones of the saints, George, John and Julian, addressed him in these words: Whatever we possess openly is yours, as being your chattels; but hidden things are laid up by us; which, if we do not disclose them, you will not obtain. If you assent to our wishes, we will disclose them to you, and you shall enjoy all without distinction. The governor, taking this up, replied: What are your requests? The saints George, John and Julian answered him in these words: We ask you to take us back to Jerusalem and to carry out your king's mandate before the gates, where the foundations of the tower of the prophet David f are laid. The governor assented to the request. Then they handed over their open and hidden possessions, except fifteen coins, which they gave as a gift to John, a pious man of Caesarea, who had seemed suitable for the accomplishment of their wish. They say to him: Brother John, by the kindness of divine help we are led to hope that, when we have been taken back to Jerusalem according to the mandate of this governor, firm constancy in torments will be given us, and that we shall be made worthy there of the crowns with which martyrs are adorned. Do you, then, accept this ministry: buy us a place of our own in which our remains may be laid, until our maker shall command, and the new resurrection take place, and the retribution of each one's works. We trust that you will receive a reward from the mercy of the most clement God.
[9] [and they die on the cross, three having died on the way, seven in punishment of their apostasy;] Then, therefore, the saints, according to their desire, were taken back from Caesarea to Jerusalem by order of the governor. While they were being brought back into the city, three of them gave up their life on the journey. As the punishment of the cross pressed upon them, fear seized seven of the survivors, wretched and foolish, who, having fallen away from the faith on the same day, were seized with dysentery and perished within a few days, unhappy men, cheated of the present and the future age. But the holy martyrs of Christ, heaped with many and intolerable torments, were fastened alive to the cross, and pierced on all sides with darts by the lictors, so that no part of their body was left without a wound. In this torment they commended their souls exultantly into the hands of God, imitating the saints and princes of the apostles Peter and Paul, who for our Lord Jesus Christ, our true God, and for the genuine confession, poured out their venerable blood, giving thanks to Christ our God; who made them worthy to drink the cup which He Himself drank for us; who furnished His resurrection from the dead after three days as the pattern and example of our salvation.
[10] they are buried and venerated in the church of St. Stephen. John, most ardent with the love of God, when he had gone from Caesarea to Jerusalem, having purchased a place in the suburbs at the sacred church of saint Stephen g, near which the saints had desired, after some days obtained by prayers that the bodies of the sixty holy martyrs be taken down from the cross, which he laid in the aforesaid place, for the celebration of their memory and the solemn feast day, which the religious of Jerusalem frequent on the twenty-first day of the month of October, to the good pleasure of God, to whom be glory and might for ages of ages. Amen.
[11] I, John h, a humble monk shut up in my lowly little cell, giving myself to reading, read in Syriac, with other Acts of Martyrs, these Acts of the Sixty holy Martyrs. [Their Passion, written in Syriac, is translated into Greek through the care of John the monk,] Having gone to Jerusalem some time afterward to worship at the holy places, having inquired about the place where the saints rest, I came to it, and, having religiously embraced the sacred relics of the saints, I was persuaded by those who had received benefit of the cures which are wrought by their help. It seemed good to my lowliness to ask someone to put the aforesaid Acts into Greek. And he, having translated them according to his strength, as he had been asked, seeks with me the protection of the sixty holy martyrs, and as a reward from God the compunction of those who hear these Acts; by the patronage of those with whom may the Lord, God full of mercy, give us a part and inheritance on the day of judgment. Amen. So be it.