ON ST. DROSIS, VIRGIN AND MARTYR, AND PERHAPS FIVE OTHER MARTYRS, AT ANTIOCH IN SYRIA,
AT ANTIOCH IN SYRIA
CRITICAL COLLECTION
From the Calendars of the Greeks, and from St. John Chrysostom.
Drosis, virgin and martyr, at Antioch in Syria. (S.)
Perhaps five others, at Antioch in Syria.
BY J. S.
[Drosis the virgin, with five other Martyrs, is celebrated on this day among the Greeks] When our Predecessors found, at the twenty-second of March, in the Menæa of the Greeks, the eulogy of a certain Drosis, as though she were the daughter of the emperor Trajan, together with five other Martyrs — a eulogy defiled with many fables — and perceived that the same woman is again briefly commemorated on this day in various Calendars of the Greeks, they referred the whole matter to this place for further examination. And so, about to undertake that examination, I shall first set forth the passages of the Calendars at this day in which she is treated. The Sirletian Menology has it thus: "On the same day, the commemoration of the holy martyr Drozela, daughter of the emperor Trajan, with five Companions." The printed Menæa have in Greek what I express in Latin: "On the same day, of the holy martyr Drozela, daughter of the emperor Trajan, and of her five Companions, Canonesses." In the manuscript Synaxary often praised, which belonged to Sirmond, we read: "The contest of the holy martyr Drusila, daughter of the emperor Trajan, and of five Women with her." The name indeed is here expressed in differing ways, Drozela and Drusila: yet no other woman is designated than she who is consistently called Drosis in the lengthy eulogy at the twenty-second of March. For in both places she is asserted to be the daughter of the emperor Trajan, and is joined with five Companions. Those five, however, if we believe the eulogy, completed their martyrdom before Drosis, even though all six are said to have been seized together. The eulogy just praised, moreover, since it seems fabulous, I shall not recite; but for our purpose it will be enough to give a short summary of it.
[2] Five pious women, who from their religious life are called canonesses, and at the 22nd of March they are praised with a longer eulogy: are said to have dwelt together for the purpose of burying in their house the bodies of the martyrs, which they carried off secretly. When the matter was understood, Drosis, the daughter of Trajan, as is reported, joined herself to the others. Then all were seized together while they were endeavoring after their custom to carry off the bodies, and were brought before Trajan. He, moreover, ordered the five Canonesses to be burned in a furnace, but Drosis to be committed to custody. After many absurdities, Trajan is said to have arranged that two furnaces should be kindled daily, and, having pronounced sentence upon them, to have warned the Christians that they should throw themselves, as men about to die, into one or the other of the furnaces. And when many did this (if anyone is willing to believe the Menæa), Drosis, desiring to imitate their example, secretly escaped from prison. But recalling that she had not yet been washed in holy baptism, she cast herself into a vessel of water, and herself pronounced the words which the Greeks employ in baptizing. Then for seven days she gave herself to prayer, and on the eighth day, after her prayer, about to complete what she had begun, she passed to the Lord. By these last words it is hinted, though not clearly declared, that Drosis threw herself of her own accord into the furnace. I do not doubt that nearly all of it is fabulous. Yet when I compare that eulogy with the Homily which St. John Chrysostom delivered near Antioch on the festival of St. Drosis, virgin and martyr, I am persuaded that the very woman of whom Chrysostom said a few things is the one celebrated in the Calendars of the Greeks.
[3] she seems to be the same St. Drosis of whom Chrysostom spoke. For besides the name of Drosis, which we know to have belonged to no other martyr, certain other things could have been taken from Chrysostom. Chrysostom celebrates a tender and young Virgin; such also the Greeks present their own in the Menæa. Both the Greeks and Chrysostom present Drosis as burned with fire. Moreover, Chrysostom nowhere asserts that Drosis was cast into the flames by the infidels, but speaks so ambiguously that one might easily suppose that she leaped into the fire of her own accord, as the Greeks believed of their own. So often too does Chrysostom repeat that Drosis was purged by fire, and he declares it in such words that he seems to have wished to suggest that the Saint was baptized in no other way than in her own blood. For besides other things to be read below, he says that she passed to heaven, "Christ himself holding with an invisible hand the holy head of the Martyr, and baptizing her with fire as though in water." αὐτοῦ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἀοράτῳ χειρὶ τὴν ἁγίαν τῆς μάρτυρος κατέχοντος κεφαλὴν, καὶ καθάπερ ἐν ὕδατι βαπτίζοντος τῷ πυρὶ. And so the Greeks appear to celebrate the same Drosis as Chrysostom, but to have amplified with various fictions those few things which were known about her martyrdom. Concerning the five women, however, by whom the Greeks say Drosis was converted, and who had been burned several days before her, Chrysostom has nothing; and by his silence about them the whole matter becomes less certain. For this reason I have neither wished to assert with certainty the cult of those five, nor do I so certainly believe the Drosis of Chrysostom to be the same as the one commemorated today in the Menæa that no doubt can remain.
[4] St. Drosis was venerated near Antioch, and being young in age Nevertheless, since from the name and the other circumstances already mentioned it becomes most probable that the Drosis of Chrysostom is celebrated today in the Calendars of the Greeks, and that she whom Chrysostom had celebrated in an oration, and whose cult he had made known, has not been passed over by the Greeks — I here bring over such Acts of that Drosis as there are, excerpted from the oration of Chrysostom. That Homily is read in the most recent edition of the Works of Chrysostom, tome 2, page 688, where it bears this title: "A panegyric of the great and holy martyr Drosis, and on the remembrance of death." After many things by no means necessary to our purpose, he speaks thus at number 2: "For this reason indeed I praise this noble father (Flavian, bishop of Antioch), that, seizing the occasion of a serene day, he has led us out hither, with the Blessed Drosis, whose memory we celebrate, going before us and showing us the way." From these words we learn that the festival of St. Drosis was celebrated in the time of Chrysostom outside the city of Antioch. For thither Flavian had led the people of Antioch, together with Chrysostom, to celebrate the memory of the Saint, buried in that same place with many other martyrs, as is clear from what follows, in which he proves that it is profitable to visit the relics of the martyrs. Then at number 3, advancing gradually to the contests of St. Drosis, he affirms in general terms that she strove bravely and manfully, and that neither sex nor age was a hindrance, touching briefly on that occasion upon the Saint's qualities thus: "For her body was weak, and her sex liable to injury, and her age the younger. Yet the grace that came upon her hid the weakness of all these, when it found a noble alacrity of mind, and a steadfast faith, and a soul prepared to undergo dangers. For there is nothing, nothing at all, more powerful than one who with great zeal holds the fear of God fixed in his mind; but though enemies threaten fires, though the sword, though beasts, though anything else whatever, he despises all without difficulty — which indeed that blessed Drosis also did."
[5] "For after the tyrant kindled the pyre — for he neither hurled her headlong into a pit, she bore the fire for the love of Christ nor beheaded her, lest the brevity of the punishment should make the contest easier for her, but, wishing to strike terror into her soul and to overcome her unconquered mind by the sight of the pyre, he brought it forth into the midst. When therefore he had kindled the pyre and set the furnace ablaze, and it was raised to the greatest height, the blessed Martyr, when she beheld these things, was herself also inflamed and burned with the love of Christ, and, mindful of the three youths, reckoned within herself that she was coming into the fellowship of their contests, and that the same crowns were being placed upon her as upon them. And just as men in a frenzy see none of the things which are beheld as it truly is, but whether they see a sharpened sword, they easily rush headlong upon it, or a pyre, or a pit, or a precipice, or the sea, or anything else whatever, they fling themselves fearlessly into all: so also she, seized not by such a frenzy — far be it — but by another, more honorable than any prudence, and seized by the love of Christ, looked upon none of the things set before her eyes, but, carried over into heaven and already migrating thither in mind, despised all evils, and considered the fire to be not fire but dew."
[6] "Wherefore I call that pyre both a fountain of the clearest waters, she bore it bravely, and a certain surpassing dye, and a smelting furnace. For as gold in the furnace, so was her blessed soul rendered purer by that pyre. For her flesh was melted, and her bones were roasted, her sinews were burned up, and the corruption of the body flowed down on every side: but the faith of her soul became firmer and more splendid. And they indeed, seeing these things, judged that she was perishing: but she was being further purified. And just as with gold, the unskilled man who stands by, and sees it melted and flowing away and mingled with ash, thinks that it is perishing and being corrupted; but the craftsman, and he who knows these things well, knows that in this way it is made purer, and after the burning draws it out and composes it splendid on every side: so indeed it happened also to her. The infidels indeed, when they saw her flesh melted and flowing away, judged that she was going into ash and dust: but the faithful knew exactly that, thus melted, she was laying aside all defilements, and, having obtained immortality, was ascending more splendid."
[7] "Nay, upon the very pyre, before the resurrection, she was in a certain wonderful manner conquering the adverse powers. and by it she is said to have been marvelously purged. For her flesh, dissolved by the fire, when it gave forth a crackling, most easily put them to flight. And just as a noble soldier, girt about with brazen arms, strikes terror into the more timid of his adversaries by the very clang of his arms: so indeed
did the blessed Drosis at that time put those powers to flight by the crackling of her skin. And not only in this way, but again in another no less than this. For as soon as she entered the pyre, and the smoke ascending on high filled the air, it suffocated all the demons flying through the air, drove away the devil, and cleansed the very nature of the air. For since the air had been defiled by the smoke of the idols, in place of that smoke another was ascending, to wipe away the filth brought upon it by them. Certainly the comparison of a fountain is admirably suited to that pyre. For just as if she had put off her garment at a fountain and washed her body, so, putting off her body in that flame more easily than any garment, and rendering her soul bright, she hastened to her Bridegroom escorted by the angels. For if angels led away that Lazarus who was full of sores to the bosom of Abraham, much more did they escort her as she departed, and, as though she were taken up from a certain sacred chamber and bridal room, led her from the furnace to the heavenly Bridegroom. But for what reason have I also called that pyre a dye? Because indeed, being steeped as it were in a certain marvelous dye, when she had been made royal purple, she was sent to the heavenly King, and with much confidence entered those heavenly seats: which came to pass while Christ with his invisible hand held the holy head of the Martyr, and plunged her in the flames as though in waters." Thus far Chrysostom concerning St. Drosis, subjoining thereafter a moral instruction. In the conclusion, however, he again briefly asserts the festival and the martyrdom of St. Drosis in these words: "God, who granted to this Blessed woman, who has gathered us together on this day, that she should enter the contest, and wrestle, and conquer, and be adorned with a crown," and so forth.
[8] The improbable conjecture of Ruinart concerning Drosis, For the rest, Ruinart likewise gave the Acts of St. Drosis from Chrysostom among his Selected Acts of the Martyrs, page 536 and following. He confesses in the same place that he did not find the name of Drosis in the Martyrologies. He offers, however, a conjecture about Drusus, who at the fourteenth of December is announced at Antioch in most Martyrologies together with Zozimus and Theodore, because in the Epternach codex the reading is Drusina. Castellanus, at the fourteenth of December, believed that conjecture probable, and therefore announced Drosis on that day; but at this day, the twenty-second of September, Drozela with five Companions. But the conjecture of Ruinart and Castellanus does not seem to me even probable, even if I could find the Drosis of Chrysostom nowhere else, because a single Hieronymian copy, against the consensus of the others and against the martyrologists of the Middle Ages, who had less corrupt Hieronymian codices, cannot render the reading Drusina probable. Moreover, if Drusina were altogether to be read, even so it would scarcely become probable that the Drosis of Chrysostom was designated, since she alone is celebrated, whereas Drusus — or, if anyone should for the moment so wish, Drusina — is celebrated with Companions. But our Drosis, who is elsewhere written Drozela, has nothing which conflicts with likelihood, nothing which does not favor it.
[9] for whom our own is most probably substituted. The name is plainly the same in Chrysostom and in the Menæa, the punishment the same: the Drosis of the Menæa underwent martyrdom alone (her Companions having been crowned before her and in another place), and she is celebrated alone by Chrysostom. Chrysostom does not declare the place of the martyrdom: the Greeks likewise are silent about it. We indeed know, from Flavian the bishop who is mentioned in Chrysostom's Homily, that the discourse was delivered near Antioch. But the Greeks probably did not attend to this. Finally, the furnace set forth by the tyrant for terror, and the purgation in fire so often repeated, altogether suggest the Drosis of the Menæa: nor is any word found in the Menæa about Drosis which cannot be reconciled with the sayings of Chrysostom. And so we judge that the Drosis or Drozela who is commemorated among the Greeks at the twenty-second of March and at this day is altogether the same as she whom Chrysostom praises. We do not, however, admit the inventions of the Greeks, who both called her the daughter of Trajan, and set forth in the Menæa certain other things which are, as appears, fabulous, concerning her and concerning the five Martyrs with whom she is said to have been seized. For this reason we leave uncertain the time of the martyrdom, which Chrysostom nowhere assigned.