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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
OF THE PRIMITIVE
CHURCH

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
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LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
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THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
OF THE PRIMITIVE
CHURCH

BY

ARTHUR JAMES MASON, D.D.
IP
MASTER OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
AND CANON OF CANTERBURY

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1905
All rights reserved

MY FIRST BOOK,
ON THE PERSECUTION OF DIOCLETIAN, WAS DEDICATED
TO MY FATHER,
I DEDICATE THIS SEQUEL,
AFTER AN INTERVAL OF NEARLY THIRTY YEARS,
TO MY MOTHER,
BY BIRTH A MITFORD OF MITFORD,
WHO AT THE AGE OF EIGHTY-FOUR YEARS STILL SHOWS
AN ALERTNESS OF INTELLECT WHICH HER CHILDREN
MAY WELL ENVY, AND WHOSE FAITH AND
CHARACTER WILL REMAIN AN
INSPIRATION TO THEM AS
LONG AS THEY LIVE.

PREFACE
This book is not written for the learned world, but to
introduce to the ordinary reader some of the most
trustworthy of the records of the primitive martyrs and
confessors. In accordance with this object, I have not
judged it necessary or expedient to discuss questions
which are of much interest to the historian, but which
might be repellent to others, concerning the age and
authenticity of some of the documents used, or with
regard to the trustworthiness of the several narratives.
It will, I hope, be enough to say, that no narrative has
been inserted in this book which may not be considered
historically true, though in some cases the portions here
given have been disentangled from a good deal vifhich is
fictitious. This is particularly the case with the Roman
martyrdoms, such as those of Caecilia and Sebastian ;
but it holds good also with regard to some of the
Eastern martyrdoms, like that of Theodore the Tiro.
It would probably be possible, by a similar process of
sorting and sifting, to extract something like history out
of a good many other Acts and Passions. Le Blant,
amongst others, has shown how often material of real
value is embedded in the midst of worthless and tire
some legend. But I do not think that the book as a
whole would gain by the insertion of a large number
of doubtful reconstructions. Such narratives as those
of Polycarp and the martyrs of Lyons, of Perpetua,
Cyprian, Montanus, and Marian, of the martyrs of

viii PREFACE
Palestine under Diocletian, and of the forty-nine
martyrs of Abitina, would be less effective for the
purpose which this book has in view, if they were lost
in a mass of others standing in constant need of
apology. If I have omitted some narratives which have
met with acceptance from many critics — for instance,
the Acts of Afra — it has been because I could not bring
myself to consider them historical.
The footnotes are only intended, as a rule, to tell
the reader where he may find the original documents
from which the narratives have been taken. The great
storehouse is, of course, the Acta Sanctorum, supple
mented here and there by the Analecta Bollandiana;
and, for the last part of the year, which the Bollan-
dists have not yet reached, by Surius' Vitae Sanctorum.
The most useful collection of Acts of Martyrs is Ruinart's
Acta primorum Martyrum. It has passed through several
editions ; the one which I use is the Verona edition of
1 73 1. The chief fault of Ruinart is that, as a rule, he
only gives his documents in Latin, even where the
original was certainly Greek, and when it was easily
accessible. Modern collections in a convenient form,
and to be had cheaply, are those of H. Hurter (vol. xiii,
of his Patrum Opuscula Selecta — all in Latin, Innsbruck,
1870), of R. Knopf {Ausgewahlte Mdrtyreracten, in Kriiger's
Sammlung ausgew. Quellenschriften, Tubingen and Leipzig,
1 901), and of O. von Gebhardt (^Ausgewahlte Mdrtyrer
acten, Berlin, 1902). Hurter's is the least valuable of
the three ; it makes no attempt to represent the ad
vance of criticism with regard to the documents which
it includes. Among collections of documents translated
into modern languages may be named H. Leclercq's
Les Martyrs (2 vols., Paris, 1903), F. C. Conybeare's
Monuments of Early Christianity (translated from the

PREFACE ix
Armenian, London, 1894), and H. Hyvernat's Actes des
Martyrs de I'tgypte (in Coptic, with French translation,
Paris and Rome, 1886-7). No Englishman can forget
the Acts and Monuments of Foxe, the first volume of which
contains translations of such of the best documents as
Foxe had access to : it is a pity that he did not know
some of the finest, like the Passion of Perpetua.
Works which deal critically with the Acts of the
Martyrs are many in number. I will here name a
few only. Tillemont's great Me'moires pour servir still
remains the indispensable guide of all who work in this
field of history. B. Aub^, in his Histoire des Persecutions
(3 vols., 1875-85), comes down to the end of the third
century ; P. AUard's Histoire des Persecutions (5 vols.,
1885-1900) comes down to the peace of the Church
under Constantine. The student will find help in
E. Preuschen's contribution on the Acts of the Mar
tyrs to Harnack's Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur
(Leipzig, 1893-97), ^'^^ ^" O- Bardenhewer's Geschichte
der Altkirchlichen Litteratur, vol. ii. pp. 6x1 foil. (Freiburg
im Breisgau, 1903), and for the period before Decius
in K. J. Neumann's Romische Staaf und die allgemeine
Kirche (Leipzig, 1890).
There is one dear and honoured friend, whose
name I must take leave to mention here with deep
gratitude for help received in connexion with these
pages. Monsieur Alexis Larpent, who will ever be
associated in my mind with the revered memory of
Archbishop Benson and with his Cyprian, has been
kind enough, amidst many physical infirmities and the
duties of a busy life, to place his great erudition and
his vigilant accuracy at my service, and has given me
invaluable criticisms and suggestions extending through
the first fifteen chapters of the book. b

X PREFACE
In sending this book to the press, it is my hope and
prayer that it may not only instruct and interest, but
that it may serve to stimulate its readers to a more
ardent devotion to the great cause for which the
martyrs suffered. They suffered for liberty of con
science, and the service which they thus did for man
kind can never be exaggerated. But it was not for
liberty of conscience as an abstract principle. They
died for their loyalty to One Holy God amidst the im
moralities of a corrupt polytheism. They died because
they would not even pretend to put anything else on
the same level with the Son of God who was crucified
for them. They died because they would not abandon
the Gospels which tell of His incarnate life, nor absent
themselves from the Eucharist which He instituted to
be the bond between Himself and us, and between
us amongst ourselves. This faith requires to be held
to-day with a force of conviction like theirs ; and
perhaps there is no better way to brace and strengthen
our Christian principles than by dwelling often upon
the triumphs which the same faith has won in the
past. Cambridge, Si. Matthias' Day, 1905.

CONTENTS

I. The Martyrs of the Apostolic Age ,
"^il. Ignatius and Polycarp ....
/III. Justin and the Martyrs of Lyons .
IV. Carpus, Caecilia, and Apollonius
V. Perpetua 
VI. Martyrs or Alexandria ; Polyeuctus
VII. PioNius and Achatius
VIII. Cyprian 
IX. Montanus and Flavian ; Marian and James
X. Lawrence and Fructuosus .
XI. The Beginnings of Diocletian .
XII. Hadrian and Natalia; Lucian ; Theodotus
XIII. The Forty of Sebastia 
XIV. Tarachus, Probus, and Andronicus .
XV. The Martyrs of Palestine ....
XVI. Phileas; Timothy and Maura; Didymus .
XVII. Philip and Hermes; Irene and her Sisters
XVIII. IrENAEUS and QUIRINUS 
XIX. Sebastian; Alban; Vincent; Eulalia ,
XX. The African Martyrs 

Index of Names
Index of Subjects

I
13
336077
107 123
J51173
192
205
220 241
259
283
310332347
363386
417
421

Quorum intuentes exitum conversationis
imitamini fidem. Heb. xiii. 7.

THE
HISTORIC MARTYRS OF THE
PRIMITIVE CHURCH
CHAPTER I
THE MARTYRS OF THE APOSTOLIC AGE
Our Lord warned His disciples that they would be
made to suffer for His sake, as He Himself suffered.
He told them that they would be delivered into prison?
and brought before kings and rulers, that some of them
would be scourged in the synagogues and persecuted
from city to city, some of them killed and crucified.
He said that they would be hated of all men ; that they
would be betrayed by parents, and brethren, and kins
folk, and friends ; that people would think to serve God
by putting them to death. He exhorted them not to
fear those who killed the body, and, after that, had no
more that they could do. He promised that, when
they were brought to trial, He would give them a
mouth and wisdom which all their adversaries would be
unable to gainsay or resist. He promised that the Holy
Ghost Himself should speak by their lips. He said
that whosoever confessed Him before men, He in turn
would confess them before God and before the angels.
The New Testament tells us something of the
sufferings by which these predictions of our Saviour
A

2 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
began to be fulfilled in the lives of His earliest fol
lowers. It tells us of the dauntless courage of the
first martyr, St. Stephen —
" As through the rushing shower of stones
He saw the open'd heaven.''
It contains St. Paul's terrible list of the sufferings which
he had gone through for the sake of the Gospel —
sufferings which were far from ended when he wrote :
"Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save
one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned,
thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have
I been in the deep ; in journeyings often, in perils
of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my
countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in
the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the
sea, in perils among false brethren ; in labour and
travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in
fastings often, in cold and nakedness." The New
Testament tells us of the beating of the apostles by
authority of the Jewish rulers, and of the imprisonment
of St. Peter, and of the death of St. James the brother
of St. John by the sword of Herod.
It may be one of the joys of the world to come
to be allowed to learn more in detail about the history
of those great saints than we at present know, and
especially about the sufferings by which their devotion
to Christ was tested. Fictitious stories about them
were made up at a later date, to supply the lack of
better information. But a few precious anecdotes have
been preserved by good authorities, which deserve to
be known by all Christian people. We must here
gather up some of those fragments with the same
reverence with which the early Christians gathered up

MARTYRS OF THE APOSTOLIC AGE 3
the relics of their brethren who were torn for Christ's
sake by wild beasts or burned in the fire.
A very ancient writer records, on the authority of
still earlier tradition, a touching incident in the martyr
dom of St. James the son of Zebedee : how the man
who had given information against him, and so had
brought him to his death, as soon as he heard the
apostle's brave confession of Christ, was deeply moved,
and acknowledged himself also to be a Christian. The
two men were led away together to execution ; and, as
they went, the accuser turned to St. James and asked
his forgiveness. The apostle did not immediately
answer. It seems as if the Son of Thunder had
schooled himself no longer to speak on the impulse
of the moment, either in rebuke or in the ardour of
love. He " considered for a little while," we are told,
" and then said, ' Peace be to thee,' and kissed him."
And so the two were beheaded together.^
The Jewish Christians of Jerusalem preserved among
them an account of the martyrdom of St. James's
namesake — "the Lord's brother," as he is called by
St. Paul. It is as follows : —
St. James was a very strict observer of the Jewish
law. He had been a Nazarite from childhood, drinking
no wine or strong drink, and eating no animal food.
No razor ever touched his head ; he did not anoint
himself with oil, nor use the luxury of the bath. He
was always clothed in linen, and never wore wool. So
frequent was he in prayer and intercession for his
people, that by constant kneehng his knees had become
dried up like the knees of a camel. He was known
among the Jews as " James the Just " ; and they called
him by a title, " Oblias," which seems to have meant
1 Clement of Alexandria in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. ii. 9.

4 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
" the bulwark of the people." It is even said, though
it is difficult to beheve, that because of his sanctity he
was permitted to share the privilege of the priests and
to go into the Holy Place in the temple.
After the death of Festus, the governor of Judaea,
who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, and be
fore the arrival of his successor, James and some other
Christians were arraigned before the Jewish Sanhedrin,
and condemned to be stoned. The crime was, it seems,
averted for a while by the action of some of the most
respected of the Jews, who secretly appealed to Herod
Agrippa and to the incoming Roman governor to stop
the action of the high priest. But at a later time an
opportunity was found. At the season of the Pass
over, the scribes and Pharisees carried James up to the
"pinnacle of the temple," and begged him to use his
influence with the assembled people not to believe in
our Lord. The saying of Jesus about the " door " was
in their minds, and they asked James to explain to the
multitude " what the door of Jesus is." " Why do you
ask me about the Son of Man ? " was the saint's reply
— using in his last moments, like Stephen, that title
which elsewhere is only used by our Lord Himself in,
speaking of Himself — " He is sitting in heaven at the
right hand of mighty power, and will come on the
clouds of heaven." At this testimony, the believers
among the crowd raised the shout of " Hosanna to the
Son of David " ; but the Pharisees and scribes seized
James, and flung him down from the " pinnacle," and
stoned him where he lay. James had still sufficient
strength to kneel for the last time, and prayed, like
his divine "Brother" before him, "I beseech Thee,
O Lord God our Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do." While they were stoning

MARTYRS OF THE APOSTOLIC AGE 5
him, one of the descendants of Jonadab the son
of Rechab, mentioned by the prophet Jeremiah, who,
according to this account, were now reckoned as
priests, cried aloud to them, " Stay ; what do ye ?
the Just one is praying for you." Then a fuller
who was present seized the bat or club which he
used in the work of his trade, and brought it down
upon the head of the Just one. So he died. It was
believed by many that the siege of Jerusalem by
Vespasian, which began soon after, vvas a judgment
upon the Jews for this murder.^
There are one or two other notices of members of
the family of our Lord.
In the time of Domitian, the son of Vespasian,
the descendants of Judas the brother of St. James
were brought into danger. Domitian was extremely
suspicious and jealous of any possible rivals to his
sovereignty ; and as the ancient story goes, some
members of a heretical sect denounced the grandsons
of Judas to him, as being of the royal house of David,
and kinsmen of Christ. They were brought before the
emperor. He asked them if they were descended from
David, and they said they were. He asked them what
property they had. They told him that they had
between them nine thousand denarii, which means about
^320. They said that it was not in money, but that it
represented the value of thirty-nine acres of land, which
they cultivated themselves and lived upon the proceeds.
Domitian looked at their hands, and saw that they were
horny with the labour of the field. He then went on to
ask them about Christ and His kingdom, its nature, its
situation, and the time of its appearance. They replied
that it was no earthly kingdom, but a heavenly and
' The story is found in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. ii. 23.

6 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
angehc one, which was to take form at the end of the
world, when Christ would come in glory to judge the
quick and the dead, and to give to every man according
to his deserts. Even the jealousy of Domitian could
find no cause of alarm in these obscure and lowly men.
Although as a rule he was very severe with Christians,
he dismissed the two men to their homes, where
the churches received them with great honour, and
they lived until the times of Trajan.^
In those same times of Trajan died, by a martyr's
death, an aged relative of theirs, named Symeon. He
was the son of Clopas, who is generally supposed to be
the same as Alphaeus ; and the ancient author who
relates the story describes Clopas as being the uncle of
our Lord. Symeon therefore would be His first cousin.
On the death of St. James, Symeon was appointed
bishop of the church of Jerusalem in his stead. Against
him, as against his kinsmen, certain heretics laid in
formation before the Roman authorities that he was a
Christian and a member of a family which claimed to
be royal. It so happened that the informers themselves
were afterwards apprehended for the same reason, be
cause of their supposed connexion with the house of
David. Symeon had by that time attained the patri
archal age of a hundred and twenty years ; but for
many days he was subjected to indignities and rough
usage. He showed a power of endurance under it
which astonished the Roman magistrate and all be
holders, and was finally condemned to the death by
which his blessed Kinsman had died, by crucifixion.^
These martyrdoms took place at Jerusalem. At
Rome, meanwhile, many had been called to suffer for
their faith. The first persecution of any large and
' Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iii. 20. 2 Ibid. iii. 32.

MARTYRS OF THE APOSTOLIC AGE 7
pubhc proportions broke out under Nero. Up to that
time the Roman government had supposed that the
Christians were only a sect of the Jews ; and as the
Jewish religion was allowed by the State, the Christians
had profited by its protection. It was in the time of
Nero that this condition of things came to an end, and
the Christians stood out in the eyes of the Roman
authorities as a separate and dangerous body of men.
The heathen historian, Tacitus, relates that when the
city of Rome was destroyed by fire (in the year 64),
the report was everywhere circulated and believed that
the emperor himself had caused the conflagration, or
had at least hindered it from being extinguished. " To
stifle the report," he says, "Nero provided others to
bear the accusation, in the shape of people who were
vulgarly called ' Christians,' in detestation of their
abominable character. These he visited with every
refinement of punishment. First some were arrested
who confessed " that they were Christians ; " then, on
information given by them, an immense number were
convicted, not so much on the charge of incendiarism
as on that of ill-will towards mankind at large. Their
deaths were turned into a form of amusement. They
were wrapped in the skins of wild beasts to be torn
in pieces by dogs, or were fastened to crosses to be set
on fire, and, when the daylight came to an end, were
burned for an illumination at night. Nero threw open
his own gardens for the spectacle, and made it the
occasion of a circus exhibition, mingling with the
populace in the costume of a driver, or standing in his
chariot. Sympathy was at length felt for the sufferers,
although the objects of it were guilty persons who
deserved the extremest punishment: people felt that
they were being destroyed not for the benefit of

8 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
the public but to serve the cruel purpose of one
man."^ Such is the account given by a heathen writer. A
Christian who had lived through those terrible days
wrote some years later to the Corinthian church, and
spoke of the sufferings through which the Christians
at Rome had passed. This was the great St. Clement,
the third Bishop of Rome. Warning the Corinthian
church against the factious spirit which still prevailed
in it, he gave instances of the mischief which it had
caused in the ancient world. He traced the persecu
tion of the Christians to the same cause. "Let us come,"
he says, "to the champions nearest to our own time,
and take the noble example set in our own generation.
Through jealousy and envy the greatest and most
righteous pillars were persecuted, and were called upon
to contend even unto death. Let us set before our
eyes the good apostles — Peter, who through un
righteous jealousy endured, not one or two, but many
troubles, and so went by a martyr's death to the place
of glory which was his due. Through jealousy and
strife Paul showed us what is the reward of patient
endurance. Seven times he was imprisoned; he was
driven into exile ; he was stoned ; he preached both in
the east and in the west, and gained a noble renown
for his faith, having taught the whole world righteous
ness and having come to the very bounds of the west ;
and when he had borne his witness before the rulers,
he was set free from the world and passed into the holy
place, the greatest pattern of endurance. To these men
of holy life was gathered a great multitude of elect
souls, who were made the victims of jealousy, and under
many indignities and torments showed the noblest
^ Tacitus, Annals, xv. 44.

MARTYRS OF THE APOSTOLIC AGE 9
example among ourselves." Like Tacitus, St. Clement
bears witness to the way in which the martyrdoms of
Christians, even of Christian women, were turned into
an amusement. They were dressed up to represent
various characters in heathen mythology who had died
horrible deaths or were condemned to dreadful suffer
ings in the world below. Some, like Dirce in the Greek
mythology, were tied between wild bulls and torn in
pieces ; others, like the daughters of Danaus, were worn
out with the fatigue of being made to fetch and carry
water, without a moment's rest, night or day, to fill great
vessels of which the bottom had been pierced. " And
so," says St. Clement, "weak as they were in body,
they succeeded in running the sure race of faith and
received a noble reward." ^
All ancient tradition is agreed that the two great
apostles whom St. Clement mentions perished at Rome
during the reign of Nero. St. Peter, before his own
death, had the pain of witnessing what must have been
worse than death to him. We know, from what St.
Paul tells us, that St. Peter's wife accompanied him on
his missionary travels ; and it is probable that she was
still with him when he went to Rome, and there pre
ceded him to martyrdom. She may even have been
one of those women of whom St. Clement speaks as
undergoing so fantastic a death for the amusement of
the Roman populace. A very ancient story relates
that St. Peter saw her led away to death, and that as
he watched her going he was glad at heart " because
she had been called and was going home." "He
lifted up his voice," so the story runs, " and addressed
her in a very encouraging and comforting manner,
speaking to her by name" — the name had been for-
1 Clement of Rome, S> 6.

10 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
gotten ; some late legends give it as Concordia — " and
saying, ' Remember the Lord, Concordia,' " or what
ever her name was. " Such," says the old narrator,
"was the marriage of the saints, and their disposition
at the last to those whom they loved so dearly." ^
Outside the gate of Rome, upon the Appian Way,
stands a little chapel known by the name of Domine, quo
vadis — " Lord, whither goest Thou ? " It is said — and
though the story is told only by a late writer, the great
Bishop Lightfoot was inclined to believe that it was
true — that the Christians at Rome came to St. Peter at
the outbreak of the persecution and besought him to
fly from the city. St. Peter yielded to their importunity.
When he reached the spot where the chapel stands,
Jesus Christ met him in the darkness of the night. The
apostle once more asked Him, as he had done before,
" Lord, whither goest Thou ? " The Lord answered
him, " I go to Rome, to be crucified again." St. Peter
understood the meaning of the rebuke. He returned
and told the brethren what he had seen, and soon after
glorified God by his death, as the Lord had foretold
that he should, when He said, " Another shall gird thee
and carry thee whither thou wouldest not." ^
The ancient tradition of the Church is that St.
Peter was crucified, and, at his own desire, crucified
head downwards. It was quite in keeping with Nero's
conduct in the Roman persecution to crucify him in
that grotesque position, and St. Peter, in his humility,
might very likely welcome the indignity, so that the
form of his death might not look too like that of his
Master.^ The place of his martyrdom was by the
^ Clement of Alexandria in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iii. 30.
^ Ambrose, Epist. 21.
' Origen in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iii. i.

MARTYRS OF THE APOSTOLIC AGE ii
VaticaiLXQad, on the other side of the Tiber from the
city of Rome, where the great church of St. Peter
now stands. St. Paul, who was a Roman citizen,
received the more honourable death of beheading, near
the Ostian Way.
The policy which was begun by Nero was continued
under later emperors. It was taken for granted that all
Christians were enemies to society. The First Epistle
of St. Peter, which in all probability was written at
Rome itself, shows what was the popular opinion about
Christians. Again and again the apostle mentions the
way in which they were " spoken against as evildoers,"
and in which "their good conversation in Christ was
falsely accused." " Let none of you," he says, " suffer
as a murderer, or a thief, or an evildoer "¦ — which were
the kind of things which the heathen expected of them —
" or," he adds, " as a busybody in other men's matters ;
but if any suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed,
but let him glorify God in this name." If at first the
emperor and his magistrates persuaded themselves that
crimes were proved against the Christians, and put them
to death for these crimes, they soon came to put them
to death just because they were Christians, without ask
ing any further questions. If a man acknowledged that
he was a Christian, and refused to give it up, they no
longer endeavoured to find out what particular evil
deeds he was guilty of ; that he was a Christian was
enough. No positive law was passed making Chris
tianity illegal — that was not necessary ; but they were
suppressed as a danger to mankind at large.
It was only to be expected that the Church should
suffer more than usual under so cruel and suspicious
an emperor as Domitian. He even put to death as a
Christian his cousin Flavins Clemens, who was consul

12 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
at the time ; while Flavins' wife, Domitilla, was banished
for life to a little island in the Mediterranean. A yet
loftier personage than the Roman consul felt the hand
of Domitian. The aged St. John had for many years
been living at Ephesus, keeping watch over the churches
of Asia, and teaching his " little children " to love one
another. Many beautiful anecdotes are told of his life
and labours there — at one time going into the dangerous
mountains to reconvert a young brigand who had fallen
away from the faith ; at another fleeing out of the public
baths because a heretical teacher happened to come in ;
sometimes solacing himself in hours of recreation by
playing with a tame partridge, because, as he said, the
bow could not always be kept strung. Men who had
been his disciples there spoke afterwards of their recol
lection of him as of some great high priest, who wore
upon his head the sacred mitre, with its inscription
of "holiness to the Lord." From these peaceful and
fruitful ministrations he was carried away to Rome
under Domitian, according to an ancient account, to
answer for his faith. There he was cast into a vat of
boiling oil, near the Latin Gate of the city. It was
a kind of punishment which the philosopher Seneca
speaks of as suitable for a slave convicted of heinous
crime. Though St. John was wonderfully preserved
from death, he, like Domitilla, was banished to an
island, which was probably the island of Patmos, where
the great Revelation was vouchsafed to him.^
^ TertuUian, De Praescr. Haer. 36.

CHAPTER II
IGNATIUS AND POLYCARP
Persecution, as has been already mentioned, broke
upon the Church in the time of a very different
emperor from Nero or Domitian — the upright and
generous Trajan. A letter of extraordinary interest is
still preserved in which the younger Pliny, who was
at the time governor of Bithynia, asks Trajan for
instructions how to deal with cases of Christianity that
are brought before him.
" I have never taken part," he says, " in the trial of
a Christian, and therefore I do not know what it is
that they are commonly punished for, and with what
degree of allowance, nor what direction the investiga
tion should take. I have been much perplexed to
know whether any distinction should be made between
one age and another, or whether the weak and tender
should be treated in exactly the same way as the
strong ; whether those who repent should be pardoned,
or whether if a person has once been a Christian he
should gain nothing by ceasing to be so ; whether the
very name of Christianity is liable to punishment, apart
from disgraceful conduct, or the disgraceful conduct
which is attached to the name." This is evidently
Pliny's way of suggesting that perhaps, after all, there
might be nothing to punish in Christianity itself, and that
no harm would be done by allowing it to be practised.
" Meanwhile," he continues, " this is the method

14 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
which I have followed with those who were brought
before me as Christians. I have asked them directly
whether they were Christians. If they confessed, I
have asked them a second and a third time, with
threats of punishment ; if they persisted I have ordered
them to be taken to execution. I had no doubt that
whatever the thing which they confessed amounted to,
their obstinacy at any rate, and their inflexible stub
bornness, deserved to be punished." Whether Chris
tianity were or were not in itself a pernicious thing, to
refuse to do as the governor bade them was an act of
insubordination which could not be tolerated for an
instant. " Others there were," Pliny says, " as mad as these,
who possessed the right of Roman citizenship, and
for that reason I have marked them to be sent for
trial to the capital. By-and-by, as often happens, the
charge of Christianity grew more frequent as a direct
consequence of these proceedings, and several different
kinds of cases came up. An anonymous paper was laid
before me containing many names. In the case of
those who said that they were not Christians and never
had been, when they had repeated after me a form of
address to the gods, and had offered incense and wine
to your image, which I had ordered to be brought into
court for the purpose, along with the statues of the
deities, and when, in addition to this, they had cursed
Christ — none of which things it is said that real Chris
tians can be induced to do — I thought that I might let
them go. Others who were named by the informer
said first that they were Christians and then that they
were not. They said that they had been so, but had
left it off — some three years ago, some a good many
years, one or two as many as twenty. All these, like-

IGNATIUS AND POLYCARP 15
wise, both worshipped your effigy and the statues of
the gods, and cursed Christ."
Now follows a passage of the deepest interest.
Every word of it deserves to be carefully studied. It
is the earliest description of Christian ways given by
one who was not himself a Christian, but earnestly
and sincerely desirous of doing what was right in the
discharge of his duties. " Yet they affirmed," says
Pliny, " that their fault or their error came to no more
than this — that it was their custom to assemble on a
fixed day before daylight, and to repeat alternately
amongst themselves a song to Christ as to a god, and
to bind themselves by an oath — not to any crime," as
conspirators against social order would have done,
"but that they would not commit theft or robbery
or adultery, that they would not break their word, and
that when called upon to produce a thing entrusted
to them they would not repudiate the trust. When
this was done, they said that it had been their habit
to depart and then come together again later to take
a meal, but an ordinary harmless meal, and this they
had ceased to do after the issue of my edict forbidding
the existence of organised associations, as you com
manded." The first of these two gatherings, which took place
before daylight, was, without doubt, the gathering for
the weekly Eucharist. Even the apostate Christians of
whom Pliny is speaking did not tell him of the central
action of those early assemblies. It was too sacred to
be mentioned to a heathen. They only told him of
the worship which accompanied their Communion, and
of the moral disciphne which preserved it from profa
nation. Christ was their God, and no one was allowed
to receive Him without pledging himself to a holy life.

1 6 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
The later gathering in the day was the " love-feast," or
Agape. No commandment of the Lord had instituted
the love-feasts, and the Christians felt no difficulty about
giving them up; but it was otherwise with the Holy
Communion. To give that up would have been to
abandon Christianity itself.
When Pliny first heard of the meal which the Chris
tians shared in common, he doubtless thought that it
was possible that he might find that it was a meal of
some horrible character, such as popular calumny attri
buted to the Christians. They were supposed to be
cannibals, and to drink the blood of children. This
was what heathen ill-wishers made out, from such
reports as came through to them about the sacred
food of the Lord's Table. Pliny was much struck when
he learned how harmless was the social meal of which
he was informed, and how readily it had been dropped.
" This," he says, " made me think it the more necessary
to find out from two female slaves, who were called
ministrae (or deaconesses), how far the account was
true. I did so by torture," without which the evidence
of slaves was not accepted in Roman law. " I discovered
nothing," he concludes, " beyond a degraded and ex
travagant superstition. So I adjourned the hearing and
had recourse to you. The matter seemed to me worth
troubling you about, particularly because of the number
of those imperilled. Many of every age and every
rank, and of both sexes too, are and will be in danger.
It is not only the cities, but even the villages and the
country, that are penetrated by this catching supersti
tion. Yet it looks as if it might be stopped and cor
rected. At any rate, it is quite proved that the temples,
which were almost deserted, have begun to be filled,
and that sacred rites long disused are again resorted to.

IGNATIUS AND POLYCARP 17
and that on every side there is a sale for animals for
sacrifice,"— or, perhaps, "a sale for fodder for sacri
ficial animals," — "whereas up to the present it has
been a rare thing to find a purchaser. From this it
is easy to imagine what a multitude of people may be
put in the right way, if only a place of repentance is
allowed." Trajan had no wish to push matters to an extreme.
It probably never entered his head to permit the exercise
of Christianity — at any rate he took no steps to permit
it ; — but he did not wish to go out of his way to repress
our religion. He wrote back to Phny, approving of his
course of action. He said that it was impossible to lay
down any hard and fast rule for dealing with such
cases. He said that Christians were not to be sought
out as ordinary criminals were sought out, though, if
accused and convicted, they were to be punished. If
any gave such satisfactory proofs of renouncing
Christianity as Pliny had mentioned in his letter, he
was to receive a free pardon, however strong a sus
picion might lie against him because of the past.
Trajan strongly condemned the receiving of anonymous
informations, which he said offered " a pernicious pre
cedent, and was unworthy of the age." ^
The most illustrious victim of the persecution under
Trajan was the great Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch in
Syria. Of his earlier life little is known to us ; but
seven Epistles of Ignatius remain, which show us
abundantly the character of the man. Ignatius was
no reserved Roman or philosophical Greek. He had
all the passionate fervour of an Oriental, and he was
endowed besides with the Christian spirit of prophecy.
These Epistles were all written while Ignatius was on
' Pliny, Epist. x. 96, 97.

1 8 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
his way from Antioch to be put to death at Rome. He
passed from city to city, as he himself says, " tied and
bound, by land and sea, by night and by day, in the
midst of ten leopards." This is his description of the
soldiers who guarded him, and of whom he says that
they only grew worse for being kindly treated. He had
been condemned to fight with the wild beasts at Rome,
and he says that his fight with the wild beasts was
already begun. Yet, wherever he passed. Christians of
the various churches appear to have been allowed free
access to him, and he preached and prophesied among
them, exhorting them above all things to have peace
amongst themselves and to obey their bishops as they
would obey Christ Himself. Nothing was to be done
without the bishop. No Eucharist was valid, no baptism
or love-feast lawful, unless the bishop was present or
had authorised another to take his place. He who did
anything without the bishop's knowledge, Ignatius told
them, did service to the devil. The churches of Asia
were infested at this time with a heretical belief known
to us as Docetism, which made the human nature of
our Lord to be only a phantom and a semblance.
This belief was especially hateful to Ignatius. He
insisted that " our Lord was truly of the seed of David
according to the flesh, the Son of God according to
the will and power of God, truly born of a Virgin,
baptized by John that all righteousness might be
fulfilled by Him, and truly nailed for our sake in flesh
under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch." He
said that those who held the " semblance " views were
themselves a mere semblance ; they were wild beasts
in human form. He felt, and they themselves felt
also, that if the flesh of Christ was an unreal thing,
the Eucharist had no meaning. "They keep away,"

IGNATIUS AND POLYCARP 19
he cried, " from the Eucharist and prayer, because they
allow not that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour
Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which
the Father of His goodness raised up." Nothing filled
Ignatius with greater horror than such a thought.
For himself, he was — to use his own expression — en
amoured of Jesus Christ. "My love," he wrote, "is
crucified. ... I have no dehght in the food of cor
ruption, nor in the pleasures of this life. I desire the
bread of God, which is the flesh of Christ, . . . and
for drink I desire His blood, which is incorruptible
charity." The passage of Ignatius was everywhere received
with wondering awe, like the passage of a being from
another world. He himself was in a state of unearthly
exaltation. The thought of what he was about to
endure filled him with a half frenzied joy ; the one fear
which he had was lest some powerful Christians at
Rome should procure his pardon from the government
and so cheat him of the coveted end. " I dread your
very love," he writes to them, " lest it should do me a
wrong. I bid all men know that of my own free will I
die for God, unless ye should hinder me. Let me be
given to the wild beasts, for through them I can attain to
God. I am God's wheat, and I am ground by the teeth
of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread. Rather
entice the wild beasts, that they may be my sepulchre and
may leave no part of my body to be burdensome to any
one when I am fallen asleep." " Oh that I may enjoy
the wild beasts that are prepared for me. I pray that
they may make short work of me. I will entice them to
make short work of devouring me, and not to do as they
have done with some, whom they were afraid to touch.
If they will not do it of their own accord, I will make

20 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
them do it. Come fire and cross and grapplings with
wild beasts, wrenchings of bones, hackings of limbs,
crushings of my whole body, cruel tortures of the devil,
only let me attain to Jesus Christ." " Him I seek who
died for us. Him I desire who rose again on our
behalf. The pangs of travail are upon me. Forgive
me, brethren. Do not hinder me from living, do not
desire to slay me. Suffer me to receive the pure light ;
when I get there I shall be a man." ^
The stories which are current with regard to the
trial and death of Ignatius are late fictions, and have
no historical value ; but there is no doubt that he
attained his desire, and was torn in pieces in the
Colosseum on some " Roman holiday." Nothing that
had yet happened in the Church did so much to en
hance the glory of martyrdom as the intoxication of
spirit with which this fiery Syrian prophet shot like a
meteor from the East to the West to die.
Among the seven letters of Ignatius is one written
to the bishop of the church of Smyrna, through which
city Ignatius had passed. The bishop was then a man
of about forty years of age, and Ignatius speaks with
rapture of the joy which it had given him " to see his
blameless face " and t© commune with one who was
" grounded as upon an immovable rock." The bishop's
name was Polycarp. Polycarp in his youth had been
a hearer of the apostle John, and it is probable that St.
John himself had appointed him to the bishopric of
Smyrna. He may even have been the " angel " of that
church at the time when the Apocalypse of St. John was
addressed to it. To him Ignatius wrote : " The times
require thee, as pilots require winds, and as one tossed
at sea requires a haven. Be vigilant as an athlete of
' Ignatius, Rom. 6.

IGNATIUS AND POLYCARP 21
God. Stand firm like an anvil under the blows of the
hammer. It is the part of a great athlete to receive
blows and to conquer. Be yet more diligent than thou
art ; learn to know the times."
As Bishop Lightfoot says, "the words were in
some sense prophetic." For forty or fifty years more
Polycarp remained at bis post, firm and immovable,
teaching to a later generation what he had received
from the apostles, and resisting every incursion of
strange doctrine. One who had known him in youth,
reproaching a fellow-student of his for having deserted
the faith of Polycarp, says to him: "If that blessed
and apostolic elder had heard anything of this kind, he
would have cried out and stopped his ears, and would
have said, as his manner was, ' Oh, good God, for what
times hast Thou kept me that I should endure these
things ? ' and would have fled from the place." A few
years before his death he visited Rome, to confer with
the bishop, Anicetus, about the time for observing
Easter, upon which the Eastern and Western churches
disagreed ; and so great was the reverence felt for him
that, although the Roman church would not accept
Polycarp's views, Anicetus asked him to take his own
place in conducting the service of the holy Eucharist,
as though Polycarp and not he were the bishop of
the church of Rome. While there, a heretic named
Marcion, whom Polycarp had known in Asia, met him,
and sought his recognition. " Recognise thee 1 " cried
Polycarp ; " I recognise the first-born of Satan."
The time came when Polycarp was to imitate the
endurance of Ignatius, and to. suffer martyrdom hke
him. In the year 155, while Antoninus Pius was
emperor, the ever-smouldering fire of persecution broke
out at Smyrna. A number of Christians were tortured

22 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
or thrown to the wild beasts. " They were so rent with
scourges," say some who witnessed the scene, "that
their veins and arteries and muscular structure were
laid bare to sight, so that the bystanders were sorry for
them and lamented them. But they, like vahant men,
neither moaned nor groaned, showing us all that in
that hour of torture Christ's martyrs were absent from
the flesh, or rather that the Lord was standing by
them and communing with them." Not all indeed
exhibited such firmness. One, a Phrygian named
Quintus, who had thrust himself forward, unsought,
as a candidate for martyrdom, was seized with panic
when he saw the wild beasts. The proconsul, whose
name was L. Statins Quadratus, by use of much en
treaty persuaded him to swear the oath of recantation,
and to offer incense. His wise fellow Christians dis
approved of such volunteering for martyrdom. In
contrast with the cowardice of Quintus, one Christian,
named Germanicus, particularly distinguished himself
in the combat with the wild beasts. The proconsul
was anxious to save him. He urged him to "have pity
on his youth," and to abandon his profession, but Ger
manicus refused. He dragged the wild beast to himself
by main force, and compelled it to kill him. The sight
of such constancy, while it encouraged the Christians,
provoked the anger of the heathen, and they cried out,
" Away with the atheists 1 search for Polycarp."
When the tidings were brought to Polycarp, it was
his desire at first to remain in Smyrna, but the brethren
persuaded him to withdraw. He retired to a country
house not far from the city, and spent his time with a
few companions, "praying night and day for all, and
for the churches throughout the world, which was his
constant habit." Three days before his apprehension,

IGNATIUS AND POLYCARP 23
while he was praying, he fell into a vision. He saw his
pillow on fire. He turned and said to those who were
with him, " I must be burned alive."
The search for Polycarp continued, and he took his
departure to another country place. The search-party
came into the neighbourhood, but not being able to
find him they laid hold on two young slaves belonging
to Polycarp's household and put them to the torture.
One of them gave way, and undertook to guide them to
his master. Taking the boy with them, the police and
horsemen, armed with their usual weapons, " as against
a robber," started about supper-time, on "the day of
the Preparation." The captain of the band bore the
name of Herod. The writers of the account eagerly
note every detail which recalled to them the circum
stances of the capture of our Lord. Late in the evening
the men arrived at the spot, and found Polycarp at rest
in the upper room of a small building. There would
have been time for Polycarp to make his escape, but he
refused, saying, "The will of God be done." Hearing
that they were come, he went downstairs and entered
into conversation with them. Those who were present
could not help wondering at his great age and his firm
ness of mind. It seemed to them strange to take so
much trouble for the apprehension of an old man like
that. Late as the hour was, Polycarp gave orders that
a table should be laid for his captors to eat and drink
as much as they pleased, and asked them in return to
allow him a space of time that he might pray undis
turbed. Upon their granting his request he stood up
and prayed aloud, and " so full was he of the grace of
God that for two hours he could not hold his peace, and
those who heard him were astonished, and many re
pented of having come against such a reverend old man.

24 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
" When at length his prayer came to an end, after
remembering all whom he had at any time met, whether
small or great, distinguished or otherwise, and all the
Catholic Church throughout the world, the hour for
departure having now come, they set him on an ass
and brought him into the city. It was a great sabbath
day. Polycarp was met by Herod, the head of the
police, with his father, Nicetes, who took him into their
carriage and seated themselves beside him, and plied
him with persuasions. 'What harm is it,' they said,
' to save yourself by saying, Caesar is Lord, and offering
some incense ? ' At first he did not answer them ; but
when they continued he said, ' I shall not do what you
advise me.' So when they failed to persuade him, they
used harsh language to him, and pulled him down from
the carriage with such haste that in dismounting he tore
the skin off his shin. Polycarp, without turning round,
as if he felt it not, hastened with alacrity upon his way.
They took him to the stadium," or race-course, " where
there was so great a hubbub that no man's voice could
be heard. As Polycarp entered into the stadium, a voice
came from heaven, ' Be strong, Polycarp, and of a good
courage.' " It was as if the exhortations which Ignatius
had made on his way to martyrdom were renewed by
one greater than Ignatius. The speaker was unseen, but
the voice was heard by Christians who were present.
" It got about that Polycarp had been brought as
a prisoner, and the noise in the stadium increased.
He was set before the proconsul. The proconsul
asked whether his name was Polycarp, and when he
acknowledged that it was, he endeavoured to persuade
him to deny his faith. He said, ' Pay respect to your
old age,' and everything of that kind that they are wont
to say ; ' Swear by the fortune of Caesar,' ' Change your

IGNATIUS AND POLYCARP 25
mind, and say. Away with the atheists.' But Polycarp,
looking with a countenance full of meaning upon all
that multitude of ungodly heathen with which the
stadium was filled, waved his hand over thera, and
looked up to heaven with a sigh and said, ' Away with
the atheists.' The proconsul pressed him hard and
said, ' Take the oath and I release you ; revile Christ.'
But Polycarp answered, ' I have now been His servant
fourscore and six years, and He never did me wrong ;
how can I blaspheme my King who saved me ? ' The
magistrate pressed him again and said, ' Swear by the
fortune of Caesar.' He answered, ' If you think vainly
that I shall swear by the fortune of Caesar as you
say, and if you pretend not to know what I am, I
tell you plainly, I am a Christian. If you desire to
learn what Christianity is, name a day and hear me.'
The proconsul said, ' Prevail upon the people ; ' but
Polycarp answered, ' As for you, I should have deemed
you worthy of speech, for we have been taught to
render to the powers and authorities which are appointed
by God such due honour as does no harm ; but these
I do not consider worthy that I should make my
defence to them.' The proconsul said, ' I have wild
beasts here ; I shall throw you to them unless you
change your mind.' He answered, ' Call for them ; for
the change of mind from better to worse is a change
we may not make ; but it is a good thing to change from
perverse ways to righteousness.' The proconsul said
again to him, ' If you despise the wild beasts, I will
make you to be consumed by fire, unless you change
your mind.' But Polycarp answered, 'You threaten
me with fire that burns for a season and after a little
while is put out, for you know not the fire of judg
ment to come, and of eternal punishment, which is kept

26 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
for the ungodly. But why do you delay ? use what
you will.' "
All threats and persuasions having failed, the pro
consul sent his own crier to proclaim thrice in the
middle of the stadium, " Polycarp has confessed him
self to be a Christian." Upon this the whole multitude.
Gentiles and Jews alike, were filled with fury and
shouted, "This is the teacher of all Asia, the father
of the Christians. It is he who casts down our gods.
He teaches many not to sacrifice nor worship." The
public games in Asiatic cities were presided over by
officers who bore the name of Asiarchs. They are re
ferred to in the Acts of the Apostles, where we are told
that " certain of the chief of Asia " were St. Paul's
friends, and persuaded him not to appear in the theatre.
This office at Smyrna was held at the time of Polycarp's
death by a man named Philip. The multitude called
upon Philip to let loose a lion upon Polycarp. Philip
refused. He said that the appointed time of the games
was over, and that what was demanded of him was
beyond his power. Then a shout was raised which
soon became universal, that Polycarp should be burnt
alive. It was a recognised punishment in Roman law
for men disloyal to the emperors. Thus Polycarp's
own prophecy came to be fulfilled. Immediately the
crowd set to work to gather together logs and faggots
from the workshops and the public baths. The Jews
took a foremost part in these proceedings. " It was
their wont to do so," say the writers of the narrative.
" As soon as the bonfire was prepared, Polycarp laid
aside all his upper garments for himself, and undid his
girdle, and essayed also to take off his shoes. Before
this time he was never allowed to do it, because the
faithful vied with one another to be allowed to touch his

IGNATIUS AND POLYCARP 27
feet. For even before his hair turned white he had
been deeply reverenced because of his good conversa
tion." The instruments for his martyrdom were placed
around him, but when they were about to nail him to
the stake, he said, " Let me be as I am. He who has
granted me to endure the fire will grant me also to
remain at the pile without flinching ; the security of
your nails will not be wanted." Accordingly they re
frained from nailing him, and only fastened him with
t
a rope. " Polycarp placed his hands behind him, and
was bound for sacrifice like a notable ram out of a
mighty flock, prepared as a whole burnt-offering accept
able to God. He looked up to heaven and said, ' Lord
God Almighty, Father of Thy beloved and blessed
Son Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the
knowledge of Thee, O God of angels and powers and
of all creation, and of all the kindred of the righteous
who live before Thee, I bless Thee that Thou hast
counted me worthy of this day and hour, to receive
a portion among the number of the martyrs in the cup
of Christ for the resurrection of soul and body to
eternal life in the incorruptibility of the Holy Ghost.
O that I may be received among them to-day before
Thee in full and acceptable sacrifice, according as Thou
didst prepare beforehand, and didst reveal it unto me,
and hast now fulfilled it, O true God who canst not lie.
For this cause and for all things I praise Thee, I bless
Thee, I glorify Thee, through the eternal and heavenly
High Priest, Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son, through
whom unto Thee, with Him and with the Holy Ghost,
be glory now and ever and unto all ages.' "
It was especially noticed how he finished his
prayer with the solemn " Amen " which was used at
the Christian Eucharist. No sooner had he reached

2 8 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
that word than the firemen kindled the fire. " Then,"
say the writers, " a mighty flame blazed forth, and we,
to whom it was given to see, saw a wondrous sight.
Yea, we were preserved to tell to others what happened.
The fire took the form of an arch, like the sail of a ship
filled with the wind, and encompassed the body of the
martyr with a wall, and there it stood in the midst, not
like flesh burning, but like bread baking in the oven, or
like gold and silver refined in a furnace. We smelt so
sweet a savour as though frankincense or some other
precious spices were breathed upon the air." The fire was
so long in doing its work upon Polycarp's body that those
in charge grew impatient and ordered an executioner to
go up to him and plunge a dagger into him. He did
so, and the Christian spectators affirm that such a gush
of blood followed upon the stroke that it checked the
flames of the fire, and all the multitude marvelled, and
saw that this man was not like one of themselves.
A deep disappointment awaited those loving dis
ciples who had reckoned so highly the honour of taking
off the shoes of the saint. The envious adversary of
the righteous, they say, grudged them the satisfaction of
doing honour to his corpse. The father of Herod, the
head of the police, who had a Christian sister, entreated
the magistrate not to give the body to the Christians,
"lest," he said, "they should leave the Crucified and
begin to worship Polycarp." The Jews joined in the
entreaty, mounting guard over the burning pile, lest the
Christians should take the body away. " They do not
know," say the narrators, "that we can never leave
Christ who suffered for the salvation of the saved of
all the world, the spotless One for sinners, nor worship
any other. Him we adore as being the Son of God ;
but the martyrs, as disciples and imitators of the

IGNATIUS AND POLYCARP 29
Lord, we love, as they deserve, for their unsurpassed
devotion to their own King and Teacher, and we pray
that we may be fellow-partakers and fellow-disciples
with them."
The centurion, seeing the opposition of the Jews,
set the body of Polycarp in the midst of the pile, and
burnt it according to the usual fashion of the heathen.
"Thus afterwards," say the Christians of Smyrna, "we
were able to gather up his bones, which are more
precious than costly stones and finer than gold, and we
laid them where it was meet. There, when time permits,
the Lord will suffer us to assemble with gladness and
joy to celebrate the martyr's birthday, for the re
membrance of those who have already passed through
the conflict, and for the training and preparation of
those who shall do so hereafter."
The account was written by the Christians of
Smyrna soon after the events which it relates, and
sent to their brethren at a place called Philomelion.
The Christians of Philomelion had heard of the death
of Polycarp, and asked for a circumstantial account
of it. The writers beg the brethren at Philomelion
to circulate the letter amongst the churches beyond
them, that they also may join in glorifying the Lord.^
St. Irenseus of Lyons, who had been a disciple of
Polycarp, was at Rome at the time of his master's
martyrdom. At the precise hour when Polycarp was
put to death at Smyrna, Irenaeus heard a voice as of
a trumpet saying, " Polycarp has died a martyr's
death." He is said to have made the statement
himself in one of his written works.
About the same date a group of martyrdoms took
» Lightfoot's Apostolic Fathers (ed. 2), Part II., vol. iii. p. 353 foil. ; or
Funk's Patres Apostolici, vol. i. p. 315 foil.

30 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
place at Rome, which show how completely the very
name and profession of being a Christian was enough
to cause death, without any attempt being made to
prove that the accused was guilty of further crimes.
A woman was converted to Christianity, and thereupon
refused to join her heathen husband in practices which
were against her conscience. At last, after patient
trial, it became necessary for her to use that liberty
which St. Paul allows to a Christian married to a
heathen partner, and to obtain a legal release from
him. The profligate husband denounced her as a
Christian. She applied to the emperor to put off
the hearing of her case until she had settled her
private affairs, and the request was granted. Baffled
for the present in his desire for vengeance against the
woman, the divorced husband turned upon the man
who had been her instructor in the faith, whose
name was Ptolemy. He had a friend who was a
centurion. He persuaded the centurion to arrest
Ptolemy, and cast him into irons, and " to interrogate
him on this one point, whether he were a Christian."
Ptolemy, who was a guileless and truthful man, con
fessed that he was, and was kept in a miserable con
finement. After a long delay he was brought before
the prefect of the city of Rome, called Urbicus.
Like the centurion, Urbicus asked him no other ques
tion but whether he were a Christian. Ptolemy, who
knew that he owed to Christianity everything that was
best in life, made the same simple avowal as before, and
was condemned to death. As he was led from the
tribunal, a Christian named Lucius who was present
cried aloud and asked Urbicus what was the ground of
his sentence. "This man," he said, "has not been
convicted of adultery, or murder, or robbery, or any

IGNATIUS AND POLYCARP 31
other crime ; you punish him simply because he
acknowledged the narae of a Christian. Urbicus, that
is not a judgraent that suits an eraperor bearing the
narae of Pius, nor Caesar's son, the philosopher, nor the
Senate — the sacred Senate." The reply of Urbicus
was, " I suppose that you are the sarae as Ptoleray."
" Certainly," said Lucius. The prefect ordered hira to
share the fate of Ptolemy. Lucius thanked hira ; and
a third Christian who acted in the same manner was
added to the former two.^
A beautiful account of the Christian life of those
tiraes is contained in a little anonymous writing known
to us as the Epistle to Diognetus. Diognetus appears
to have been a high official, and perhaps, like Pliny,
was at a loss to know why he was compelled to take
action against the Christians. His informant describes
him as " seeking earnestly to know what God they
beheve in, and what that worship of Him is which
enables them to despise the world, and to brave death."
" Christians," he tells him, " are not marked off from
other men by country, by language, or by manner of
life. They live in Greek or barbarian cities, according
to the appointed lot of each, and follow the local
custoras in dress and diet and so forth, although the
nature of their own social ideal is acknowledged to be
wonderful and surprising. They live in their own
country, but as sojourners in it ; they have their part
in everything as citizens, and bear everything like
strangers ; every foreign country is a home to them,
and every home a foreign country. They obey the
established laws, and surpass the laws by their own
lives. They love all raen, and are persecuted by all.
Men do not understand them, and condemn them ;
1 Justin, Apol. ii. 2.

32 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
they are put to death, and find life thereby. They are
poor, and make many rich ; they lack all things, and
abound in all. They are dishonoured, and glory in the
dishonour ; they are slandered, and are found righteous ;
they are reviled, and they bless ; they are shamefully
treated, and they pay respect. They do good, and are
punished as evil ; when they are punished, they rejoice
as if life were given thera. The Jews raake war against
them as aliens, and the Greeks persecute thera ; and
those who hate thera cannot give a reason for their
enraity." ^
* Printed in Otto's Justin, or in Funk's Patres Apostolici.

CHAPTER III
JUSTIN AND THE MARTYRS OF LYONS
The Christian Church fared worse under the emperor
Marcus Aurelius than it had done under any eraperor
since the tiraes of Nero and Domitian. Marcus Aure-
lijjs was himself a noble man ; but he was a philosopher,
and his philosophy was not that of the Church. Lenient
and raerciful towards other classes of offenders against
the law, he had a peculiar dislike to the Christians.
He hated them with the hatred of a professional for a
set of ignorant and self-taught amateurs. His own
philosophy was that of the Stoics, which taught men to
bear pain and death without fear. It might have been
thought that he would have sympathised with the
heroism of the Christian martyrs, but it was not so. In
one passage of his writings he refers to the calmness
with which Christians met death, in order to contrast it
with the true courage of a Stoic. The true courage,
he thought, was displayed when men sought death by
their own act of choice ; the Christians died out of
" sheer obstinacy." A Stoic's courage was reasonable
and dignified, and therefore impressive, whereas a
Christian's was affected and theatrical. Marcus had
no admiration for such courage, and when he had to
deal with Christians he strained the law to make their
sufferings more bitter.
The most faraous sufferer in the reign of Marcus
Aurelius was the philosopher Justin. A native of
33 C

34 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
Samaria, but of purely Gentile origin, Justin sought
instruction in his youth from one form of heathen
philosophy after another. The Stoics, the Peripatetics,
the Pythagoreans, the Platonists ahke disappointed him.
One day while he was pacing in meditation near the
seashore — probably at Ephesus — he met an old man
whose dignity and gentleness attracted him. He gazed
so intently at him that the old man asked if he knew
hira. They fell into conversation together, and the old
raan told him that there was a higher and more satis
fying philosophy than any which he had yet studied,
taught by inspired prophets whose words had been
fulfilled in Christ. The old man bade him to pray
that the gates of light might be opened to him,
that he might understand the things which could
only be known by gift of God and of His Christ.
Justin never saw the old man again, but his soul was
left all on fire, he says, with desire to know those
friends of Christ of whom the old man had spoken.
Without ceasing to be a philosopher he became a
Christian. The philosophical education of Justin fitted him to
be the first of those who are called the Apologists, or
writers in defence of Christianity. The Apologies are
among the most valuable documents for the study of
the early Church, its practices and its behefs. Thus
the Apology of Athenagoras is of great importance for
the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and the newly re
covered Apology of Aristides for the history of the
Creed. In two works of this kind Justin addressed
himself to the Roman emperor and to the senate.
The sight of Christian fortitude awoke in him a
different feeling from that which it aroused in the
mind of Marcus Aurelius. " While I was myself

JUSTIN AND THE MARTYRS OF LYONS 35
contented with the doctrines of Plato," he writes,
" when I heard Christians accused, and saw them
advance fearlessly to meet death and everything that
is thought terrible, I felt that it was impossible that
these men should be living a life of vicious pleasure, as
was supposed." He felt that it was the duty of any
Christian who was qualified for the task, to tell the
public what Christianity really was : otherwise the
responsibility for their persecution rested upon the
Christians themselves. With this view he not only set
forth with remarkable freedom the beliefs of Christians,
and the reasons upon which they were grounded, but
even gave a full account of those secret meetings of the
Christians which were suspected by the heathen to
have an imraoral purpose. He told his readers how
the converts to Christianity were regenerated by the
use of water in the name of the Holy Trinity ; and
how, on the day which is called Sunday, all those who
lived in town or country gathered together to hear
the writings of the apostles and of the prophets read
and expounded ; and how the president of the brethren
took bread and a mixture of wine and water, and
prayed and gave thanks over it ; and how the food thus
consecrated was called the Eucharist or Thanksgiving ;
and how the Christians were taught to consider it to
be the flesh and blood of Jesus, the Son of God
Incarnate. By this bold and outspoken championship of his
belief Justin brought upon himself the enmity of a
philosopher of the Cynic school, named Crescens, whose
ignorance Justin ¦ had exposed. Justin had himself
foreseen that Crescens would do him a raischief if he
could, and said that the raan could be no true philo
sopher who abused the Christians for the sake of

36 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
popularity, without ever having read what they taught.
It seeras probable that Crescens had sorae share in
bringing his opponent to his end.
The title of Martyr, which has become like a second
name to Justin, was earned at Rome about the year 163.
In company with six other Christians he was brought
to the tribunal of Rusticus, the prefect of the city, an in
timate friend and forraerly an instructor of the emperor.
The prefect bade him obey the gods and subrait to the
emperors. Justin answered, "There is nothing that
deserves blame or condemnation in our obeying the
commandments of our Saviour Jesus Christ." Rusticus
asked what system of doctrine Justin professed. He
answered, "After endeavouring to understand ah the
various systems, I gave my adhesion to the true doc
trines of the Christians, although they do not please
those who are in error." " Unhappy man," said the
prefect, " do those doctrines please you ? " " Yes,"
said Justin, " their tenets are right, and I follow them."
" What are their tenets ? " said Rusticus. Justin
answered, " We worship the God of the Christians,
whom we believe to be but One, the Maker and the
Fashioner of all creation, visible and invisible ; and the
Lord Jesus Christ His Son, of whora it was foretold by
the prophets that He should come to mankind as the
Preacher of salvation and the Teacher of good learn
ing. A man like me is unable to speak worthily of
His infinite Godhead. I acknowledge that it needs
a prophet's power. I know that the prophets of old
time foretold His coming to men." Rusticus ques
tioned him no raore about his doctrine. " Where do
you asserable ?" he asked. Justin replied, " Wherever
we will and can. You cannot imagine that we all
assemble at the same place. Far from it ; the God of

JUSTIN AND THE MARTYRS OF LYONS 37
the Christians is not confined to a locality. He is
invisible, and fills the heaven and the earth, and is
worshipped and glorified in every place by the faithful."
" Come, tell rae," said the prefect, " where do you
asserable ? What is the place where you gather your
disciples ? " Justin answered, " I am lodging with a
man called Martin, above the Timothine Baths. This
is my second visit to Rome, and during all this time I
know of no other place of assembly except his. If
any one liked to visit me I imparted to hira the words
of truth." " To come to the point, then," said Rusticus,
" you are a Christian ? " " Yes," said Justin, " I am a
Christian." Rusticus then applied himself to the companions
of Justin. " Tell rae now, Chariton, are you a Christian
too ? " "I ara a Christian by the coraraandment of
God." " Charito, what do you say ? " " I am a
Christian by the free gift of God." " And you, Evel-
pistus, what are you ? " Evelpistus was a slave of the
emperor, and he answered, " I too am a Christian,
set free by Christ, and I share the sarae hope by the
grace of Christ." Rusticus asked the same question of
Hierax. " Yes," he replied, " I ara a Christian ; I
worship and adore the same God." " Did Justin make
Christians of you ? " said the prefect. Hierax answered,
" I was a Christian before, and shall continue to be so."
A man called Paeon then stood up and said, " I also
am a Christian." " Who taught you ? " asked Rusticus.
Paeon said, "We have received this good confession
from our parents." The slave Evelpistus spoke again :
" I was glad to hear the teaching of Justin," he said,
" but I also received my Christianity from my parents."
" Where are your parents ? " Rusticus asked. He said,
" In Cappadocia." " Where are your parents ? " asked

38 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
Rusticus of Hierax. He answered, " Our true Father
is Christ, and faith in Hira is our raother, but my
earthly parents are dead, and I was carried off from
Iconiura in Phrygia, and brought to this place."
Rusticus turned to the last of the group, whose name
was Liberian : " And what do you say ? Are you a
Christian ? Will not you worship ? " Liberian answered,
" I also am a Christian ; I worship and adore the only
true God."
The prefect then spoke again to Justin. " Listen
to me," he said ; " you are said to be a clever man,
and I think that you know what is true. If you are
scourged and your head cut off, do you believe that
you will go up to heaven ? " Justin replied that he
hoped for blessings frora God, and that he knew that
at the end of the world raen who had lived Christian
lives would be rewarded. " Do you then suppose,"
said the prefect, " that you will go up into heaven
and receive a recorapense ? " "I do not suppose it,"
said Justin ; " I know it, and ara persuaded of it."
" Enough," said Rusticus. " Let us come to the matter
of practical importance. Agree together and join in
sacrificing to the gods." Justin answered, "No one
in his senses turns from godliness to ungodhness."
" If you do not obey," said Rusticus, " you shall all
be punished without raercy." Justin replied, " It is
yOur prayer that we may be punished for the sake
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so saved. This will
be our salvation and our confidence at a more dread
ful tribunal than yours — the universal tribunal of our
Master and Saviour." The other raartyrs joined in
and cried, " Do what you will. We are Christians, and
we do not sacrifice to idols." Rusticus gave sentence.
" Let those who will not sacrifice to the gods and obey

JUSTIN AND THE MARTYRS OF LYONS 39
the coraraandment of the emperor, be scourged and
taken away to execution, suffering capital punishraent,
according to the course of the law." The martyrs
gave glory to God, and were led to the accustomed
place of execution, where their heads were severed
from their bodies. Sorae of the faithful carae by
stealth and carried off the reraains, and buried them
in a suitable place, "being aided," says the priraitive
account, "by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to
whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." ^
Several of the companions of St. Justin were natives
of what we now call Asia Minor. That country was,
indeed, during the second century, the great seed-bed
of Christianity. The Christian churches of Gaul, in
particular, were very closely bound to those of Asia
Minor. The city of Marseilles was founded, 600 years
before Christ, by a colony of Asiatic Greeks, and the
connexion had ever since been maintained. Greek
commerce had spread up the valley of the Rhone, and
the towns of Vienne and of Lyons, on the banks of
that noble river, were largely Greek-speaking towns.
Flourishing churches existed in these two cities by the
raiddle of the second century. That of Lyons was
presided over by a bishop named Pothinus, who had
in all probability, like Polycarp, been a disciple of St.
John in the Asiatic home of his youth.
These churches experienced a terrible persecution /
in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. When the worst of it |
was over, they wrote an account of their troubles to ',
the brethren in the east, which forms one of the most
precious of all the records of primitive Christianity:
"The servants of Christ who dwell at Vienne and
Lyons to the brethren throughout Asia and Phrygia
1 Otto's Justin (ed. 3), vol. iii. p. 266.

40 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
who have the same faith and hope of redemption with
us, peace and grace and glory frora God the Father
and Christ Jesus our Lord." Such is their opening
address ; and they proceed, " It is beyond our power
to tell you in detail, and indeed it is irapossible for any
writing to describe the greatness of the persecution
here, and of the fury of the heathen against the saints,
and of all that the blessed martyrs endured. The
adversary fell upon us with all his force, giving us a
prelude of that unrestrained ' coming ' of his which
will be hereafter."
The anti-christian movement began, as it frequently
does, with a social form of persecution. Christians
were "excluded from houses, and from the public
baths, and from the market." By-and-by they could
not show themselves anywhere in public. " But the
grace of God," they say, "took the field against the
foe, and dehvered the weak, and set up firm pillars
against the evil one, who by their endurance suc
ceeded in drawing all his onslaught upon theraselves.
They raet hira hand to hand, enduring every form of
reproach and of punishment ; and, reckoning their
many afflictions but few, they hastened unto Christ,
showing verily that the sufferings of this present tirae
are not worthy to be reckoned in comparison with
the glory that shall be revealed to usward."
The social exclusion with which the persecution
began soon gave place to more active hostility. The
conspicuous members of the comraunity becarae the
objects of popular violence. They were hooted and
hustled in the streets. Blows fell upon them. Their
clothes were torn from their backs. Stones were
thrown at them. If they entered into a building,
a mob besieged the door. "Everything that an

JUSTIN AND THE MARTYRS OF LYONS 41
infuriated crowd loves to do to those whom it hates
and treats as enemies '' was done to them.
Then raatters carae to the judicial stage. In spite
of a rescript of Hadrian, which, about the year 126,
had forbidden magistrates to take action against Chris
tians under the pressure of popular clamour, "they
were led into the market-place by the tribune," or
military commander, "and by the authorities of the
city, and were examined in the presence of the whole
populace, and, on confessing, they were shut up in
the gaol until the arrival of the governor.
"Then they were brought before the governor,
who used all the ferocity to which we are accustomed.
While this was going on, one of the brethren, Vettius
Epagathus, who had in his heart all the fulness of love
towards God and his neighbour, whose life had been
brought to such perfection that, though he was young,
he deserved the sarae testimony which is borne to the
aged Zacharias, for he ' walked in all the command
ments and ordinances of the Lord blameless,' and was
untiring in the service of his neighbour, having a great
zeal for God, and fervent in the spirit — this Vettius
Epagathus could not bear the judgment so un
reasonably given against us, but was exceeding wroth,
and begged that he might himself be heard in defence
of the brethren to show that there is nothing ungodly or
impious amongst us." These two words are evidently
used in their strict sense, and they imply that the charges
brought against the Christians were those of sacrilege
and of treason. The first was based upon the
Christian refusal to worship the heathen gods, the
second upon the refusal to worship the emperor.
This was what Vettius Epagathus wished to explain.
" But those who were about the judgment-seat shouted

42 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
him down, for he was a well-known person ; and the
governor would not listen to the just request which
he preferred, but asked hira this one question, whether
he were himself a Christian. Epagathus confessed it
with a loud voice, and was immediately promoted into
the sacred order of the martyrs, being styled the
advocate of the Christians, and having in himself the
Advocate, even the Spirit, in greater abundance than
Zacharias. This he showed by the fulness of love,
being pleased for the defence of his brethren even to
lay down his own life. For he was," and the writers
add with a sublime simplicity of faith, " and he is, a
genuine disciple of Christ, following the Larab whither
soever He goeth."
Now ensued a moment of hesitation and fear,
which the writers record as faithfully as the moments
of triumph and glory. "A division made itself felt
between the rest. Some showed themselves ready to
take the lead and be first martyrs of the persecution ;
and these fulfilled the confession of their martyrdom
with all alacrity. But at the same time there was a
disclosure of those who were unready, and unpractised,
and still weak and unable to bear the strain of so great
a contest. Of these about ten in nuraber raiscarried,
who caused us great grief and sorrow beyond raeasure,
and hindered the alacrity of the rest who had not been
apprehended ; who, although subjected to all incon
veniences, still were in company with the martyrs and
did not forsake thera. Then, indeed, we all were
greatly afraid, because no man could raake sure who
would and who would not confess — not that we
feared the punishraents which were used, but because
we looked on to the end and dreaded lest one or
another of us raight fall away. However, day after

JUSTIN AND THE MARTYRS OF LYONS 43
day those who were worthy were taken into custody,
supplying the place of those who had miscarried, so
that all the raost earnest, who had been our mainstay
here, were gathered together out of the two churches."
The cause of justice had already been violated when
the Christians were apprehended to satisfy a tumultuous
demand. It was now to be further violated. Trajan
had expressly ordered that Christians were not to be
sought out. It was also a rule of Roraan law that the
evidence of a slave could not be accepted against his
raaster. Both these provisions were set aside by the
magistrates at Lyons.
" Certain heathen servants of ours," say the writers
of the letter, " were also apprehended, because the
governor published orders that we should all be sought
out. These slaves, through the lying in wait of Satan,
being terrified at the tortures which they saw the saints
suffer, and being instigated to do so by the soldiers, bore
false witness of us, and said that we held banquets like
those of Thyestes," who fed his guests with the flesh
of children, " and were guilty of incest like that of
Oedipus," who was married to his mother, "and did
things which not only is it unlawful for us to speak or
think of, but which it is impossible to believe were ever
done amongst men. When these things were noised
abroad, all men were wild with fury against us, so that
even those who before were kept within bounds by
private friendship now became exceedingly bitter, and
were cut to the heart in their anger against us ; and
that was fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord, ' The
time will come wherein whosoever killeth you will
think that he offereth a service to God.'
" Upon this the holy raartyrs were subjected to
torraents that pass aU description. It was Satan's

44 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
ambition to make them also utter some of these
calumnies against the Christians. In an especial
raanner, all the wrath, both of the populace, and of
the governor, and of the soldiers, lighted upon
Sanctus, a deacon frora Vienne, and upon Maturus,
who was only newly enlightened, but a noble
champion nevertheless, and upon Attains, a native of
Pergamos, who had always been a pillar and ground
of the church here, and upon one Blandina, through
whom Christ showed that the things which amongst
men are held cheap and insignificant and contemptible,
are esteemed worthy of great glory with God, because
of her love towards Him — a love which was shown in
power, and did not glory in appearance. For while
we were all alarmed, and her mistress according to the
flesh " — for Blandina was a slave — " who was herself
one of the martyr champions, was in anguish lest the
weakness of Blandina's body should prevent her from
raaking her confession boldly, Blandina was filled
with such power that she outwearied and exhausted
those who tortured her in every forra and shape in
relays frora dawn till nightfall, so that they ac
knowledged that they were beaten, having nothing
more that they could do to her, and were astonished
that she yet remained alive, when her whole body was
lacerated all over and laid open ; and they confessed
that one kind of racking was enough to have fetched
her soul out, not to speak of so many and so tre
mendous. But the blessed woman, like a noble
athlete, grew young again by her confession, and
she found recovery and refreshment and insensibility
to all that was done to her in repeating, ' I am a
Christian,' and 'There is nothing vile done amongst
us.'

JUSTIN AND THE MARTYRS OF LYONS 45
" Sanctus nobly endured all the outrages of men in
a way that surpassed human power. While the un
godly hoped, through the long continuance and the
greatness of his tortures, to hear frora his lips of sorae
thing wrong, he set hiraself against them with such
constancy, that he would not even tell them his own
name, nor of what nation or city he was, nor whether
he were bond or free, but to every question that was
put to hira he answered in Latin, ' I ara a Christian.'
Instead of narae, and city, and race, and everything,
this was what he confessed again and again, and other
word from him the heathen heard none. So there
arose a great contention between the governor and the
tormentors and hira ; and when they no longer had
anything else that they could do to hira, at last they
applied red hot plates of brass to the most sensitive
portions of his body. So those parts were burned ;
but he remained inflexible and unyielding, firm in his
confession, bedewed and strengthened by the heavenly
fountain of the water of life which proceedeth out
of the side of Christ. His poor body was a witness
of what had been done to hira, being all one wound
and weal, and all contracted, having lost the outward
forra of a human being. Christ, suffering in him,
achieved great glories, bringing to nought the adversary,
and showing, by an example for the rest to copy, that
there is nothing to be feared where the love of the
Father is, and nothing painful where is the glory of
Christ. For the ungodly, after sorae days, again put
the martyr on the rack, and thought that in the swollen
and inflamed condition of his body, if they applied the
same instruments of torture they would get the better
of him, seeing that he could not even bear the touch of
a hand ; or else they hoped that his dying under the

46 ¦ THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
torments would strike fear into the rest. But so far was
this from being the case, that contrary to all expectation
of raen, he lifted up his head again, and his poor body
became straight once raore in the later inflictions, and
he recovered his forraer appearance and the use of his
limbs, so that through the grace of Christ his second
racking was made to him no punishment but a healing.
"There was one Biblias amongst those who had
denied, and the devil, thinking that he had devoured
her already, but wishing to ensure her condemnation
by making her add blasphemy to her denial, brought
her to torture, to compel her to utter the impieties with
which we were charged, as one who had already proved
easy to crush and a poor coward. But she recovered
herself under the torments, and woke up as it were
out of a deep sleep. The temporal penalty reminded
her of the eternal punishment in hell, and she
answered contrariwise to the blasphemous charges,
and said, ' How can they eat little children, when it
is not lawful for them even to eat the blood of brute
beasts ? ' and from that moment she confessed herself
a Christian, and was added to the sacred order of the
martyrs. " When, through the endurance of these blessed
ones, the tortures of the tyrants were brought to nought
by Christ, the devil bethought of hira of other con
trivances, such as confinement in the dark in the worst
part of the prison, stretching of the feet in the stocks
to the fifth hole, and other outrages which enraged
underlings, full of the devil, are fond of inflicting upon
those in prison. The consequence was that most of
them were stifled in the gaol ; that is to say, those
whom the Lord willed so to depart. In this way He
displayed His own glory. For some who had been

JUSTIN AND THE MARTYRS OF LYONS 47
severely tormented, so that they seemed unlikely to
live, even with the best of care, continued in the gaol,
destitute of succour from men, but strengthened and
invigorated by the Lord both in body and soul,' and
cheering and encouraging the rest. But those who
were young, and had only lately been apprehended,
whose bodies had as yet suffered no outrage, could
not bear the burden of confinement, and died within
the gaol. " The blessed Pothinus, to whom was entrusted the
bishopric of Lyons, was himself dragged to the judg
raent seat. Pothinus was more than ninety years of
age and in very bad health. In fact he was already
barely alive through sickness ; but he was reinforced
by readiness of the spirit. The desire for martyrdom
sustained him ; and though his body was broken both
by old age and by sickness, his soul was kept within
him, in order that Christ might triumph through it.
He was brought by the soldiers to the judgment seat,
to which the authorities of the city sent hira on, while
the raultitude raised all raanner of outcries against him,
as if he were Christ Hiraself. There he witnessed his
good confession. Being asked by the governor who
was the God of the Christians, he said, ' Thou shalt
know if thou art worthy.' No sooner had he said this,
than he was mercilessly set upon, and all manner of
blows were laid upon him. Those who were near, not
even respecting his old age, contemptuously struck hira
with hands and feet, while those at a distance flung
at him whatever carae to hand, and all thought that
they would be guilty of crime and treason if any one
failed to take part in abusing him. In this way they
thought to avenge their own gods. Barely alive, he was
flung into the gaol, and after two days breathed his last."

48 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
The holy writers go on to record what they call a
" dispensation (or providence) of God," " such as," they
say, " has rarely been seen in the brotherhood, but
which gives an indication of the art of Christ." The
rule, since the tirae of Trajan, had always been, as that
eraperor laid down, that those who denied that they
were Christians should be set free. This rule, like
others which favoured the Christians, was not observed
at Lyons. Those who had denied their faith at the
tirae when the first arrests were raade, were nevertheless
shut up in prison, and shared the experiences of their
more courageous brethren. " But while those who
confessed what they were," says the letter, " were shut
up as Christians, and no other charge was made against
them, these others were confined as murderers and
felons, and were punished twice as much as the rest.
While the one were relieved by the joy of martyrdom,
and the hope of the promises, and their love towards
Christ, and the Spirit of the Father, the others were
grievously punished by their conscience, so that their
countenances were readily distinguished by casual
observers as they passed to and fro. The one advanced
blithely with an expression of glory and great joy, so
that they wore their bonds like a goodly ornament, as
a bride adorned with cunningly wrought fringes of
gold ; and at the same tirae they gave forth the sweet
savour of Christ in such a way that some deemed that
they were anointed with earthly perfumes. But the
others walked with downcast, dejected, raiserable looks,
covered with all confusion, and besides all else, the
heathen theraselves taunted them as base and cowardly,
while they bore the accusation of murderers, but had
lost the honourable and glorious and life-giving appella
tion of Christians. The rest saw these things and were

JUSTIN AND THE MARTYRS OF LYONS 49
strengthened, and such as were arrested confessed with
out hesitation, paying no heed to the arguments of
the devil."
At this point Eusebius, to whom we owe the pre
servation of the narrative, omits some sentences of the
letter, and passes on to the final scenes.
" The forms of death by which their martyrdom
was completed," say the survivors, " differed widely.
They presented to the Father a single wreath, but it
was woven of divers colours and blossoms of every
kind. It was meet that the noble athletes should receive
the great crown of immortality after enduring a varied
contest and gaining a mighty victory.
" Maturus, Sanctus, Blandina, and Attains were led
out to the wild beasts in public, to provide the heathen
comraunity with a barbarous spectacle. An exhibition
was given on purpose for our brethren. Maturus and
Sanctus again went through every form of infliction in
the amphitheatre, as if they had suffered nothing at all
before, or rather as if they had already worsted the
opponent in many contests, and now were striving for
the crown itself. Once raore they were raade to go in
and out between the whips, according to the custom
there, and were dragged this way and that way by the
beasts, and bore everything which voices here and there
in the infuriated crowd suggested and demanded. At
last they were placed in the iron chair, in which their
bodies were broiled so that the stench of them filled
their nostrils. Even this did not satisfy the tormentors.
On the contrary, they grew even more furious in their
desire to break down the endurance of the martyrs.
Yet no other word fell frora Sanctus except the con
fession which he had constantly uttered frora the begin
ning. So at last they were sacrificed, after living
D

50 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
through a great and protracted conflict, in which
throughout that day, instead of all the variety of the
usual exhibitions, they and they only were raade a
spectacle unto the world.
" Blandina was hung upon a stake and exposed to
be devoured by the wild beasts which were turned
loose upon her. The sight of her hanging crosswise,
joined with her fervent prayer, put great heart into the
combatants ; for araidst the corabat their sister enabled
them to behold, even with their bodily eyes. Him who
was crucified for them, to assure believers that every
one who suffers for the glory of Christ has fellowship
for ever with the living God. None of the wild beasts
would then touch her ; so she was taken down from
the tree, and placed again in the gaol, and reserved for
another combat, in order that her victory in repeated
wrestlings might put the conderanation of the crooked
serpent beyond question, and that the brethren might
be encouraged by seeing how one so small and weak,
and an object of contempt, could, when clothed with
the great and unconquerable athlete Christ, overpower
the adversary in raany successive trials, and be crowned
in fair cortibat with the crown of iraraortality.
" Attains was loudly called for by the populace, for
he was a well-known raan. A good conscience enabled
hira to enter the lists readily ; for he was thoroughly
practised in Christian discipline, and had always been a
witness for the truth among us. He was led round the
amphitheatre, with a board carried before him upon
which was written in Latin, ' This is Attains the Chris
tian.' The people were greatly inflamed against him,
but the governor on learning that he was a Roman
citizen ordered him to be taken back to the gaol, and
placed with the rest who were there, and wrote to

JUSTIN AND THE MARTYRS OF LYONS 51
the emperor concerning them, and waited for his
answer." The mean season was not idly or unfruitfully spent.
The letter says that " through the living the dead were
brought to life, and those who were martyrs reconciled
those who had failed to be raartyrs ; and great joy was
given to the Virgin Mother " — such is the beautiful
title by which the Church is described — " at receiving
back alive those miscarried ones whom she had
brought forth dead. The greater number of those
who had denied were conceived anew, and filled with
a new principle of life, and kindled into new flame ;
and they learned to confess, and now came to the
judgment seat alive and vigorous ; — for God who
wills not the death of a sinner, and who shows His
goodness in bringing men to repentance, mercifully
granted to them that they should be exarained again
by the governor. The eraperor's rescript ordered that
the convicted Christians should be beaten to death,
but that any who denied should be released. So at
the beginning of the festival here, — a festival which
attracts vast crowds from all the nations,^ — he brought
the blessed brethren to the judgment seat, making a
spectacle and an exhibition of them to the crowds.
Once more he exarained thera, and those who were
found to be possessed of the Roraan citizenship were
beheaded, and the rest were sent to the wild beasts.
"And Christ was greatly glorified in those who
had formerly denied, who now, to the surprise of the
heathen, confessed. These were examined by thera
selves, as a mere formality before setting them free.
Upon their confessing, they were added to the sacred
order of the martyrs. Only those remained outside
who had never had a trace of faith, nor any knowledge

52 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
of the wedding garraent, nor any notion of the fear of
God, but who by their conversation brought the Chris
tian way into ill repute, even the sons of perdition.
"The rest were all added to the Church. While
they were being exarained, one Alexander, a Phrygian
by birth, and a physician by profession, who had spent
many years in Gaul, and was known to almost every
one by his love of God and his great freedom of speech
— he was indeed endowed with something of the
apostolic gift — took his stand near the judgment seat,
and by his gestures encouraged them to confess, so
that those who stood round the judgment seat noticed
that he seeraed like one travailing with child. The
raultitudes, incensed at the confession of those who
had formerly denied, raised an outcry against Alex
ander, that it was his doing. So the governor called
him to the bar, and asked him who and what he was ;
and when he said, 'A Christian,' the governor angrily
condemned him to the wild beasts. The next day he
entered the arena with Attains ; for to please the
crowd " — it was a deliberate breach of the imperial
orders — " the governor exposed Attalus again to the
beasts. They underwent all the instruments of tor
ture which are used in the amphitheatre, and, after
enduring a very great conflict, were at last sacrificed.
Alexander never uttered a groan or a sound, but com
muned in his heart with God ; but Attalus, when he
was placed in the iron chair, and the smell of his
burning body rose up, said to the multitude in Latin,
' Look ! this is eating men ; it is you who do it. We
neither eat men, nor do anything else that is wrong.'
When he was asked what name God has, he answered,
' God has not a name like a raan.'
" After all these, on the last day of the fight with

JUSTIN AND THE MARTYRS OF LYONS 53
the wild beasts, Blandina was again introduced, in
company with a boy of about fifteen years of age,
called Ponticus. Every day these two had been
brought in to look on while the others were tortured,
and atterapts were raade to induce them to swear by
the heathen idols. Because they remained steadfast
and set them at naught, the populace grew too savage
with them to pity the tender age of the boy or to
respect the sex of the woraan. They submitted them to
all the horrors, and took them through the whole
round of torture, again and again endeavouring to
raake them swear, but without success. Encouraged
by his sister, so that the heathen saw her urging and
strengthening him, Ponticus nobly endured all the
tortures and gave up the ghost. The blessed Blandina
last of all, like a mother of high degree " — it raust be
remembered that she was a slave — " after encouraging
her children and sending them before her as conquerors
to the King, and raaking all their conflicts her own,
hastened to join her sons and daughters, rejoicing and
making merry over her departure, as though she were
invited to a marriage supper, not cast to wild beasts.
After the scourges, after the wild beasts, after the
frying-pan, at last she was cast into a net and exposed
to a bull, and when she had been well tossed by the
animal, unconscious of what was done to her, because
the things which she believed were to her a hope and
stay, and because of her comrauning with Christ, she
too was sacrificed, the heathen themselves confessing
that never among them had any woman suffered so
many and such terrible tortures."
The letter goes on to say that the rage of the
heathen was not even yet satisfied. Their hostility
found another and a peculiar occasion in the dead

54 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
bodies of the martyrs. They seemed to have lost the
power of acting by reason like human beings ; and
their defeat only inflamed their fury, like that of a
wild beast. The governor and the populace joined
together in their determination to outrage Christian
feeling. The survivors saw in it a fulfilment of the
Scripture, " He that is wicked, let him be wicked still ;
and he that is righteous, let him be justified still."
"Those who had died of suffocation in the prison,"
we read, "they cast to dogs, carefully watching over
them night and day lest we should attend to any of
them. The mangled and charred relics of the others
which were left by the wild beasts and by the fire,
were in a similar manner exposed unburied, together
with the severed heads and other portions of their
bodies, and a military guard was raounted over them
for several days. Some raged and gnashed their teeth
over them, seeking to inflict sorae further vengeance
upon them ; others laughed and raocked, magnifying
their idols and ascribing to them the punishment of the
martyrs. Those who were raore reasonable, and who
seemed to a certain extent to sympathise, upbraided them
greatly, saying ' Where is their God ? and what good
have they gained by the service which they preferred
even to life.' Thus they differed in their attitude to
wards us. We meanwhile were in great sorrow because
we were unable to bury the bodies. Night gave us
no help towards that end ; money was of no avail ;
prayers produced no relenting. The watch was main
tained in every direction, as if sorae great advantage
would be gained by preventing thera frora being
buried. " The bodies of the martyrs, after being treated with
every indignity, and exposed to the weather for six

JUSTIN AND THE MARTYRS OF LYONS 55
days, were then burned by the ungodly and reduced
to ashes, and strewed upon the river Rhone, which
flows hard by, so that no relic of thera raight remain
upon the earth. This was done under the idea of
prevaihng against God and depriving the martyrs of
the regeneration, in order that, as was actually said,
they might have no chance of rising again. ' It is
this expectation,' they affirmed, 'which makes them
introduce among us a new and foreign religion,
teaching them to despise all terrors, and to go to
death readily and with joy. Now let us see whether
they will rise again, and whether their God is able
to succour them and to deliver them out of our
hands.' "
The modesty of these devoted Christians, and their
consideration for their weaker brethren, are well shown
in one or two more sentences which Eusebius has
preserved out of this wonderful epistle.
"They were indeed followers and imitators of
Christ, who, being in the form of God, counted it not
a prize to be grasped to be on an equality with
God. In the height of their glory, when they had
endured not only one or two raartyrdoms but raany,
after being brought back the second tirae from the
wild beasts, with their bodies all covered with burns
and stripes and wounds, they neither proclairaed them
selves martyrs, nor allowed us to address thera by that
title ; and if ever one of us chanced to call thera so
in a letter or in speaking, they reproved him severely.
They rejoiced to leave the title of martyr to Christ,
the faithful and true Martyr, and the first-begotten
of the dead, and the Captain of the life of God ; and
they remembered the martyrs who had already de
parted thisjife, and said, 'Those were martyrs who.

56 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
by Christ's permission, were taken away in their con
fession, whose raartyrdora He sealed by their de
parture ; we are poor, lowly confessors.' And with
tears they besought the brethren, and begged the
offering of earnest prayers that they raight be per
fected " — that is, by martyrdom.
After a few more sentences the letter continues : —
" They humbled themselves under the mighty hand,
by which they are now greatly exalted. During those
days they made their defence unto all, but denounced
none ; they set all at liberty, and put none in chains ;
they prayed for their ill-wishers like the perfect martyr
Stephen, ' Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.' And
if he raade request for those who stoned him, how
much more for the brethren ?
" This was the greatest warfare that they had with
the Evil Beast, because of their genuine love, that he
might be forced to bring up again alive those whom
he thought that he had devoured. They did not vaunt
themselves against the fallen ; where they themselves
abounded they imparted to those who lacked, for they
had the hearts of mothers, and shed raany tears for
thera to the Father. They asked life of Hira, and He
gave it them, and they shared it with their neighbours.
Conquerors at every point, they departed to God ; and
having always loved peace, and having commended
peace to us, they went in peace to God, not bequeathing
affliction to their Mother, nor dissension and war to
their brethren, but joy, and peace, and concord, and
love." Eusebius sadly contrasts this record with the
legacies bequeathed by some of the martyrs of a time
nearer his own.
One anecdote is recorded by Eusebius, which shows
even more touchingly the humility of these holy men.

JUSTIN AND THE MARTYRS OF LYONS 57
There was one among thera named Alcibiades, who
had lived a very ascetic life before he was thrown into
prison, never touching any food but bread and water.
When first he was imprisoned he adhered rigidly to
the same rule ; but after the first fight of Attalus in
the amphitheatre " a revelation was made to that
saint that Alcibiades was not doing well to refuse
the creatures of God, and to leave an example which
would prove a stumbHng-block to others." Alcibiades
thereupon gave up his hfelong practice, " and partook
freely of all, and gave thanks to God." ^
The persecution at Lyons continued for some time
longer. The names of two martyrs are preserved who
perished in the following year. They were Epipodius
and Alexander — the former a native of the city, the
latter a Greek by birth. They had been school-fellows
in boyhood, and were united by a close friendship in
the early manhood which was all that they were per
mitted to see. Being unable to escape to any distant
place of safety, the two young raen took up a lodging
with a poor Christian widow who lived at the place
now called Pierre Encise, on the high ground above
the city. Diligent search was being made for the
remaining Christians of the place, and the searchers
carae suddenly upon the friends in their lowly abode
— so suddenly that Epipodius was carried off with only
one shoe on, leaving the other to be treasured by the
widow as a precious rehc. After three days in prison
they were exarained, and confessed that they were
Christians. To deprive them of mutual support they
were tried separately. Epipodius bore his tortures
bravely ; and when the multitude cried out for worse
inflictions, the magistrate, who had seen or heard too
1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. 1,2, 3.

58 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
much of these tumultuary proceedings, thought good
to maintain the dignity of his office by ordering him
to be taken out of court and slain at once with the
sword. Two days later Alexander was brought to the
bar. On refusing to offer incense, he was beaten by
relays of three executioners at a time ; but when at
the end he was asked whether he persisted in his
confession, he replied, " The gods of the heathen are
devils. I comrait ray will to God Almighty." The
magistrate said that, as the Christians made the length
of their torments a matter of boasting, he would give
him no more of them ; and he ordered hira to be
crucified. He was not long in dying. His body was
exhausted with the scourging which it had endured, and
with his last weary breath he called upon Christ.^
There seems to be sorae reason for placing in
connexion with these martyrdoms that of a young
man named Symphorian, who belonged to a good
Christian faraily in the town of Autun. There, accord
ing to one account, which is in itself not incredible,
he was baptized by a priest named Benignus, now the
tutelary saint of Dijon, who is said to have been sent
into Gaul with certain corapanions by St. Polycarp,
and who himself suffered martyrdom about this time.
The town of Autun was a centre of orgies which were
identified with the Phrygian worship of Cybele, or
Berecynthia. At a great celebration of the festival of
this goddess, Symphorian was observed to withhold the
customary marks of reverence ; and as Christians were
at the time being sought out, he was brought before
Heraclius, the govemor. Heraclius asked the usual
questions about his name and estate, to which he duly
answered, "I am a Christian ; my name is Symphorian,"
^ Ruinart's Acta Primorum Martyrum Sincera, p. 63.

JUSTIN AND THE MARTYRS OF LYONS 59
" Are you a Christian ? " answered the governor in
surprise ; " you raust have escaped our attention.
There is not much profession of that name in these
parts. Why do you despise the figure of the mother
of the gods, and refuse to worship it ? " "I have
already told you," said Symphorian, "that I am a
Christian. I worship the true God, who reigns in
heaven. I do not worship the image of a devil ; if
you will give me leave, I should be glad to break it
up with a raallet." The magistrate said that he was
guilty not only of sacrilege, but of treason. He turned
to his officium, or group of secretaries and agents, to
ask whether Symphorian belonged to the place. He
was informed that it was so, and that he was well
connected. "You are jesting," he said to Symphorian;
"you have heard of Christianity, but you know nothing
about it, and are telling me lies. Perhaps you do not
know the iraperial orders. The officium shall read
them to you." They did so ; but Symphorian would
not obey them. Heraclius ordered the lictors to beat
hira and put hira in prison. After sorae days he was
again brought into court and asked if he would worship
the gods, but he refused. " I fear the Alraighty God
who made me," he replied, "and I serve Him only.
You have my body in your power for a while, but not
my soul." The judge condemned him to be beheaded.
As he was led out of the gate of the city, his mother
called aloud to him from the wall, " My son ! Sym
phorian, my son ! Think of the living God. Be stead
fast. It is no loss of your life to-day, but a change
for the better." ' ' Ruinart, p. 68.

CHAPTER IV
CARPUS, CAECILIA, AND APOLLONIUS
After so sublime a narrative as that of the churches
of Lyons and Vienne, other records may well appear
tame and dull. But there is a noble simplicity about
the acts of some raartyrs who were put to death
about the sarae date at Pergamos, the native town of
Attalus — the place where, in St. John's days, the seat
of Satan was, and where Antipas had suffered. Their
naraes were Carpus and Papylus. The proconsul of
the province was on a visit to Pergamos, and the two
were brought before him. " What are you called ? "
he said to Carpus. " My first and choicest name,"
he answered, " is a Christian ; but if you ask me my
secular name, it is Carpus." The proconsul said,
" Of course you know the comraands of the emperors
to the effect that you must worship the gods who
govern all things ; so I recommend you to draw near
and sacrifice." "I ara a Christian," said Carpus:
" I worship Christ, the Son of God, who came in the
latter times for our salvation, and delivered us from
the deceit of the devil ; but to such idols as these 1
do not sacrifice. Do what you please ; it is impossible
for me to sacrifice to false and unreal devils, for
those who sacrifice to thera are like them. For as the
true worshippers according to the divine instruction
of the Lord, those who worship God in spirit and in
truth, becorae like to the glory of God and are with

CARPUS, CAECILIA, AND APOLLONIUS 6i
Him immortal, sharing eternal life through the Word,
so those who serve these become like the devils in
their unreality, and are with them destroyed in hell.
For just vengeance is taken of him who deceived
man, the noblest creature of God, — I mean the devil,
who by his own wickedness stirs men up to this. So
know, proconsul, that I do not sacrifice to these."
The proconsul in anger answered and said to the
two raen, " Sacrifice to the gods, and be fools no
longer." Carpus smiled and said, in the words of
Jeremiah, "The gods that have not made the heavens
and the earth, even they shall perish." " You must
sacrifice," said the proconsul ; " the eraperor has
commanded it." Carpus replied, "The living do not
sacrifice to the dead." " Do you think that the gods
are dead ? " said the magistrate. Carpus answered,
" Do you wish to be told ? These gods were never
even live raen that they should die. Do you wish to
learn that this is true ? Deprive thera of the honour
which you think to offer to thera, and you will know
that they are nothing. They are but earthly material,
and in time they perish. Our God is above time.
He made the ages. He Himself abides immortal and
eternal, the sarae for ever, without increase or decrease ;
but these gods are made by men, and, as I said, are
destroyed by time. Do not wonder that they utter
oracles and deceive, for the devil, who fell of old frora
his glorious estate, in his own wickedness seeks to
frustrate the fatherly love of God to man, and being
hard pressed by the saints, he fights against them, and
prepares war against them, and foretells the same to
his own, and in hke manner arguing from the things
which happen to us day by day, being more ancient
than we in length of existence, his experience teaches

62 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
him to predict the future mischief which he means to
do. For by his denial of God he has gained a know
ledge of unrighteousness, and God allows him to
tempt man, and to seek to draw him away from
godliness. Believe me therefore, sir, that your position
is a very false one." The proconsul answered, " By
letting you go on talking nonsense I have led you to
speak blasphemy against the gods and the emperors ;
so to put a stop to it I ask whether you will sacrifice
or not." " It is irapossible that I should sacrifice,"
replied Carpus. " I have never yet sacrificed to idols."
So the proconsul ordered hira to be hung up and
scraped, to which he replied by crying aloud repeatedly,
" I ara a Christian." After enduring this torture for some
tirae, he becarae exhausted and could speak no raore.
The proconsul turned his attention to Papylus
and asked him if he was a senator. He answered,
"I ara a citizen." "Of what city?" asked the magis
trate. " Of Thyatira," he replied. " Have you any
children ? " said the magistrate. " Yes, many, by
God's raercy," answered Papylus. Hereupon one of
the raultitude who stood by cried out, "That is the
Christian way of speaking. He means that he has
children according to the faith." The proconsul said,
"Why did you tell me a lie and say that you had
children ? " Papylus answered, " Do you wish to be
shown that I speak the truth and not a lie ? I have
children according to God in every province and city."
The proconsul grew impatient and said, "Will you
sacrifice, or will you not ? " Papylus answered, "From
my youth up I have served God, and have never sacri
ficed to idols. I ara a Christian, and you will get no
other answer frora rae, for there is nothing greater or
nobler that I could say."

CARPUS, CAECILIA AND APOLLONIUS 63
So Papylus also was hung up and scraped.
Three separate pairs of executioners were employed
upon him, but he uttered not a sound, receiving their
cruel handling in silence. When the proconsul saw
the great fortitude of these men, he ordered them to be
burnt alive. They carae down from the position in
which they had been tortured, and " went with alacrity
to the amphitheatre that they might be quickly delivered
from the world." Papylus was first nailed to the stake
and set upright. The fire was lighted, and after praying
quietly he expired.
When Carpus was nailed up, he smiled. The by
standers in astonishment said to him, " What made you
laugh ? " He answered, " I saw the glory of the Lord
and was glad ; and besides I ara delivered frora you and
have no part in your wrongdoings." When the soldiers
heaped the wood about hira and began to hght it.
Carpus spoke from his cross and said, "We, too, are
the children of the same raother. Eve, and have the
sarae flesh as you, but when we look to the true
judgraent seat we can endure everything." The fire
began to burn up, and Carpus prayed, " Blessed art
Thou, Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, because Thou
hast vouchsafed to give even to me, the sinner, this part
with Thee," and when he had said this he breathed his
last. Standing near him at the moment was a Christian
woman named Agathonice, who felt the infection of the
martyr's enthusiasm. She saw, it is said, the glory of
the Lord which Carpus said that he had seen, and felt
that she was bidden to the joys of heaven. She raised
her voice and cried, " That dinner is prepared for me ;
I must eat and partake of the glorious dinner." There
are evident omissions in this part of the story, and we

64 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
must suppose that Agathonice was then arrested and
sentenced by the magistrate. She had a young son
with her, and the crowd endeavoured to work upon her
maternal feelings. " Have pity upon your child," they
cried ; but she answered, " He has God who can have
pity on him, for His providence takes care for all. I
raust do what I am here for." She took off her upper
garments, and joyfully laid herself out upon the cross
or stake to which she was to be fastened, while the
spectators lamented for her and condemned the regula
tions under which such sentences were possible. When
the stake was lifted into its place, and Agathonice felt
the first touch of the flame, her spiritual exaltation gave
place to a more natural human weakness. Once, twice,
and thrice, it was counted that she exclairaed, " Lord !
Lord ! Lord ! help rae, for I have fled to Thee for
refuge." Thus she gave up the ghost, and was perfected
with the saints.^
It was towards the close of the reign of Marcus
Aurelius that a famous saint was put to death at Rome,
whose history has becorae so overgrown with legend
that it is not easy to raake sure what is fact and what is
fiction. But there is nothing iraprobable in the follow
ing account of St. Caecilia. She was a daughter of the
illustrious Roraan faraily of the Caecilii, and had been
brought up a Christian frora her infancy. Her young
husband Valerian, and his brother Tiburtius, were both
induced by Caecilia to receive instruction from an
" elder " named Urban, who lived on the family pro
perty along the Appian Way, and were baptized by
hira. At a tirae when sorae Christians were put to
death by the prefect of the city, and, according to the
usage of the time, were not allowed to be buried, the
1 Harnack's Texte und Untersuchungen, Ed, III,, Hft. 4.

CARPUS, CAECILIA, AND APOLLONIUS 65
two brothers raade theraselves conspicuous by their
efforts to secure reverent burial for the raartyrs. It
led to their arrest. Tiburtius was brought before the
prefect, who expostulated with hira for attaching him
self to a superstitious sect, unworthy of a man of his
birth and standing. The answers which he gave led
the prefect to say that he spoke like one who had no
possession of his faculties. " No," answered Tiburtius,
" the Lord Jesus Christ, whom I have received into my
inmost parts, has possession of them, and speaks by
me." When Valerian was placed at the bar, the
prefect told him that his brother was mad, but that
he expected good sense frora Valerian. Valerian
replied that he knew of only one physician for the
mind, who was Christ, the Son of God. He said that
eternal sorrow awaited those who lived the life of the
world. " What ? " cried the prefect ; " shall we and
the invincible emperors have eternal sorrow, while you
have perpetual joy ? " Valerian answered, " What are
you and what are your emperors but frail raen, who
are born and must die when your tirae comes, and are
responsible to God for the measure of power which you
have received from Hira ? " The prefect said, " We
are wasting time in irrelevant conversation. Offer to
the gods, and you raay go without further trouble."
The brothers answered, " We do not sacrifice to the
gods ; we sacrifice every day to God." He inquired
the narae of their God. Valerian rephed, "You will
not find the narae of God ; not if you were to soar
with wings." " Is not Jupiter the narae of a god ? "
said the prefect. " No," said Valerian, in the language
used by most of the Christian Apologists of his time,
" it is the name of a corrupt and wicked man. Your
own writers show hira to be a raurderer and a crirainal." E

66 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
The prefect ordered them to be beaten with sticks,
— the punishment prescribed by Marcus Aurelius for
the Roman citizens at Lyons. When Valerian was
stripped he cried out that he had long wished for
that hour. While the beating proceeded, a crier
proclaimed aloud, " Do not blaspheme the gods and
goddesses." But Valerian shouted to the Christian
bystanders, possessed, like him, of the coveted franchise,
" Citizens of Rome, do not let ray sufferings frighten
you away from the truth, but stand firm in the faith of
our holy Lord, knowing that those who worship the
gods of wood and stone will suffer everlasting tribula
tion." As the prefect showed sorae signs of unwilling
ness to proceed at once to extreraities, wishing probably
to give the prisoners an opportunity for reconsidering
their position, his assessor urged hira to allow no delay.
The only use that they would raake of the tirae, he said,
would be to give away all their property (which legally
was confiscated), and so there would be nothing left
when they carae to be executed. Upon this, the
prefect ordered thera to be led out to a spot called
Pagus Triopius, four miles from the city, and there,
after a last option of offering incense at the temple of
Jupiter, to be beheaded. They refused to offer the
incense, and knelt down and received the sword. It is
said that the head official of the court, a man named
Maximus, was so moved by the behaviour of the
brothers as to attach hiraself to their religion, and to
suffer death for it. The three bodies were buried by
Caecilia in the neighbouring ceraetery of Praetextatus,
with which her faraily was connected.
Perhaps for her share in the burial, Caecilia was
herself arrested and brought before the prefect. To
the usual question about her position in life, she

CARPUS, CAECILIA, AND APOLLONIUS 67
answered with truth that she was freeborn and of
noble family. The prefect taxed her with presuming
upon her position, and being proud. " Pride," she
answered, "is one thing, and firmness is another. I
spoke firraly, but not proudly." " You know," he said,
"that the eraperors have commanded that those who
will not deny that they are Christians shall be punished,
and those who deny are to be set at liberty." Then,
referring to an ordinance of Hadrian, he added, "Those
who have accused you of being a Christian are present
in court ; if you say that you are not, their punish
ment will be speedy." But the noble lady scorned
to deny her faith. Like her husband she expressed
herself freely on the vanity of idols. The prefect
interrupted her. " I have borne like a philosopher
the insults which you have poured upon rae ; but
I cannot allow you to pour thera upon the gods." He
ordered her to be taken back to her own house, and
suffocated in the hot bath. The atterapt was un
successful, and an executioner was sent to behead her
there. He did his work so badly that Caecilia still
lived for sorae tirae longer, raaking use of the time
to arrange for the conveyance of her mansion to a
friend, who dedicated it to the use of the church, and
the basilica of St. Caecilia in the Trastevere stands on
the site of it.^
The church of North Africa began to contribute its
contingent to the noble army iraraediately after the
death of Marcus Aurelius, when his unworthy son, Com-
modus, had succeeded him. "The first to draw the
sword" against the Christians in Africa, according to
TertuUian, was a proconsul naraed Vigellius Saturninus,
appointed, doubtless, by Marcus hiraself; Vigellius,
^ Acta Sanctorum, May 14 ; Surius, November 22,

68 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
according to the same writer, paid for it by the judg
ment of God which deprived him of his eyesight. The
premier martyr of the province bore the Punic name
of Namphamo ; his companions were called Miggin
and Lucitas, and a woman, Samae. St. Augustine is
indignant with a heathen correspondent who mocked
at the uncouth names. Among the Christians, those
names were held in high honour ; but the story of
their lives and deaths has long been lost.
Within a raonth or two, however, a fresh batch
of raartyrs was called to appear before Saturninus at
Carthage. It was coraposed of seven men and five
women. They are known as the Scillitan raartyrs, from
the town at which they lived, the narae of which is
variously given as Scillis, or Scillium, or Scillita. We
still have the brief but interesting notes of their
trial. " You can obtain the pardon of our lord the
eraperor," said Saturninus, "if you return to a right
raind." Speratus, the leader of the band, answered,
" We have never done any crime, nor abetted wrong
doing ; we have never cursed any one, but when
abused we have given thanks. This comes of obeying
our own Eraperor." He raeant Christ. The pro
consul felt that the Christian was implicitly claiming
a religious superiority over him. " We too are re
ligious," he answered, "and our religion is a simple
one, and we swear by the genius of our lord the
eraperor and pray for his safety. You ought to do
the sarae." " If you will listen quietly to me," said
Speratus, " I will tell you the very secret of simplicity."
"I shall not listen," replied Saturninus, who perhaps
knew by experience what to expect, " if you begin
to speak evil of our rites. Swear by the genius of the

CARPUS, CAECILIA, AND APOLLONIUS 69
emperor." Speratus answered — and it can hardly be
wondered at if such utterances sounded disloyal to
those who did not know their raeaning — " I know
nothing of any erapire of this world. I serve that
God whora no raan hath seen nor can see with these
eyes. I have comraitted no theft. I pay the duty
on all that I buy. That is because I acknowledge my
Lord, the King of kings and Eraperor of all nations."
The proconsul, addressing all the party, said, " For
sake this persuasion." Speratus, referring to the
popular caluranies against the Christians, retorted,
" It is a bad persuasion which bears false witness."
Saturninus took no notice of the retort, but con
tinued to urge the prisoners to adopt what he considered
the wise line. One of thera, naraed Cittinus, answered,
" We have no one else to fear but our Lord God in
heaven." " Honour to Caesar, as Caesar," added one
of the woraen, naraed Donata ; " but fear to God
alone." "I am a Christian," said another woman.
" What I am," said a third, " I mean to be." Satur
ninus turned again to Speratus. " Do you persist in
being a Christian ? " He answered, " I ara a Christian ; "
and the rest joined in his confession. " Would you
hke tirae to think ? " asked the governor. " In such
a straightforward matter," answered Speratus, "there
is no need to think." "What stuff have you got on
your book-shelves," was the sudden question which
followed. "The books and epistles of the righteous
Paul," Speratus answered. "You shall be remanded
for thirty days," said Saturninus, " and recohect your
selves." Speratus answered once more, "I am a
Christian." So said they all. Then, reading frora the
judicial tablet, the proconsul uttered his sentence,
" Speratus, Nartzalus, Cittinus, Donata, Vestia, Secunda,

70 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
and the rest, having confessed that they live in the
Christian raanner, and having had the offer of return
ing to the Roman way, and having obstinately refused,
I pronounce that they be punished with the sword."
"We thank God," said Speratus. "To-day we are
raartyrs in heaven," cried Nartzalus ; " thanks be to
God." 1
Christianity had made much progress among the
upper classes at Rome by the end of Marcus' reign,
in spite of that emperor's opposition. Amongst its
raost notable professors of that date was one named
Apollonius, who appears to have held the high position
of a meraber of the Roman senate. He was renowned
amongst the Christians for his philosophical culture.
This raan was denounced to the authorities, near the
beginning of the reign of Coraraodus, and brought
to trial. The narrative of Apollonius' defence and
raartyrdora has lately been found, both in Greek and
in Armenian, and is as follows.
By order of the Prefect of the Praetorium, whose
name was Perennis — though the Armenian version of
the Acts calls him Terentius, which may be intended
for Tarruntenus, the predecessor of Perennis — Apollo
nius was brought before the high tribunal of his peers
in senate. He was asked why he refused to sacrifice
to the gods, and boldly replied, "Because I am a
Christian." Perennis bade him repent, and swear by
the fortune of the emperor. Apollonius replied, as
Polycarp had done before hira, that it was an ungodly
thing to repent of what was good, and that he was
firmly resolved to keep the commandments of Christ.
He added that he disapproved of oaths as being an
outcome of falsehood. " Yet," he said, " I am willing
^ Robinson's Texts and Studies, vol. i. no. 2.

CARPUS, CAECILIA, AND APOLLONIUS 71
to swear by the true and eternal God, whom the hands
of raen did not make, but who makes man to rule over
raen, that we too honour the emperor, and pray for
him." The session was probably held in the temple of
Apollo on the Palatine. The prefect invited his prisoner
to sacrifice to Apollo and the other gods, and to the
image of the emperor. " No," said Apollonius ; " I and
all Christians offer a pure and unbloody sacrifice of
prayers to God, on behalf of those living images whom
His providence has appointed to rule over the earth.
The eraperor Commodus holds his sovereignty by
the will of God, the only Sovereign, who holds all
things in His hand." Perennis said, " I give you
a day's respite to consider your interests and to take
counsel for your life." So Apollonius was taken to
prison. On his second appearance he was asked what
resolution he had come to. He answered, " To remain
firm in ray religion, as I said before." Perennis re
minded him of a decree of the senate,. by which, for
some reason, the imperial law had been reinforced,
under which his life was forfeited unless he sacrificed.
But Apollonius remained firra. He knew his duty to
God, he said, and could offer no worship to the idols
raade with hands, fashioned of gold and silver and
wood, which neither see nor hear. His worship was
reserved for God, who breathed the breath of life into
raen, and who continually sustains it. To worship idols
would be to debase hiraself — to put himself in subjec
tion to things less than huraan. Like the other learned
Apologists of the tirae, he showed the follies of idolatry
 how the Egyptians worshipped an onion, a basin,
a fish, a dove, a crocodile ; and the Athenians a copper
ox-head, which they identified with the fortune of

72 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
Athens, and set it up in a conspicuous place beside
the effigies of Zeus and Heracles. Even Socrates, he
said, had poured conterapt upon the religion of Athens,
when, instead of swearing by their gods, he swore by
the plane-tree, or by the dog.
Such reasoning appeared to the practical raind of
the prefect of the Praetorium to be beside the point.
" You have given us enough philosophy," he said —
" adrairable philosophy ; but the senate has forbidden
Christianity." "Yes," said Apollonius, "but a decree
of the senate cannot prevail over the decree of God."
Death, he said, was appointed for all ; and Christians
practised themselves for it in dying daily. So far were
the heathen calumnies against Christianity from being
true, that Christians would not allow themselves a single
impure glance, nor listen to a bad word. He said that
it was no worse to die for the true God than to die of
fever, or dysentery, or any other disease. "Are you
then bent upon death ? " asked Perennis. " No," said
Apollonius, " I enjoy life ; but love of life does not
make me afraid to die. There is nothing better than
life — the life eternal, which gives immortality to the
soul which has lived well here." The prefect confessed
that he did not understand. " I am heartily sorry for
you," said the prisoner ; " so insensible as you are to
the beauties of grace. Only the seeing heart can
appreciate the word of God, as the seeing eye the
light." Here a brother philosopher, of the Cynic school,
interrupted Apollonius, and said that such language
was an insult to the understanding, though Apollonius
himself thought that he was uttering profound truths.
" I have learned to pray, and not to insult," Apollonius
answered ; " only to the senseless does the truth appear

CARPUS, CAECILIA, AND APOLLONIUS 73
to be an insult." The judge besought him to explain
himself clearly. Then Apollonius answered with what
Eusebius justly calls a most eloquent defence of his
faith. "The Word of God," he said, "who brought
into existence men's souls and bodies, became man in
Judaea — our Saviour Jesus Christ. Perfectly righteous,
and filled with Divine wisdom. He lovingly taught us
what the God of all is like, and what is the end of
virtue, befitting the souls of men, with a view to social
order and dignity. By His own suffering He put a
stop to sins in their very beginning. He taught us to
stop anger, to moderate desire, to chastise the love of
pleasure. He taught us to relieve sorrow, to be
generous, to promote charity, to put away vainglory,
to abstain frora taking revenge, to despise death — not
when inflicted for wrongdoing, but in patient endur
ance of the wrongdoing of others. He taught us to
obey the law laid down by Himself, to honour the
king, to worship the imraortal God, and Him only, to
believe our souls to be immortal, to look forward to
judgraent after death, to expect the reward of the toils
of virtue to be given by God after the resurrection to
those who have lived good lives. All this He taught us
plainly, and gave us convincing reasons for it ; and
won great glory for His excellence. But He incurred
the envy of the unnurtured, like the righteous men
and philosophers before Him. For the righteous are
unserviceable to the unrighteous ; as the fools unjustly
say in a certain proverb " — here Apollonius refers to
a passage in the Book of Wisdora — " ' Let us lie in
wait for the righteous, because he is not for our turn.'
And not only so, but it was said by one of the Greeks "
— a speaker in the Republic of Plato — " ' The righteous
man shall be scourged, tortured, bound, have his eyes

74 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
put out, and at last be crucified.' As the Athenian
sycophants persuaded the multitude, and unjustly sen
tenced Socrates, so our Master and Saviour was sentenced
to death by sorae of the wicked, who reproached Him
as they had reproached the prophets before Him —
those prophets who foretold many glorious things of
the Man, that such an one would corae, perfectly just
and virtuous, and should do good to all men, and
should persuade them by His goodness to worship
the God of all. We," he concluded, " have hastened to
honour Hira, because we have learned frora Hira lofty
commandments, of which we were ignorant before, and
are under no delusion. Yet if it were a delusion, as
you say, which tells us that the soul is immortal, and
that there is a judgment after death, and a reward of
virtue at the resurrection, and that God is the Judge,
we would gladly be carried away by such a lie as that,
which has taught us to live good lives, awaiting the
hope of the future, even while suffering adversities."
The magistrate hstened respectfully to the address
which he had invited, but it woke in hira no doubt with
regard to the course which he was to pursue. " I
thought," he said, " that you would have changed your
raind, and would have worshipped the gods with us."
" And I, sir," Apollonius replied, " hoped that good
thoughts would have corae to you, and that the eyes of
your soul would have been opened by my defence, so
that your heart might bear fruit in worshipping God
the Creator, and daily offering to Him alone, with
almsgiving and kindliness towards raen, the prayers
which are an unbloody sacrifice, pure before God."
Perennis was touched but not raoved. " I wish that I
could let you go," he said ; " but I ara forbidden by
the decree of the eraperor Coraraodus. Nevertheless

CARPUS, CAECILIA, AND APOLLONIUS 75
I will use you kindly in death." The kindness took
the heathenish form of ordering the informer, who was
probably a slave of Apollonius, to have his legs broken.
Apollonius was led away to be beheaded, glorifying
God as he went.^
There are evident signs in the story of Apollonius
that the officials who had to deal with him would have
been glad to be rid of the business. The eraperor
seeras to have thrown the responsibility upon his pre
fect, the prefect upon the senate. It was the policy of
the moment to discourage prosecutions for Christianity.
That was doubtless the reason why the informer against
Apollonius was punished, although his information was
true. Probably there were, indeed, proconsuls and
magistrates who threw theraselves into the work of
persecution with ardour, both to gain favour with a
master like Marcus Aurelius, and also because it suited
their own disposition. Such an one seems to have
been the governor at Lyons during the great persecu
tion. But there were others who detested the work,
and avoided it to the utraost of their power. Tertul-
lian tells of one, Cincius Severus, who suggested to the
Christians at Thysdrus, in Africa, safe answers that they
raight raake, so that he raight let thera go. Another,
Vespronius Candidus, when a Christian was brought
before hira who had friends in the town, treated the
case as one of turbulent behaviour, and gave the man
his liberty. Another, called Asper, gave the Christian
a little pain, and at once turned him down without
compelling him to sacrifice, frankly avowing amongst
the advocates and counsellors of the court that he was
sorry to have meddled with the case at all. One Pudens,
' Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v, 21 ; Von Gebhardt's Ausgewahlte Mdrtyreracten,
p. 44 ; and Conybeare's Monuments of Early Christianity, p. 35.

76 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
when he learned frora the indictment handed in to him
that the Christian at the bar had been the victim of a
kind of blackmail, tore up the indictment and let the
man go, affirming that he would not break the law by
hearing the case without a proper accuser.

CHAPTER V
PERPETUA
The number of the Christians to be dealt with,
which had proved a difficulty in Bithynia as early as
the time of Pliny and Trajan, proved a greater and yet
greater difficulty towards the end of the second century.
Only a resolute government was capable of coping with
it, and the government of Coraraodus was not of that
character. Besides, Coraraodus, early in his reign, fell
into the hands of a favourite, who, although probably
no Christian herself, had yet been brought up by a
Christian priest, and was well disposed towards the
Christians. Her narae was Marcia. No laws or regu
lations under which Christians suffered were repealed ;
but there was a growing tendency on the part of magis
trates under Commodus to be lenient, and to use the
mildest forms of penalty which were available. Among
other substitutes for capital punishment recognised by
the Roman law was that of conderanation to work in
the mines, in a kind of state slavery. This came to be
a favourite penalty for the Christians. An illustration
is offered in the history of one who became Bishop
of Rorae, as related by a bitter opponent. Callistus,
who gives his narae to the faraous catacomb of St.
Callistus, was the slave of a wealthy Christian, and
brought hiraself into grave trouble by questionable
conduct. Sorae Jews, whom he had irritated, accused
him before Fuscianus, thfe prefect of the city ; but,

78 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
perhaps deterred by the fate of the accuser of Apol
lonius, they did not venture to accuse hira directly of
being a Christian, but of having disturbed their syna
gogue, which was under the protection of the law.
Fuscianus sent hira to the living death of penal servi
tude in the raines of the unhealthy island of Sardinia,
where he found hiraself in corapany with many other
Christian sufferers. Fortunately for him, Marcia soon
after felt herself impelled to do sorae good deed. She
sent for Victor, the Bishop of Rome, and asked him
for the list of the " martyrs " in Sardinia. He gave
her one, which happened not to include the name of
Calhstus, and she obtained from Coraraodus a free
pardon for them all. Marcia committed the pardon
into the hands of the priest who had brought her up,
who on arriving in Sardinia, and finding that the name
of Callistus had been omitted, took upon him to add
that name, and brought all the prisoners away.^
But the clemency of the careless Commodus made
no change in the legal situation of Christians, and
under Septimius Severus, who succeeded to the empire
in the year 193, the Church found again what it was to
have a strong ruler's hand turned against her. Not
that Severus was from the outset harsh towards the
Christians ; on the contrary, he treated them with a
certain degree of favour. He had Christians about his
person and family, of whose religion he cannot have
been in doubt. He is even said to have ascribed his
recovery frora a severe illness to the prayers and
unction of a Christian. When he conquered the town
of Byzantium, which was held against him in the in
terests of his rival Niger, the officer in coraraand of the
city was heard to exclaim, " This is good news for the
^ Hippolytus, Adv. Haer. ix. 12.

PERPETUA 79
Christians." On his entry into Rome after his victory
over Albinus, when great numbers of distinguished
persons were put to death, Severus is said to have
protected certain eminent men and women, whom he
knew to be Christians, and, in spite of the anger of the
populace, paid thera a high public tribute.
But even at the outset of his reign, trouble with
the Christians was unavoidable. In Africa especially,
where zeal ran naturally into fanaticism, Christians
theraselves grew impatient of " the good, long peace." ^
A Christian soldier refused, on grounds which his fellow
Christians thought extravagant, to wear a siraple wreath
of laurel when receiving a largess from the emperor.
TertuUian applauded the refusal. He affirmed that it
was impossible for a soldier to be a Christian ; that it
was serving two raasters. The bishops who took an
opposite line were, he said, lions in tirae of peace, but
deer in time of battle. The prisons began to fill
once more with " martyrs designate," as TertuUian
called them. He addressed to them his ringing ex
hortations. Nor was it only upon the sufferers themselves that
the eloquence of TertuUian was expended. Two works
in defence of their religion carae from his pen in quick
succession, — one addressed to " the Nations," that is,
the heathen, in general ; the other, addressed raore par
ticularly to the raagistrates whose business it was to
administer the law. The one thing of which Tertul-
lian complained was, that Christianity was condemned
without being heard. In the trial of all other criminals,
the case was gone into, the accusation proved or dis
proved, witnesses heard, the character of the crime
exposed, defence admitted : Christians alone were con-
^ TertuUian, De Corona Militis, i.

8o THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
demned on the raere avowal of Christianity. It was
all "the battle of a name." Whereas in all other
cases the magistrates in the law courts endeavoured
to persuade criminals to confess their crime, with the
Christians, on the contrary, they used every torture
that they could devise to induce them to deny. " I
ara a Christian," the man would say ; and they re
doubled their efforts to make him say that he was not.
" They believe about us," he cried, " what is never
proved ; and they will not have the question tried out,
for fear Christians should be proved not to be what
they like better to believe that they are." It was all
prejudice. " A good man. Gains Seius, but that he
is a Christian." " Extraordinary that a respectable
person like Lucius Titius should suddenly turn Chris
tian." That was the way men spoke. The only argu
ment was, " Christianity is not allowed." " If the Tiber
rises to the walls, if the Nile refuses to rise into the
fields, if the heaven is stayed, if the earth is moved, if
there comes a famine or a plague, the cry is imme
diately, ' The Christians to the lion.' "
The current caluranies against Christianity were
brilliantly exposed, and the war was carried into the
enemy's country ; but TertuUian, like Justin before
him, was not content with a merely negative defence.
He dared to set before the magistrates the inmost
secrets of the CJiristian religion, the history and the
nature of Christ, the mystery of the Blessed Trinity.
He drew his picture of the Christian Church at prayer,
— and praying for the emperor, to whom they were
considered disloyal :
" For all eraperors we Christians continually pray,
looking up to God above with hands outspread, because
they are innocent, with head uncovered, because we

PERPETUA 8 I
have nothing to be ashamed of, without a prompter,
because our prayers are from the heart. Long life,
security for their empire, safety for their horaes, brave
armies, a loyal senate, a moral people, a peaceful world,
all that a man and a Caesar can desire, all these I pray
for on their behalf, and to none other but Him, frora
whora I ara sure of gaining them, because it is He
alone who gives them, and it is I who have a right to
be heard by Him — His servant, who alone worship
Hira, who am killed for ray duty to Hira, who offer to
Hira the rich and more excellent sacrifice which He
has Hiraself coraraanded, prayer out of a pure heart
and an innocent soul, and proceeding frora a Holy
Spirit. When we are thus spreading forth our hands
to God, let us be torn open with hooks, hung upon
crosses, licked by the flaraes, have our throats cut with
swords, be assailed by wild beasts ; the very posture
of the Christian at prayer raakes him ready for any
punishraent. See to it, worthy raagistrates ; draw
forth with tortures the soul that is thus pleading for
the eraperor with God." ^
The Roman state was jealous of the growth of what
were cMedfacttones, or associations. TertuUian explains
the reason why that jealousy was wise. Its object was
to secure public morality and the unity of the com
monwealth. " We," he cries, " constitute a body, based upon a
common religion, an agreement in practice, a bond of
hope. We meet and form an asserably, in order that
our prayers raay come up to God like an armed band
and give Hira no peace. This is a violence which
God loves. . . . We meet for the rehearsal of the Divine
writings, according as the circumstances of the moment
' TertuUian, Apol. 30.

F

82 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
require warning for the future or recollection of the
past. With these holy words we feed faith, encourage
hope, confirm confidence, and at the same time
strengthen discipline by the enforcement of what is
coraraanded. There also are delivered exhortations,
reproofs, and religious censures. . . . The presidents are
tried elders. . . . Every one makes a small contribution to
a kind of fund, once a raonth, or when he pleases, and
if he pleases, and if he can ; for no one is corapelled
to give ; it is purely voluntary. It makes a sort of
bank of piety. No banquetings, or drinking bouts, or
gorgings, whether men will or no, are paid for out
of it, but the feeding and burying of the poor, the
support of children who have neither parents nor
means of subsistence, of old people who cannot go
out to work, of shipwrecked sailors, and of those who
for the sake of God and of their religion have been
thrown into mines or prisons, and so are cast upon
their religion for support. Yet even a work of charity
like this is turned by some into an accusation against
us. ' See,' they say, ' how fond they are of one
another ! . . . how ready they are to die instead of
each other ! '" ^
The expostulations of TertuUian fell upon deaf ears,
if his attacks upon the Pagan religion did not provoke
displeasure. After nine years of empire, Severus took
his first active measures against Christianity. In the
year 202 he ordered that no one should be allowed to
become a proselyte to Judaism, and applied the same
provision to the Christians. It was, perhaps, an illogical
edict, so far as regards the Christians, when it was a
defiance of the law for anybody to be a Christian at
all ; but it shows how firm a position the Christians
1 TertuUian, Apol. 39.

PERPETUA 83
had gained under the laxity of Coraraodus, and how
Severus himself shrank frora returning at once to the
strictness of Marcus. It was not long before he passed
— or governors under hira who felt sure of not incur
ring rebuke — to the severest measures of repression.
The two spheres in which the persecution was most
acutely felt were Egypt and proconsular Africa. An
Egyptian writer of that date, commenting upon the
" seventy weeks " of Daniel, made them end with the
tenth year of Severus, which seeraed to hira to be the
beginning of the coraing of Antichrist. Cleraent of
Alexandria, who was then in full activity as a teacher
in that city, speaks of "inexhaustible well-springs of
martyrs," who every day before his eyes were roasted
alive, and impaled, and beheaded. The persecution
drove hira into Cappadocia ; but although he was
personally unmolested there, he did not wholly escape
from the horror of its effects upon others. His friend
Alexander, afterwards Bishop of Jerusalera, with whom
he had taken refuge, was thrown into prison. The
governor of Cappadocia, Herrainianus, was exasperated
by the conversion of his own wife to Christianity, and
took his revenge by treating her fellow Christians
harshly. A horrible illness befell hini, and he is re
ported to have said, " Let no one know of it, or the
Christians will be glad." He succeeded in persuading
several Christians, under torture, to abjure their faith ;
but afterwards, so it is said, was sorry for what he had
done, and died under serious conviction.
The governor of Egypt, whose headquarters were
at Alexandria, was a raan of the narae of Laetus. He
did not shrink frora shedding blood. Among the
most noteworthy victims at the outset of the perse
cution was a man named Leonides, who was beheaded.

84 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
leaving a widow and seven children. The eldest of
the children, who was then sixteen years of age, was
destined to be one of the most illustrious Christian
teachers of all time. His name was Origen. Long
before his father's death the young Origen had been
consumed with Christian devotion and eagerness for
scriptural studies. Soraetiraes when the boy was
asleep his father would uncover his breast and rever
ently kiss the shrine in which the Holy Ghost was
lodged. When Leonides was cast into prison, Origen,
in his burning desire for raartyrdora, would certainly
have shared his fate if it had not been for his raother's
devices. At first she prevailed upon hira to refrain
frora throwing hiraself upon death because she needed
his support. His exciteraent, however, grew so great
that at length she was corapelled to lock up his
clothes. When there was nothing raore that he could
do, Origen, unable to be idle, sent a letter to his father
in prison earnestly exhorting hira to reraain firra. " Be
sure," he wrote, "that no thought for us raakes you
change your raind." The thought of his faraily might
well weigh with the father, for all his property was
confiscated to the state, as was the case with all who
suffered capital punishment, so that the wife and
children were left in great necessity.'-
Young as he was, Origen began to support himself
by teaching, and before he had completed his eighteenth
year he was placed at the head of the Catechetical
School of Alexandria in succession to the faraous
Cleraent, who had been driven elsewhere by the
persecution. His disciples in that school were largely
heathens, but by the teaching of their young raaster
many of thera became Christians and ended their
^ Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vi. 2.

PERPETUA 85
lives nobly as martyrs. The first of these was a man
named Plutarch, whose younger brother Heraclas,
a convert of Origen's like himself, became afterwards
Bishop of Alexandria. Origen accorapanied hira to
the place of execution and barely escaped death at
the hands of Plutarch's fellow-citizens, with whora
Plutarch was very popular and who held Origen
responsible for his death. Another named Serenus
proved his faith in the fire. A third martyr disciple
of Origen's was Heraclides, who was beheaded while
still in preparation for baptisra. A fourth was one
newly baptized of the narae of Heron. A fifth also
bore the narae of Serenus, who was beheaded after
enduring a succession of dreadful tortures. Woraen
as well as men were learners in the Catechetical
School, and one of these, named Herais, while still
under preparation for baptism, received, as Origen
expressed it, " the baptism of fire." ^
One of the most celebrated Egyptian raartyrs of
the time was a lady of the name of Potamiaena.
Potaraiaena was a maiden of great personal beauty
who had devoted herself to a life of virginity. On
being brought to trial for her faith she was subjected
to the usual tortures, and at last burnt to death along
with her mother, Marcella. The story went in Euse
bius' tirae — though he does not vouch for its truth —
that the raagistrate, whose name was Aquila, finding
her inflexible under torture, at last threatened to give
her over to the gladiators to do what they liked with
her. The maiden considered for a while, and then
being asked what her decision was she raade a reply
which was held to constitute sacrilege. She was
immediately sentenced to death and committed to a
1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vi. 3, 4.

86 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
soldier named Basilides to be led to execution. The
multitude closed round her and assailed her with
coarse language, but Basilides drove them away and
kept them at a distance, treating his prisoner with the
greatest consideration and huraanity. She on her
part gratefully bade the sympathetic warder be of
good courage, for she told hira that when she was gone
she would pray for hira to her own Lord, and that
He would speedily reward hira for what he had done
for her. The mode of her execution was to have
boiling pitch poured over her limbs, beginning at the
feet, and so by degrees up to the head. According
to another version of the story, she was condemned
to be dropped into the pitch, and cried aloud to the
judge, " I adjure you, by the head of the emperor
whora you fear, if you have determined to punish me
that way, do not raake thera strip rae, but let me
be gradually let down into the pitch, that you may
see what power of endurance is given me by that
Christ whom you know not." Not long after her
death, Basilides on some occasion was required by
his fellow-soldiers to take an oath. He replied that
he was not allowed to swear, for he was a Christian.
At first they thought that he was jesting, but as he
adhered to his statement he was brought before the
judge, made the sarae confession, and was imprisoned.
His brethren in Christ visited him, and asked him
the reason of this sudden, strange determination. He
told them that three days after the death of Potamiaena
that raartyr had visited him at night and set a garland
on his head, saying that she had pleaded for him with
the Lord, who had granted her request, and that before
long he would be taken where she was. The brethren
thereupon gave him " the seal " of baptisra, and the

PERPETUA 87
next day, after making a remarkable confession, he
was beheaded.^
It may seera hard to us now to beheve that such
apparitions as that of Potamiaena to Basilides should
be vouchsafed ; but Origen, her conteraporary, speaks
of them in a way which cannot be hastily set aside.
After mentioning that visible traces of the presence of
the Holy Ghost in the Church were still in his day to
be found, in the expulsion of devils, in the effecting of
miraculous cures, and in the foretelling of things to
come, he adds, " And even if Celsus, or the Jew whom
he introduces, should scoff at what I say, I will say it
nevertheless, that many have come over to Christianity
in spite of theraselves, as it were, because some spirit
has suddenly turned their minds from hating the word
to dying for the sake of it, by appearing to them in
sleep or dream. I have investigated raany such cases ;
but if I were to write what I have learned by direct
personal intercourse with those to whom these things
have happened, it would bring upon me the broad
ridicule of the unbelievers, who would think that I was
composing fictions. . . . But God is witness of our con
science, who wills ... to commend the divine teaching
of Jesus by a variety of unmistakable facts." ^
No record of Christian suffering, whether in that
age or in any other, surpasses, if it can equal, the
record of the martyrdoras at Carthage under Septiraius
Severus. It has come down to us edited, in all pro
bability, by the hand of TertuUian, who has had the
good taste to leave the words of the martyrs in their
native simplicity and unadorned. TertuUian by that
tirae had joined the sect of the Montanists, one of
whose raain tenets was that the religion of the Holy
1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vi. 5. ^ Origen, c. Celsum, i. 46.

88 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
Ghost was a progressive religion, and that the revela
tions of God were intended to become clearer and
larger as time went on. He thought, and in
this he thought rightly, that if ancient examples of
Divine power were embodied in literature for the
instruction of after tiraes, the examples given in his
own days were not less worthy of a sirailar embodi
ment. " Therefore," he says, " ' What we have heard
and seen ... we declare unto you,' brethren and sons,
that ye also who were present may remember the glory
of God, and that ye who now learn the facts by our
report ' raay have fellowship ' with the holy martyrs, and
through them with our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom
is glory and honour for ever and ever. Araen."
" Certain young persons who were catechumens,"
that is, under preparation for baptism, " were taken into
custody. These were Revocatus and his fellow-slave
Felicity, Saturninus and Secundulus. Among thera was
also a married lady, of good birth and liberal education,
called Vibia Perpetua. She had a father and mother,
and two brethren — one of them a catechumen like her
self — and an infant son at her breast. She herself was
of about two and twenty years of age." From this
point on, the tale of her raartyrdora is as Perpetua
herself related it, leaving it in her own handwriting to
express her own thoughts.
" While we were still," she writes, " at large, though
closely guarded, and my father, in his deep affection for
me, was anxious to upset me and endeavoured persistently
to cast me down : ' Father,' said I, ' you see this vessel
lying here?' — a pitcher it may have been, or some other
kind of vessel. And he said, ' I do.' And I said to him,
' Can it be called by any other name than what it is ? '
And he said, ' No.' Then said I, ' In like manner neither

PERPETUA 89
can I call myself anything else than what I ara — that
is, a Christian.' Then ray father, being stirred at that
saying, flung himself upon me to pluck out ray eyes ;
but he only hurt me, and went away conquered with
his hell-born arguments. Then for a few days I thanked
God for being left without my father, and I was re
freshed by his absence. Within the space of those few
days we were baptized ; and the Spirit bade me ask
for nothing else when I carae frora the water but for
endurance in the flesh.
"After a few days we were taken into the gaol, and
I was terrified, because I had never felt such darkness.
Oh, that horrible day ! the heat overpowering because
of the crowding! the rough handling of the soldiers to get
money ! Besides all this, I was worn out with anxiety
for my babe there. Then Tertius and Poraponius, the
blessed deacons who rainistered to us, arranged for a
price that we should be let out for a few hours' space
into a better part of the gaol, to refresh ourselves.
Then all carae out of the gaol and attended to their
own wants. I gave suck to my babe, which was faint
for want of food. In my anxiety for hira I spoke to
my mother, and I encouraged my brother, and com
mended ray son to them. I began to be quite ill,
because I saw that they were getting iU on my account.
For many days I suffered such anxieties ; and then I
took to having my babe to stay with me in the gaol,
and at once I grew better, and was relieved from my
trouble and anxiety for the child ; and the gaol became
to me suddenly a palace, so that I liked better to be
there than anywhere else.
"Then said my brother to me, ' Domina soror, you
are now in great favour — so high that you raay ask
for a vision, and it will be shown you, whether it is a

90 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
case of suffering or of release.' And I, knowing that I
had communings with the Lord, for whose sake I had
gone through so much, confidently promised him,
saying, 'To-morrow I will tell you.' And 1 asked,
and this vision was shown to me :
" I saw a brazen ladder of marvellous height, reach
ing right up to heaven, and so narrow that only one
could climb it at a time ; and on the sides of the ladder
were all raanner of steel instruments fastened in. There
were swords and spikes, and hooks and knives, so that
if any one went up carelessly or without fixing his eyes
above, he was cut and his flesh stuck upon the instru
ments. And there was under the ladder a dragon lying
of marvellous size, which lay in wait for those that
climbed, and frightened them that they might not climb.
Now Saturus clirabed first, he who afterwards gave
himself up for us of his own accord, because it was he
who had built us up, and at the raoraent when we were
taken up he had not been present ; and he carae to the
top of the ladder, and turned and said to me, ' Perpetua,
I am waiting for you, but take heed that the dragon
do not bite you.' And I said, ' He will not hurt me
in the name of Jesus Christ.' And from under the
ladder he slowly threw up his head, as if he were
afraid of rae, and as if I were treading the first
rung of the ladder, I trod upon his head. And I
went up, and I saw an iraraense large garden, and in
the midst a white-haired man sitting, in a shepherd's
garb, tall, milking his ewes ; and standing around him
were many thousands in white rairaent. And he lifted
up his head and beheld rae, and said to rae, 'Thou
art well come, my child.' And he caUed me, and from
the cheese made of the milk that he was milking he
gave rae as it were a morsel, and I received it with my

PERPETUA 91
hands joined, and did eat ; and all that stood around
said. Amen. And at the sound of their voice I awoke,
still chewing in my mouth soraewhat sweet. And
imraediately I told my brother, and we understood that
we were to suffer ; and we began to have no more
hope in this world.
" After a few days a rumour spread that our case
was to be heard. Thereupon also came ray father
frora the city, worn out with sorrow. And he carae
up to me to shake my purpose, saying, ' O daughter,
pity ray grey hairs : pity your father, if I ara worthy to
be called your father. If by these hands I have reared
you to this flower of your age ; if I have preferred you
to all your brothers ; give me not over to the scorn of
men. Look at your brethren, look at your raother and
your aunt, look at your son, who cannot live when you
are gone. Lay aside your proud resolve, and do not
ruin us all ; for not one of us will be able to speak
like a free man, if anything should happen to you.'
These things he said like a father, in his affection kissing
my hands and casting himself at my feet, and with tears
he began to call rae no longer filia (daughter), but domina
(lady). And I was grieved for ray father's calaraity,
because he was the only one of all ray faraily that was
not ready to rejoice in my passion ; and I comforted him,
saying, ' Upon that platform will be done what pleases
God, for be sure we are not in our own power but in
God's.' And he went back frora me sadly disappointed.
" The next day, while we were at our morning raeal,
we were suddenly carried off to be tried, and came
to the forum. Immediately the report ran through
the quarters near the forum, and an immense crowd
gathered. We went up upon the platform. The rest
were examined and confessed."

92 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
Perpetua does not give a detailed account of the
examination ; but another account of it remains, which
bears marks of being genuine. Saturus was the first to
be invited to sacrifice. He replied that it was right to
sacrifice to God, and not to idols. " Do you speak for
yourself," asked the governor, " or for all ? " " For all,"
he replied ; " we all have one mind." To this the
rest assented. The women were then removed, and
Hilarian the magistrate endeavoured in succession to in
duce Saturus, Saturninus, and Revocatus to sacrifice, but
without success. " Do not set yourself up to be better
than our sovereigns," he said to the first. " I do think,"
said Saturus, " that I shall stand better with the true
Sovereign of this world and the next, if only I am en
abled to strive and to suffer." The threat of death only
raade Revocatus exclaira, "We pray God that we raay be
perraitted to be slain." Hilarian then called in the two
woraen. He asked Felicity whether she was married.
She replied that she was, but that she could pay no
regard to her husband now. " Where is he ? " said
Hilarian. " He is not here," she answered. " What
is his position in life ? " "A working raan." " Have
you father and mother?" "No ; but Revocatus is. my
brother. I could have no better parents than these
Christian friends." " Have pity on yourself, young
woraan, and live. I see that you are expecting the birth
of a child." "I ara a Christian, and I ara bidden to
disregard all other things for God's sake." " Think for
yourself : I ara sorry for you." " Do what you will ;
you will never persuade rae."
Hilarian turned to Perpetua. "What do you say,
Perpetua ? wUl you sacrifice ? " " I am a Christian," she
answered, "and I raean to be true to ray narae of
Perpetua." " Have you a father and mother ? " " Yes,"

PERPETUA 93
she replied. Her parents were present in court. " At
last they came to me," so runs her own account,
"and there on the spot appeared father, with my son,
and dragged rae down from the step, and said entreat-
ingly, ' Pity your babe.' And Hilarian the procurator,
who at that time had received the power of the sword
in the stead of the proconsul Minucius Timinianus,
who was dead, said likewise, ' Spare your father's hoary
head ; spare your boy's tender age : do sacrifice for
the health of the emperors.' And I answered, ' I wUl
not do it.' Hilarian said, ' Are you a Christian ? ' And
I answered, ' I am a Christian.' And when my father
persisted in trying to shake my purpose, Hilarian
ordered him to be turned down, and some one hit him
with a rod. And I was grieved at the calamity of ray
father, as though I had been hit rayself ; so grieved was I
for his unhappy old age. Then the procurator sentenced
us one and all, and condemned us to the beasts ; and
we came down to the gaol with mirth. Then because
the babe had been wont to take the breast from me,
and to stay with rae in the gaol, I sent forthwith the
deacon Poraponius to father, asking for the child ; but
father would not give him ; and, as it has pleased God,
neither does the child any longer desire the breasts,
nor have they any more burned rae ; so that I have
not been torraented with anxiety for the child nor with
pain in ray breasts.
" A few days after, as we were all praying, suddenly
in the midst of the prayer a voice burst frora rae, and
I named Dinocrates : and I marvelled that he had
never come into ray mind till then, and I grieved when
I remembered what had befallen him : and I felt at
once that I was in a position to pray for him, and
ought to do so. And I began to pray much for him,

94 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
and to make moaning to the Lord. Straightway that
sarae night it was shown rae on this wise : I saw Dino
crates coming out of a gloomy place, where there were
many others besides, exceedingly hot and thirsty, with
his countenance dirty and wan in colour, and the
wound in his face which he had when he died. This
Dinocrates had been my brother in the flesh, of seven
years old, who had been ill and died a bad death with
cancer in the face, so that his death was a horror to
everybody." The reason why Perpetua had not prayed
for her brother before was, no doubt, because he had
died unbaptized, and the prayers of the Church for the
departed were only offered on behalf of those who had
died in the faith. " For hira then I had prayed : and
between him and me there was a great gulf fixed, so
that neither of us could go to the other. Next, in the
place where Dinocrates was, there was a tank full of
water, with the brink too high for the boy's stature,
and Dinocrates was stretching himself as if to drink.
I was sad that the tank should hold water, and yet he
should be unable to drink, because of the height of the
brink of it. And I awoke, and understood that ray
brother was in trouble. But I was confident that I
should be able to help his trouble, and I prayed for
hira every day until we went across to the prison at the
barracks. For we were to fight at the sports belonging
to the barracks. It was then the birthday of the Caesar
Geta : and I prayed for ray brother day and night,
groaning and weeping that he might be given to rae.
" On the day when we remained in the stocks, it was
shown me on this wise. I saw the place which I had
seen before, and Dinocrates with his body cleansed,
and well clad, taking his refreshment. And where the
wound was, I saw the flesh closed up : and the tank

PERPETUA 95
which I had seen before, I now saw with the brink
lowered to the boy's waist ; and water ran over from it
without ceasing ; and on the brink was a golden stoup
full of water ; and Dinocrates went up and began to
drink from it, and that stoup failed not to be full. And
when he had had enough, he went away to play
after the manner of children, rejoicing. And I awoke.
Then I understood that he was removed from his
punishraent." Perhaps it raay be necessary to say that the place
where Dinocrates was in punishraent was not what is
coraraonly known as purgatory. According to the
belief of the tirae the unbaptized child had gone to hell
itself, and the wonder was that Perpetua's prayer had
power even to release from hell.
" Then, after a few days, the soldier Pudens, the
centurion's adjutant, and superintendent of the gaol,
who began to think much of us, understanding that
there was a mighty power in us, allowed many to corae
in to us, that we and they raight refresh ourselves
together. Now as the day of the sports drew near, ray
father entered in to me, worn out with sorrow, and
began to pluck out his beard, and to throw it on the
ground, and to dash himself on his face, and to cry
shame upon his years, and to say such words as might
move all creation. I was very sorry for his unhappy
old age." The day before we were to fight, I saw in a vision
that Poraponius the deacon came hither to the door of
the prison, and knocked violently, and I went out to
him and opened to him : he was clothed in a white
flowing garment, and had erabroidered shoes on. And
he said to me : ' Perpetua, we are waiting for you ;
come along.' And he held me by the hand, and we

96 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
began to go through rough and crooked places. At
last with difficulty we reached the amphitheatre, panting,
and he led rae into the raiddle of the arena, and said to
me, ' Fear not, here am I with you and share your
labour ; ' and he disappeared. And I saw a vast crowd
of people all in rapt attention. And because I knew
that I was given to the beasts, I wondered that no
beasts were sent in to me. And there came forth against
rae a certain Egyptian " — that is a negro — " hideous to
see, with his helpers, to fight with me. There came to
rae also coraely young men, to be my helpers and my
backers. And I was stripped, and I was turned into a
man ; and my backers began to rub rae with oil as they
do for an athletic contest : and I saw the Egyptian
opposite rae wallow himself in dust. And there came
forth a man wonderfully tall, so tall that he was higher
than the top of the araphitheatre, wearing a flowing
tunic with purple across the midst of the bosom between
the two stripes, having richly erabroidered shoes made
of gold and sUver, and carrying a rod like a master of
gladiators, and a green branch on which were golden
apples. And he called for silence, and he said : ' If
this Egyptian conquers this woman, he shall kill her
with the sword : and if she conquers him, she shall
have this branch.' And he departed. And we drew
near to each other, and began to box. He wished to
seize me by the feet, but I with my heels stamped upon
his face ; and I was lifted up in the air, and began to
stamp upon hira as if I had not to tread upon the earth.
But when I saw that it was taking a long tirae, I joined
ray hands together, putting finger to finger ; and I took
hira by the head, and he fell upon his face, and I trode
upon his head. And the people fell to shouting, and
ray backers to singing. And I went up to the master

PERPETUA 97
of the gladiators and took the branch. And he kissed
me, and said to rae, ' Daughter, peace be with thee.'
And I began to go with glory through the door called
Sanavivaria " — that is, the door through which the live
corabatants passed out. "And I awoke, and under
stood that I was to fight not with the wild beasts but
with the devil ; but I knew that the victory was mine.
This is what I have done up to the day before the
sports: how the sports themselves wUl go, let some
one else write, if he pleases."
To this diary of Perpetua's is appended a vision of
Saturus, written likewise by himself.
" We had suffered," he says, " and we left the flesh,
and began to be carried by four angels into the east ;
and their hands touched us not. But we went, not
laid flat with upturned faces, but as if raounting an
easy sloping hiU. Now when we had cleared the world,
we saw an infinite light, and I said to Perpetua (for she
was at my side), ' This is that which the Lord proraised
us : we have received the proraise.' And while we
were carried by those four angels, there appeared before
us a wide space, which was like a pleasure garden, full
of rose trees and of every kind of flowers. The height
of the rose trees was like that of cypresses, and the
leaves of them fell " (or according to another reading,
" sang ") " without ceasing. And there in that pleasure
garden were other four angels brighter than the rest,
who, when they saw us, did us obeisance, and said to
the other angels, ' There they are, there they are,' with
admiration. And those four angels who carried us,
in great fear set us down ; and we walked on our own
feet a furlong upon a broad way " (or according to
another reading, "a furlong of nothing but violets").
"There we found Jucundus, and Saturninus, and
G

98 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
Artaxius, who were burnt alive in the sarae persecu
tion ; and Quintus, a martyr likewise, who had passed
away in the prison : and we inquired of them where
were the rest. The angels said to us, 'Come first,
enter in, and salute the Lord.'
" And we drew nigh to the place : and the walls of
the place were as if built of light : and before the door
of that place four angels stood, who clothed those that
entered with white robes. And we entered, and we
heard an united voice saying " — in Greek, which was still
the sacred language, in Africa as at Rome — " ' Holy,
Holy, Holy,' continually. And we saw in that place,
sitting, as it were a man with snow-white hair, and
with a young man's countenance, and His feet we saw
not ; and on His right hand and on His left four elders,
and behind thera many other elders stood. And
entering with great wonder, we stood before the throne.
And four ajngels lifted us up ; and we kissed Him, and
with His hand He stroked us on the face. And the
other elders said to us, ' Let us stand.' And we
stood, and gave one another the kiss of peace. And
the elders said to us, ' Go and play.' And I said to
Perpetua, ' You have got what you wished for.' And
she said to me, ' Thanks be to God, that however merry
I was in the flesh, I am raerrier now here.' "
Then followed a darker incident in the vision,
reflecting the troubles of the militant Church which
they had left.
"And we went forth, and we saw before the
doors Optatus the bishop and Aspasius the pres
byter, who gave the instructions, on the left, all by
themselves and sad ; and they threw themselves at our
feet and said, ' Make peace between us, because you
have departed and left us thus.' And we said to them.

PERPETUA 99
' Are not you our Papa ' " — " our Pope," a name of filial
affection then given to any respected bishop — " ' and are
not you a priest, that you should faU at our feet?'
And we were raoved, and erabraced them. And
Perpetua began to talk with them in Greek, and we
took thera apart into the pleasure garden under a rose
tree. And while we talked with thera, the angels said
to them, ' Let them alone, to refresh themselves ; and
if ye have any disputes among you, forgive one another.'
And they put thera to confusion. And they said to
Optatus, ' Correct thy people : for they corae to thy
asserably like men returning from the races, and
wrangling over their favourites.' And it appeared to
us as though they wished to close the gates. And
there we began to recognise raany brethren, but
martyrs only. One and all we were fed with a sweet
odour that cannot be described, which satisfied us.
Then I awoke rejoicing."
" These," says TertuUian, if it is he, " are the more
notable visions of those same blessed martyrs, Saturus
and Perpetua, as written by themselves. Secundulus
was called by God out of the world by a speedier
departure, while yet in the prison. It was a favour to
be spared the beasts." The narrative then continues : —
"With regard to Felicity, to her hkewise a favour
of the Lord was vouchsafed. Being now in her
eighth month, for she was with child when taken into
custody, she was in great tribulation when the day of
the show was now nigh at hand, lest because of her
unborn child she should be put off, because it is not
lawful for woraen with child to be put to death, and lest
she should afterwards shed her holy and innocent
blood in company with crirainals. Her fellow-raartyrs
also were sadly grieved lest they should leave behind

lOO THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
thera all alone so good a companion and fellow-
traveller on the road of the same hope. Joining,
therefore, in an united groaning, they poured out
their prayer to the Lord on the third day before the
exhibition. Immediately after the prayer her pains
came upon her. And when, because of the natural
difficulty of the eighth raonth, she was sorely distressed
in bringing to the birth, one of the servants of the
turnkeys said to her, ' If you are in such distress now,
what will you do when you are thrown to the wild
beasts ? You despised thera when you refused to
sacrifice.' And she answered : ' Now it is I that suffer
what I suffer ; but there, another will be in rae who
will suffer for me, because I am to suffer for Him.' So
she brought forth a maid child, which a certain sister
brought up as her own daughter.
" Now, forasrauch as the Holy Ghost has permitted,
and by permitting has willed, that the tale of the sports
themselves should be written, although unworthy to com
plete the description of such glory, yet we will fulfil the
duty bequeathed, and indeed imposed upon our honour,
by Perpetua, adding a single instance of her constancy
and loftiness of raind. When they were treated by the
tribune with greater strictness, because sorae foolish
people had alarraed hira by suggesting that they raight
be secretly got out of prison by magical charms,
Perpetua answered him to his face and said : ' Why,
pray, do you not allow such distinguished crirainals to
refresh theraselves, — the Caesar's own crirainals, who
are to fight upon his birthday ? Is it not to your credit
that we should be brought out yonder in good condi
tion ? ' The tribune shuddered and blushed, and so
ordered them to be more humanely treated, that her
brethren and others might have leave to go in, and join

PERPETUA loi
in their tirae of refreshraent. The adjutant of the gaol
was now hiraself a believer.
" On the day before their death, when they were
partaking of that last meal which they call the free
supper, and were raaking it, so far as they might, not a
free supper, but a Christian Agape ov love-feast, they flung
their words with undiminished constancy araong the
people, threatening them with the judgment of God, and
testifying to the happiness of their passion, laughing at
the curiosity of the crowds that carae to look on ; and
Saturus said, ' To-morrow is not sufficient for you,
then ; you so love to gaze upon what you hate. To
day friends, to-morrow eneraies. Yet mark our faces
well, that you may know us again in that Day.' So they
all departed awe-struck, and raany of them believed.
" The day of their victory dawned, and they marched
forth from the gaol to the araphitheatre, as if to
heaven, with rairth in their countenances and with
dignity. If they trembled, it was for joy and not for
fear. Perpetua followed with a shining mien, like a
true spouse of Christ, like the darling of God, by the
keen glance of her eyes casting down the looks of all
who gazed at her. Fehcity also, rejoicing that she had
had a safe delivery, so that she raight do corabat with the
beasts, going frora one shedding of blood to another,
frora the midwife to the gladiator, to wash herself after
childbirth in a second baptism. And when they had
brought them in at the gate, and wished to make thera
dress, the raen as priests of Saturn, the woraen as
devotees of Ceres, that noble constancy held out against
it even to the end. For she pleaded, 'It was
to save our liberty frora being interfered with, that
we dehberately came to this. We devoted our lives
for the very purpose that we should do nothing of

I02 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
this kind. This was our bargain with you.' Injustice
itself," says TertuUian, " recognised the justice of their
plea ; the tribune gave leave that they should be
brought in exactly as they were. Perpetua fell to
singing, already trampling on the head of her Egyptian.
Revocatus and Saturninus and Saturus threatened the
people who looked on for this. As soon as they came
in sight of Hilarian, they began, by their gestures and
beckonings, to say to him : ' You condemn us, but God
will condemn you ! ' At this the people were so
infuriated that they asked to have thera beaten with
scourges along a line of huntsraen. And they — what
should they do but congratulate each other that they
had even obtained one of those things which were
inflicted on the Lord ?
" Now He who said, ' Ask, and ye shall receive,' gave
them, when they asked, that manner of departure which
each had desired. For whenever they were talking
together of their wishes for their raartyrdora, Saturninus
would profess that he wished to be exposed to all the
beasts, that he raight carry off, no doubt, a more
glorious crown. And so, when the show was actually
begun, he and Revocatus, after first having trial of a
leopard, were then torn on the stage by the bear also.
But there was nothing that Saturus more detested than
a bear, while he was confident that one bite of the
leopard would finish him. So when he was served
to a wild boar, that beast ripped up the huntsman who
had fastened him to it, and he died after the days of
the exhibition. Saturus was only dragged about. And
when he was tied up on the bridge for the ' bear
to maul, the bear refused to come forth out of
his den. And so the second tirae Saturus was called
back again unhurt.

PERPETUA 103
"For the young women the devil had made the
unusual provision of an exceedingly savage cow, got for
the purpose, raatching their sex with that of the aniraal.
So they were stripped, and 'wrapped up in nets, and
brought in. The people were filled with horror to see the
one a delicate girl, the other fresh frora childbirth with
breasts overflowing. So they were- called back and
clothed in flowing garments. Perpetua was tossed first,
and fell upon her hip ; and as soon as she sat up she
drew over her the tunic, which was rent at the side,,
thinking more of her modesty than of her pain. Then,
_calling for a pin, she fixed also her dishevelled
hair with it, for it was not seemly for a martyr to
suffer with dishevelled hair, lest in the raidst of her
triuraph she should look as though she mourned. So
she rose, and when she saw Fehcity tossed, she ap
proached and gave Felicity her hand and lifted her up ;
and the pair stood side by side, and the hard-hearted
ness of the people was overcome, and they were called
back to the Sanavivaria door. There Perpetua was taken
in hand by a certain raan, who was then a catechumen,
Rusticus by narae, who clave to her ; and as if she
were awaked frora sleep (so deep had she been in
the spirit and in trance), she began to look round her,
and to the astonishraent of all she said, ' I cannot tel'li
when we are to be taken out to that cow.' And when
she heard what had already happened, she did not at
first believe it, until she observed certain raarks of the
tossing upon her body and her dress. Then sending
for her own brother, she addressed hira and that
catechuraen, sayingy ' Stand fast in the faith, and
all love one another ; and be not offended by our
sufferings.' " In another gate Saturus likewise was exhorting the

I04 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
soldier Pudens, saying, ' Sure enough, as I foresaw
and foretold, I have not yet felt any beast at all. And
now, beheve with all your heart. See, I go out yonder,
and with one bite of the leopard I am perfected.' And
straightway, at the end of the show, the leopard was
turned loose, and with a single bite Saturus was so
covered with blood that, as he turned round, the people
shouted their testimony to his second baptism, saying,
' Good bath, good bath ! ' " TertuUian here makes a
play upon the words, of which no rendering can be
given in English. " Then he said to the soldier Pudens,
' Farewell, and remember the faith and rae ; and let these
things not shake but confirra you.' And at the same
time he asked for a ring from the man's finger, and
dipped it in his own wound, and gave it back to him
as a legacy, leaving it to hira as a pledge and as a
memorial of his blood. Then fainting, he was dragged
away with the rest, to have his throat cut at the usual
place. And when the crowd demanded that they
should be brought into the middle, so that when the
sword went into their bodies their eyes raight follow
and join in the raurder, they rose up of their own
accord and crossed over where the people wished,
after having first kissed each other, that they might
perfect their martyrdom with the solemn rites of peace.
The rest received the sword without raoving, and in
silence ; Saturus, in particular, who had gone up the ladder
first, was the first to give up the ghost, for he was
waiting for Perpetua. But Perpetua, that she might
have some taste of pain, was stabbed between the bones,
and shrieked ; and taking the faltering hand of the
young novice of a gladiator, she moved it to her own
throat. Perhaps," so ends the story, " such a woman
could not otherwise have been killed, because the un-

PERPETUA 105
clean spirit was afraid of her, if she had not wished it
herself." ^
Although the greatest, Perpetua and Felicity were
not the last of their sex to suffer at Carthage for the
name of Christ during that outbreak. In the year after
their martyrdom, on the i8th of July, a Christian
woman bearing the Punic name of Guddene, showed
a fortitude not inferior to theirs. Four several tiraes
she was extended upon the rack known as the " hobby
horse," and her body was horribly raangled with the
executioner's hook. Then for a very long time she
was permitted to drag on her existence in a filthy
prison, and was finally slain with the sword.^
It was irapossible for the storm to rage long with
such violence. There was some abatement for a tirae,
and until the year 211 the Christians in Africa enjoyed
a raeasure of repose. Then, under the governraent
of Scapula, disturbances broke out again. In the fer
vent paraphlet which TertuUian addressed to Scapula,
complaint is made of the vexations to which Christians
were again subjected. Sorae of them were burned
alive. Mavilus of Hadrumetum was given to the wild
beasts. TertuUian compared unfavourably the position
of Christians in proconsular Africa with that of the
neighbouring provinces, where Christians were indeed
put to death, but only with the sword.
Not that his fellow Christians were afraid, he said :
the more trial, the greater the reward. But in language
such as the old world seldom had heard, he dwelt upon
the futUity of these efforts to force men into religious
acts which they inwardly abhorred. " It is part of
the natural rights of man," he cried, "to worship
* Ruinart, p. 80 ; Franchi de' Cavalieri, La Passio SS. Perpetuae et Feli-
citatis; Robinson, Texts and Studies, vol. i, no. 2 ; Von Gebhardt, p. 61.
* Martyrologium Adonis, July 18.

io6 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
according to individual conviction. No man is either
the better or the worse for another man's religion.
There is no religion in enforcing religion, for religion
raust be embraced freely and not under compulsion.
Even in the case of your own sacrifices, a willing mind
is required. Supposing you succeed in forcing us to
sacrifice, it will do your gods no good. They will not
want sacrifices from the unwilling."
TertuUian would not allow it to be said that he
was using threats ; but he not only significantly pointed
out the judgraents which had fallen upon persecuting
eraperors and judges, he went on to show what trouble
the Christians raight give if they pleased. "Your
cruelty is our glory. Look to it, or what we are
raade to suffer may drive us to break out, for the
purpose of showing that we are not afraid of these
things, but rather desire thera. During the zealous
persecution of Arrius Antoninus in Asia " — this was
probably in the tirae of Marcus Aurelius — "aU the
Christians of a city asserabled and presented them
selves in a body at his tribunal. He ordered a few
of thera to execution, and reraarked to the rest, ' Un
happy creatures ! If you want to die, you can find
precipices and halters for yourselves ! ' If we too
should choose to do the sarae, what wUl you do with
so many thousands of people ? What number of fires
and swords will you need ? What wUl Carthage do
when decimated by you — when every one will recognise
relations and bosom friends of his own araongst the
nuraber ; when he will very probably see araong them
men and matrons of your own rank, and leading per
sonages, and relatives and friends of your own ? " ^ So
difficult was the task of extirpating Christianity in Africa.
^ TertuUian, Ad Scapulam, 5.

CHAPTER VI
MARTYRS OF ALEXANDRIA: POLYEUCTUS
For sorae years after the death of the emperor
Severus, the Church was allowed to enjoy rest and
tranquillity. One of his successors, Alexander Severus,
went so far as not only to tolerate the existence of
Christianity, but erected a statue of our Lord in his
private oratory, in company whh those of Abrahara
and Orpheus, and other heroes of religion. This
eraperor was succeeded by Maximin, who encouraged
a fitful attempt to repress the leaders of the Church.
The Bishop of Rome, named Pontian, together with
the raost celebrated teacher of the tirae at Rome,
Hippolytus, was banished to Sardinia. There, in all
probability in penal servitude in the raines, he expired,
after enduring raany beatings and other forms of ill-
treatment. His successor, Anteros, got into trouble
with the authorities by his zeal in collecting historical
information about earlier raartyrs, and was himself
added to the number. In Cappadocia and Pontus, in
consequence of earthquakes and other raisfortunes, a
movement against the Christians was set on foot, but it
was of no great severity. The faraous Origen was
forced by his friends to leave Caesarea in Palestine,
which was then his home, and take refuge, like his
master Clement before him, in Cappadocia,. where he
was not known. Some of his friends at Caesarea were
arrested and thrown into prison ; and Origen, from the

io8 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
widow's house which gave him an obscure retreat,
wrote to them his encouragements to raartyrdora, in a
style which, with all its piety, seems tame and quiet in
comparison not only with the address of TertuUian
in similar circurastances, but also with Origen's own
language in his youth.
The accession of Decius in the year 249 was the
signal for the greatest attack upon Christianity that
had yet been raade. Although Christianity had never
been legally permitted, and was in constant danger of
being molested, no general atterapt had ever been
made to stamp it out. Persecution had been local
and spasraodic. Eraperors had soraetiraes encouraged,
'and sometiraes discouraged, the efforts of their officials
to keep Christianity down. Decius was the first to
issue edicts for its total suppression. He recognised
the power of the great society, which had spread
through all the provinces of the empire, which refused
to join in the religion of the state, and owned allegiance
to an authority which was not his. He determined
to put forth the whole power of the state to crush the
Church in every region of the empire at once.
Although the edict is lost in which the resolution of
Decius was expressed, its tenor may be gathered from
various sources. A day was fixed on which all the
inhabitants of the erapire were to sacrifice to the gods
and to the genius of the eraperor. Men and woraen
were suraraoned individually and by name. Those
who refused were to be compelled by heavy but
unspecified penalties. ^
At Alexandria — so the great bishop of that city,
Denys, relates — troubles had begun a year before they
began elsewhere. A "prophet and poet of evil,"
' Gregg, Decian Persecution, p. 71 foil.

MARTYRS OF ALEXANDRIA : POLYEUCTUS 109
whora he does not narae, had worked upon the super
stition of the people to incite them against the
Christians. " Inflamed by hira, and laying hold of the powers of
governraent for mischief, they thought that to massacre
us was the way to serve their deraons, and the only
forra of religion. First to be seized was an old raan
naraed Metras, whora they ordered to utter ungodly
words ; and when he refused, they beat hira with
sticks, and stabbed him in the face and eyes with sharp
reed pens, and brought him into the suburb of the city
and stoned hira. A faithful woraan naraed Quinta was
the next. They took her to the idol teraple, and
endeavoured to compel her to worship ; and when she
turned her back upon the altar and expressed her
abhorrence of it, they lashed her feet together and
dragged her all through the city along the rough
pavement, her body knocking against the big stones
while they flogged her with a whip, until at last they
brought her to the same spot and stoned her.
"Then with one accord they all attacked the houses
of the worshippers of God ; their neighbours, to whom
they were known, began in hot haste to drag out and
rifle and raake havoc of the contents, carrying off any
possessions of value, and breaking up the inferior
articles and everything raade of wood, and raaking
bonfires of thera in the streets, so that it looked like the
capture of a city by a hostile array. The brethren
bowed to the storm, and got quietly out of the way,
taking joyfully, like those of whora St. Paul speaks, the
spoiling of their goods. And I do not know of any
one — though there raay perhaps have been one — who
up to this time had denied the Lord.
"The aged and exceUent virgin, ApoUonia, was

no THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
seized, and struck on the cheeks until all her teeth
were dashed out. They then built a bonfire in front
of the city, and threatened to burn her alive in it, unless
she would pronounce with them the formulas of un
godhness. She begged them to release her for a
moraent ; and when they did so, she gathered up her
strength and sprang into the fire and was consumed.
Sarapion was found at home. They treated him with
dreadful tortures ; and after breaking all his joints,
they threw him headlong from the upper storey. The
streets, the squares, the lanes, were impassable for us,
by night as well as by day. In every place, and with
out a pause, they all cried out that any one who would
not utter aloud their blasphemous language should at
once be dragged off to be burned."
This state of things continued at Alexandria for
some while. Then there arose a dissension in the
city, and the inhabitants came to blows with each
other, and the Christians profited by the distraction.
It was, however, only for a little while. When the
news reached Egypt that Decius had succeeded to the
throne, and had deterrained to reverse the lenient
policy of his predecessors towards the Christians, a
kind of panic arose araong them.
"The edict arrived," says Denys. "It proved to
be like that last terror which our Lord foretold, that
should cause, if possible, even the elect to stumble.
AU quaUed before it. Araong those of high rank some
in alarra fell in at once ; those who held public offices
followed their official instincts, while others were
dragged along by those about them. When their
names were called over, they advanced to the impure
and unholy sacrifices, some with pale faces and
trembling all over, as if they were going, not to sacri-

MARTYRS OF ALEXANDRIA: POLYEUCTUS in
fice, but themselves to be offered as victims and slain
in honour of the idols, so that the great crowd which
surrounded them jeered at them, and everybody saw
what cowards they were — afraid to die, and afraid to
sacrifice alike. Others moved to the altars more brisfkly,
endeavouring to convey by their bold deraeanour the
inapression that they had never been Christians at all.
The saying of our Lord about rich men came very true
of these — they will indeed hardly be saved. In the
lower ranks of life, both these classes found iraitators ;
but sorae took to flight, others were captured. Of these
last:, sorae went as far as to bonds and iraprisonment, and
then, after a longer or shorter confinement, renounced
their faith before they were brought to trial ; others
even endured torture for a time, and at last gave way."
Such is the bishop's candid account of the behaviour
of many of his flock. But they were not all like these.
" But the firm and blessed pillars of the Lord," he
continues, " made strong by Him, and receiving power
and might in proportion to the force of the faith which
was in them, showed theraselves adrairable martjrrs of
His kingdom. The first was a man named Julian, so
crippled with gout that he could neither stand nor go.
He was brought up, with two others who carried him.
One of the two denied at once ; the other, called
Cronion, who bore the surname of Eunous, or ' Bene
volent,' along with the aged Julian, confessed our Lord ;
they were carried right through the city — you know how
vast it is — aloft on the backs of camels, and scourged
as they went ; and finally, amidst the asserabled raulti
tude, were burned in an unquenchable fire. A soldier
who was stationed near thera as they were conveyed
along, opposed those who Ul-treated thera ; whereupon
they turned their outcries against hira, and the gallant

112 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
warrior — God's warrior — Besas, was arraigned, and
after distinguishing himself in the great war, the war
for religion, had his head cut off.
"Another, of Libyan nationality, who bore the
appropriate name of Macar " — which means " blessed,"
or " happy " — " was the object of the judge's earnest
solicitation to deny his faith ; but he would not yield,
and was burned alive. After these, Epimachus and
Alexander, after enduring a long imprisonment, and
after the infliction of many sufferings from the claw
and frora the scourge, were consigned, like the others,
to unquenchable fire. With them were four women.
One of these, Araraonarium, a holy virgin, had
declared beforehand to the judge that she would
not utter a single thing which he commanded her
to utter. Accordingly he tortured her at great
length and with the utmost determination; but she
fulfilled her promise, and was led to execution. Of
the others, Mercuria was an aged and reverend woman ;
Dionysia had a large family, but did not love her
children raore than she loved the Lord. The governor
was ashamed to go on torturing women without avaU
and to be beaten by them at last, and so ordered them
to be executed with the sword, without submitting them
to tortures, which their leader, Ammonarium, bore on
behalf of all the four.
" Hero, Ater, and Isidore, three Egyptians, were
delivered up, and with them Dioscorus, a boy of about
fifteen. Thinking that the boy would not be hard to
persuade, the magistrate first attempted to cajole him
with fair words, and then to force hira by tortures
which he supposed that the lad could never resist ; but
Dioscorus yielded neither to arguraent nor to pain.
After fiercely thrashing the elders of the party, who

MARTYRS OF ALEXANDRIA: POLYEUCTUS 113
bore it firraly, he sent them to the fire ; but he could
not help admiring Dioscorus, who had made so noble
a figure in public, and who had given such wise
answers to the questions put to hira in private, and
he let him off, saying that he would grant him a
respite for repentance, because of his tender age. And
Dioscorus is with us to-day," writes his bishop proudly;
" Dioscorus, worthy of his God, awaiting a longer fight
and a raore ample reward.
" Another Egyptian, Neraesion, was falsely accused
of being a companion of robbers ; and when he had
disproved this utterly unfounded charge before the
centurion, he was denounced as a Christian, and so
came as a prisoner before- the governor. In flagrant
defiance of justice the governor inflicted upon hira
twice as many tortures and lashes as upon the robbers
themselves, and then burned hira between the robbers,
bestowing upon the saint the honour of being treated
like Christ.
" A whole band of soldiers, Aramon, Zeno, Ptolemy,
and Ingenes, and with them an old man called Theo
philus, were present in court when a Christian was
being tried and was showing signs of wavering. Full of
indignation, they made faces to hira, and lifted up their
hands, and threw their bodies into syrapathetic atti
tudes. This drew upon thera the attention of all ; but
before others could arrest them, they ran to the magis
trate's platform, avowing theraselves Christians, so that
both the governor and his council were intiraidated ;
and while the prisoners at the bar took heart to raeet
their sufferings, those who judged thera shrank in
alarm. They passed from the court in procession,
rejoicing in their martyrdom, God leading them in
triumph gloriously."

H

114 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
The eye of Denys traveUed beyond his episcopal
city to those who suffered for their faith in the country.
" In the towns and villages," he says, " great numbers
were torn in pieces by the heathen. I will mention a
single case as an example. Ischyrion was the salaried
steward of a raagistrate. The raan in whose pay he
was ordered hira to sacrifice. He refused, and the
raan insulted hira ; he stuck to his refusal, and he
loaded hira with abuse ; at last, when he persisted, the
man took a big stick and drove it through his body to
the vital organs, and he died.
" I need not tell in detail of those who wandered
in deserts and mountains, and perished of hunger and
thirst and cold and disease, by robbers and by wild
beasts. Those of thera who survived are witnesses of
the election and victory of the others. I will give an
instance. There was a man of extreme old age, the
Bishop of NUopolis, whose name was Chaeremon.
This man fled to the hills in the direction of Arabia,
accompanied by his wife, and never came back. They
were never seen again, and although the brethren made
anxious search for them, they were never discovered,
alive or dead. Many a one in those sarae raountains
was carried into slavery by the barbarous Saracens ;
sorae of whom were only released on payment of a
heavy ransom, and others are still not released." ^
The great Bishop of Alexandria himself was the
subject of a curious adventure. " I speak in the pre
sence of God," he writes to one who had found fault
with him for not remaining at his post ; " He knows
whether I He. It was not my own doing that I fled,
nor was it without the guidance of God. Before, when
the persecution of Decius broke out, Sabinus " — the
^ The letter is found in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vi. 41, 42.

MARTYRS OF ALEXANDRIA: POLYEUCTUS 115
governor — " sent an agent forthwith to look for me,
and I waited four days at home, expecting the agent
to corae. But that officer scoured the country in search
of me, examining the rivers, the roads, the fields, and
every place where he thought it likely that I should
hide or travel. Nowhere did he catch sight of me.
He could not find the right house, for he never believed
that the object of his pursuit would keep at home.
After four days, God bade me go elsewhere, and pre
pared the way for rae in a reraarkable raanner, and
reluctantly I and my sons and a good number of the
brethren started together. That this was providential
was shown by the sequel, in which I may perhaps
have been of use to some."
The bishop's flight was soon arrested. "About
sunset, together with my attendants, I was taken under
guard of the soldiers to Taposiris. But Tiraothy, as the
providence of God would have it, happened to be away
at the moment and so escaped being caught. Coming
to the house a little later, Tiraothy found the house
deserted, with officers guarding it, and that we had been
carried away captive. A peasant met him as he fled in
consternation, and asked hira why he was in such haste.
Tiraothy told him the truth ; and when the raan heard
it (he was on his way to a wedding festivity ; — it is
their custom to spend all the night together when they
meet on such occasions), he went in and told the
guests. With one accord, as if it had all been pre
arranged, they sprang to their feet, and ran full speed,
and threw theraselves upon us with shouts ; the soldiers
who guarded us took at once to flight, and they burst
in upon us, as we lay upon our bare bedsteads. I
(God knows), supposing thera at first to be robbers,
corae to despoil and plunder, lay still on the bed which

ii6 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
I occupied, with only my Unen garment on ; the rest
of my clothes lay beside me, and I offered them to
them, but they told me to get up and be off as quickly
as I could. Then, seeing what their business was, 1
cried out, and besought and entreated them to go
away and let us alone ; or if they wished to do a kind
deed, I begged them to cut off ray head theraselves
before ray captors came back to do it. While I was
calling out in this manner, as my corapanions could
tell you, they forced me to get up ; I threw myself
face downwards on the floor, and they laid hold of me
by the hands and feet, and dragged me out of the
house. I was followed by Gains, Faustus, Peter, and
Paul, who were witnesses of all this. These four
picked me up and carried me hurriedly out of the
little town, and set me on the bare back of an ass
and led me away." ^ They conveyed him to an
uninhabited spot in Libya, three days' journey from
the town of Paraetonium, where they kept him tiU
the persecution of Decius was over.
The leading presbyters of the church of Alexandria,
Faustinus and Aquila, by their character as public
men, were forced to iraitate their bishop and escape
frora the city, and spent their tirae wandering up and
down Egypt wherever they could find safety. Four
other presbyters, whom Denys names, remained to
superintend the brethren. One of thera was afterwards
the successor of Denys in the bishopric. A terrible
plague had lately raged in the town and thinned the
ranks of the clergy ; but three faithful deacons aided
the priests in their holy work. One of them, named
Faustus, survived this persecution by more than half
a century, and in extrerae old age attained to raartyrdora
^ In Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vi. 40.

MARTYRS OF ALEXANDRIA: POLYEUCTUS 117
in the last of the persecutions, when his head was cut
off. Another, named Eusebius, who rose to eminence
at a later time, was particularly energetic in visiting
the Christians in prison, and in burying the bodies
of the martyrs. " For even to this day," writes Denys,
" the governor continues relentlessly to slay, to torture,
to wear out with bonds and imprisonraent, those who
are brought before hira, and forbids any to have access
to thera, and searches for any Christians who show
themselves ; and yet by the zeal and persistency of
the brethren God stUl gives corafort to the victims of
oppression." ^
Persons who desired to prove that they had duly
taken part in the sacrifices required by Decius were
able to procure certificates, or libelli, in testimony that
they had done so. Until recent years, the form and
contents of these certificates were a matter for con
jecture ; but in the year 1893, scholars who were
digging in the district of Egypt called Fayum, carae
upon two of these very certificates, written on papyrus.
Ten years later, a third was discovered in another part
of Egypt. They are all in the same form, showing
how systematic and uniform the procedure was. One
of the Fayum libelli, which is now at Berlin, runs thus :
"To the sacrifice-comraissioners of the village of
Alexander's Island, from Aurelius Diogenes, the son of
Satabus, of the village of Alexander's Island, aged 72 ;
scar on his right eyebrow.
" I have always sacrificed regularly to the gods,
and now, in your presence, in accordance with the
edict, I have done sacrifice, and poured the drink-
offering, and tasted of the sacrifices, and I request
you to certify the sarae. Farewell.
* In Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vii. 11.

1x8 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
" Handed in by me, Aurelius Diogenes."
Then follows the signature of the magistrate, partly
obliterated, to say, " I certify that I saw him sacrificing."
Then comes the date :
" In the first year of the Emperor Caesar Gains
Messius Quintus Trajanus Decius, Pius, Felix, Augustus ;
the second of the month Epiph." ^
It must not be too hastily assuraed that Diogenes,
the son of Satabus, and the holders of the other two
libelli, were Christians who fell away. Very probably
every one who performed the test sacrifice provided
himself with such a certificate ; at any rate, many who
had never been Christians might be glad to be pro
tected by the possession of them. But in many places,
and especially in Africa, there were Christians who did
not hesitate to purchase certificates of the kind from
unscrupulous magistrates, without perforraing the sacri
fice, or who accepted thera when procured for them
by anxious friends.
In Palestine, the troubled career of Denys' master,
Origen, was once more visited by the hand of perse
cution. Eusebius says that of all who were caUed
upon to endure the fight of afflictions, none were more
tried than he. "Bonds and bodily torraents, the penalties
of the iron collar and of the innerraost dungeon, were
inflicted upon hira. For raany days together his feet
were stretched to the fourth hole on the penal wood.
He bore steadfastly the threats of fire, and aU else
that the eneray usually employed. The judge exerted
himself to the utmost to keep hira from dying under
the infliction." His utterances during these trials were
full of edification, but unfortunately Eusebius did not
think it necessary to quote at length from his epistles,
^ To be found in Von Gebhardt's Ausgewahlte Mdrtyreracten, p. 182.

MARTYRS OF ALEXANDRIA: POLYEUCTUS 119
as he did from those of Denys, and they are now lost
to us.-' For some reason or another the life of Origen
was again spared, and he died a natural death some
three years later. His friend and associate from youth,
Alexander, Bishop of Jerusalem, who had already
suffered many years of iraprisonment at the beginning
of the century, was once more thrown into prison,
where he died. In like circumstances, about the sarae
time, died the famous Babylas, Bishop of Antioch, and,
according to St. Chrysostom, begged that his irons
might be buried with him in his grave.
In Cappadocia, if we raay believe the highly
coloured account of one who wrote raore than a
hundred years after, the persecution was unusually
violent. The nuraber of those who abjured their
faith was large. One of the raost illustrious of
Origen's disciples, Gregory, known as the Wonder
worker, was bishop of the chief city of the province,
and, seeing the frailty of his flock, exhorted thera to
seek safety in flight. He hiraself set them the example.
Accompanied by a convert of his, who had formerly
been the keeper of a heathen temple, he took refuge in
an uninhabited mountain range. His hiding-place was
treacherously disclosed to the eneray, but they failed to
find hira. The story went that Gregory and his deacon,
seeing the search-party approaching, stood on the hill
top and prayed with hands spread out to heaven ; and
that when the seekers returned to the bottora of the hill,
and were questioned about it, they said that they had
seen nothing but two trees standing a little apart from
each other. Meanwhile, men, women, and childsren
were seized and tortured and slain. They were sus
tained in their combat, like the Israelites at Rephidim,
' Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vi. 39.

120 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
by the prayers of their bishop on the hiU. The name
of one martyr out of the raany has been preserved.
He was a youth of noble family caUed Troadius ; and
it is said that Gregory in his wilderness described to
his companion the trial, the torture, the victory of
Troadius, step by step, as it proceeded.^
In the district of Melitene, near the border of
Armenia, a famous martyr named Polyeuctus entered
into glory. CorneUIe has made his story the subject
of a pathetic play. It is not easy to say how much
of the existing narrative is historical, but there is
no reason to reject the whole as false.
Polyeuctus and Nearchus were soldiers in the
same legion, and inseparable friends. Nearchus was
a Christian, but Polyeuctus was not. When the
edict of Decius was published, Nearchus was deeply
distressed, and shrank from intercourse with his
friend. The other questioned him about his change
of behaviour, and at length discovered the danger in
which Nearchus stood. His grief was increased when
Nearchus told hira that their friendship raust cease
with death, for in the general belief of Christians of
the tirae there was no hope after death for those who
had not received the Gospel in this life. Polyeuctus
raade up his raind to throw in his lot with his Christian
friend. A dreara which carae to him tended to confirm
his purpose. He saw a figure, which he understood
to be that of Christ, approach and strip him of the
soiled raUitary cloak which he wore, and clothe him
with a more glorious one, as bright as light ; at the
sarae time the visitor mounted him upon a winged
horse. Polyeuctus reminded Nearchus that he had
always listened with respect and admiration when his
1 Gregory of Nyssa, De Vita Greg. Thaum. p. 571.

MARTYRS OF ALEXANDRIA: POLYEUCTUS 121
friend told him of Christ and read the Scriptures
to him, and he professed that it was his desire to
expose the folly of idolatry, and all the craft and deceit
that accompanied it.
Nearchus was overjoyed at this announceraent,
but he could not help fearing that when the test was
applied, as it soon would be, Polyeuctus would be
unable to resist the inducement to sacrifice. But
Polyeuctus was confident of himself. His only rais-
giving was lest he should be put to death before
receiving baptism, and so should fail to be accepted
by Christ. Nearchus reassured hira on that point,
telling hira how the Penitent Robber who confessed
Christ upon the cross was accepted, though unbaptized.
The soul of Polyeuctus was all on fire. He drew
Nearchus to the place where the edict of Decius was
posted up, read it through with scorn and indignation,
and then plucked it frora the wall or pillar and tore it
in pieces. A few moments after, they met a procession
carrying back to the temple the idols which had been
borne through the streets, all decked with leaves and
branches. The zeal of the newly converted overcame
all thoughts of prudence, and Polyeuctus stepped up to
the idols and dashed thera on the ground and trarapled
on them. The local magistrate, Felix, upon whom feU the
duty of enforcing the edict, was father to Polyeuctus'
wife. He was profoundly grieved at what had occurred.
He entreated Polyeuctus not to commit himself further
untU he had seen his wife. Polyeuctus replied that wife
or child were nothing to hira, unless they would take
the same road upon which he had entered. Upon this
the attendants struck him in the face with rods, but
Polyeuctus was unmoved. The outrage only provoked

122 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
him to rebuke his father-in-law for lending himself to
the ungodly wUl of perishing men, and for using the
love of wife and children to tear a man from his
Saviour. His wife, covered with tears, carae to the
spot and upbraided hira for destroying " the twelve
gods." He told her that there were plenty more of
that kind, and besought her to follow his religious
change and lay hold upon eternal life.
Felix, after conferring with; his advisers, sentenced
him to be beheaded. The martyr awaited the execu
tion of the sentence with great calmness, conversing
with his fellow Christians all the time. He saw, he
said, a young man leading him on — doubtless he
raeant Christ — and felt sure that, unbaptized as he
was, the seal of Christ was upon him. His last
words — words of encouragement and affection — were
addressed to his friend Nearchus.^
' Aub^, Polyeucte dans I' histoire; Conybeare, Monuments of Early
Christianity, p. 123.

CHAPTER VII
PIONIUS AND ACHATIUS
At Srayrna, the city of Polycarp, there were still, in
the tirae of Decius, Christians worthy of the coraraen-
dation addressed to their church in the Apocalypse
of St. John ; and the story of Pionius and his two
associates raay almost be read side by side with the
story of Polycarp as a record of loyal devotion to
Christ. Eusebius, who makes a curious mistake with
regard to the date of their raartyrdora and supposes
thera to have been conteraporary with Polycarp, speaks
of Pionius as "one of the raost celebrated raartyrs
of the period." He found the story of Pionius, just as
it now stands before us in its original language, in the
sarae volume with the Martyrdoms of Polycarp and of
Carpus and Papylus, and embodied it in a collection
of his own which is now unhappily lost. He calls
attention to the repeated " confessions " of Pionius, to
his " freedora of speech," to his " defences of the faith
before the people and the rulers," to his " instructive
pubhc addresses " and his " considerate reception of
those who had succurabed to the temptations of the
persecution," to the " encouragements which he offered
in the prison to the brethren who visited hira," to " the
tortures which he subsequently endured and the pains
which followed thera," to his "nailings and his endurance
at the stake," and to " the end which crowned all his
wonderful deeds." ^
' Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iv. 15.
123

124 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
Pionius himself was a presbyter. One of those
who were with him, a woman named Sabina, had
been a slave. Her mistress, in the reign of Gordian,
had endeavoured to detach her from her faith, and,
failing in the attempt, had sent her in chains to a
place in the hills, where the brethren had supplied
her wants. Making her escape, she took refuge with
Pionius, and Uved in his house under the name of
Theodota. Asclepiades, the third, appears to have
been a man of diminutive stature.
It was the festival of St. Polycarp, and "a great
sabbath," when they were arrested. A raonition had
corae to Pionius on the vigil of the festival, as he
fasted in corapany with Sabina and Asclepiades, that
they would be seized the next day ; and, hke the
prophets of earlier tiraes, he put ropes round his own
neck and theirs as a sign that they were ready to be
taken to prison and to death. They had scarcely
finished their prayers on St. Polycarp's day, " and
taken holy bread and water," when Polemo, the chief
officer of public worship, appeared with his attendants
and carried them away. No work was going on in
Srayrna that day. The people in the streets saw them
going along with the ropes round their necks, and
crowded into the market-place. Greeks and Jews, raen
and women, they clambered upon benches and boxes,
and into the upper storey of the porches which ran
round the raarket-place, in order to get a better view.
When they had reached the porch on the eastern
side of the square, which was provided with two gates,
Polerao addressed his prisoners and advised thera to
sacrifice, like everybody else, lest they should be
punished. Pionius, who was probably well known in
Smyrna for a learned and eloquent man, with a joyful

PIONIUS AND ACHATIUS 125
countenance stretched out his hand and made a speech
to the people. " I hear," he said, " that you are
araused at those who desert the Christian faith, and
raake sport of their fall. You Greeks ought to re
raeraber the advice of your Horaer, who says that it
is wicked to boast over dying raen. You Jews know
how Moses coraraanded that if a raan saw even his
r
enemy's ass faUen to the ground, he ought to help
him." He warned thera of a judgraent to come, in
view of which it was impossible for him to join in
the heathen sacrifices. He was a travelled raan, and
he said that he had seen at the Dead Sea and else
where the results of a judgraent which in a partial
raanner foreshowed the universal judgraent to corae.
The silence was intense, and not a whisper inter
rupted the speaker. The officials listened as quietly
as the rest, until Pionius ended by saying twice over,
in the words of the Book of Daniel, "We will not
serve your gods, nor worship the golden iraage." Then
they led thera out into the open square. Idle people
flocked round them. " We are fond of you, Pionius,"
they said ; " you have good manners, and are a reason
able man. You ought not to die. Do what we say.
It is good to live and see this light." " Yes, life is good,"
he answered, " but there is a better life. Light is good,
if it be the true light. All around us is good and fair ;
we do not wish for death or hate the works of God ;
but there is a better world, in comparison of which we
despise this. You are laying a trap for us."
A well-known bad character of the town, called
Alexander, interrupted, " Listen to me, Pionius."
" No," said Pionius ; " do you try to listen to rae.
What you know, I know; but I understand sorae
things of which you know nothing." Alexander en-

126 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
deavoured to turn the laughter upon Pionius by
pointing to his ropes, and saying ironically, " And
what are those for ? " The prisoner told him : the
ropes were a sign that their minds were made up ;
that there was no need to take him and the others
to the temple of the Nemeses, where the sacrifice
was going on ; that they would go straight to prison.
" Perhaps," he said, " even with ropes you could
not have got us into your idol temples." The dis
comfited Alexander could only mutter something about
not listening to people who were not allowed to live.
A wish was expressed to adjourn to the theatre,
where the words of Pionius could be better heard.
Polemo was willing to consent, but some influential
people dissuaded him, fearing that it might lead to
a disturbance and an enquiry. " Pionius," said the
official, "although you will not sacrifice, go with us
to the teraple." This, he thought, might be a sufficient
compliance on the part of the Christians. " It will do
your idols no good for us to go there," answered
Pionius. " Be persuaded," said Polerao. " I wish,"
replied Pionius, " that I could persuade you to become
Christians." At this there was great laughter. " You
wUl not get us to be burned alive," said sorae one.
" It is much worse to be burned after you are dead,"
was the martyr's retort. The Christian Sabina could
not help smUing at it. " Do you laugh ? " they
said. " Yes, please God," she answered ; " we are
Christians : aU who believe in Christ will laugh without
misgiving in eternal joy." They threatened her with
soraething worse than burning, but she calraly
answered, "The holy God will look to that."
Polerao again attempted to persuade Pionius, but
he answered, " Your orders are either to persuade

PIONIUS AND ACHATIUS 127
or to punish : you cannot persuade me, therefore
punish." "Come, Pionius, sacrifice," the dialogue
went on. "No, I am a Christian." "What God do
you worship ? " " The Almighty God who made heaven
and earth, and all things that are in them, and us
all ; who richly gives us all things ; whom we have
known through Christ, who is His Word." "Then
sacrifice to the eraperor, if you wUl not sacrifice to
the gods." " I cannot sacrifice to a human being ;
I am a Christian."
Then began the forraai interrogations of a law
court, the notary taking all down. " What is your
name ? " " Pionius." " Are you a Christian ? " " Yes."
The official was aware that there were divisions among
the Christians of his tirae ; even some shreds of
their language were known to him. " Of what
church ? " he asked. " Of the Catholic Church :
there is no other in the sight of Christ." Sabina's
replies were a repetition of her protector's. Those
of Asclepiades only varied in that when asked what
being he worshipped, he answered, " Christ Jesus."
" Is that a different one ? " asked Polemo. " No,"
said the Christian, "He is the same of whom the
others have spoken."
They were taken to the prison. As they made
their way through the crowd, sorae reraarked how
the well-known countenance of Pionius was changed ;
he was usually pale, but to-day he looked fresh and
ruddy. Sabina clung to his garment for fear of
being parted from him by the crowd. " Look," cried
sorae one, "the babe is afraid that she is going to
be weaned." " If they will not sacrifice," shouted a
fierce voice, " punish thera." But that was beyond
the powers of Polerao. "I have no lictors," he

128 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
answered ; " I have no authority to punish." " See,"
said some one, pointing to Asclepiades, "there goes
a little man to sacrifice." "That is a lie," answered
Pionius ; " he will do nothing of the sort.'' The
names of Christians who had sacrificed were men
tioned. Pionius answered, " Every raan is free to
act for hiraself ; ray narae is Pionius ; what others
do is no concern of mine." "To think that a man
of such education should come to this," said some one.
" The education you know best," rephed Pionius,
" brought you famine and death and all kinds of
troubles." He referred to sufferings which had lately
visited the district. "You," was the retort, "feU
the hunger like the rest of us." " I did," he replied,
"but I had hope in God."
At last with difficulty they reached the prison,
and were delivered over to the warders. In the
prison they found other sufferers for conscience await
ing them. One was " a presbyter of the Catholic
Church," named Liranus ; another, a woraan called
Macedonia frora a village in the neighbourhood ; a
third, called Eutychian, was an adherent of the
Montanist sect. The faithful at Srayrna, as elsewhere,
carae to bring offerings for the prisoners ; but
Pionius refused to accept thera. "When we needed
thera more than we do now," he said — no doubt
referring to the time of famine — "we would not be
burdensorae to any one ; we cannot think of accept
ing presents now." This absteraiousness did not
suit the gaolers, who were accustoraed to raake a
good thing out of the indulgences which they
granted to those who visited their prisoners. They
punished Pionius and his friends by thrusting thera
into the inner ward, where they saw nobody, and

PIONIUS AND ACHATIUS 129
had no chance of getting any attentions. The
conduct of the prisoners was not affected by the
change ; they glorified God and said nothing, and
behaved to their gaolers just as before. Their meek
ness told upon their captors : the governor of the
prison brought them back into the large front division
of the buUding, where they could talk freely and
pray day and night.
There they were frequently visited by heathens, who
carae to argue and went away baffled and adrairing, and
conversed with fresh Christian prisoners, who brought
reports of what was going on outside. Apostasies were
stiU frequent, even among those who had lived pious
and edifying lives. The bishop himself, who occupied
the throne of St. Polycarp, fell to the lowest depth.
One day, after Pionius had been teaching some of his
visitors how to answer the Jews, who were actively at
terapting to proselytise among the persecuted Christians,
the minister of public worship, Polemo, reappeared, in
company with a mUitary officer called Theophilus, and
a troop of police. " See," they said, " Euctemon, your
superior, has sacrificed. Do you the sarae. Lepidus
and Euctemon are asking for you at the temple of the
Nemeses." Pionius knew better than to submit to men
who had no lawful authority over him. " Persons
committed to prison," he answered, "ought to be re
served for the coming of the proconsul. Why do you
usurp his office ? " They did not venture to deny the
plea. They withdrew for a few minutes ; then they
returned, and TheophUus said, "The proconsul has
sent to have you conveyed to Ephesus." Pionius re
plied, " Let the proconsul's messenger come and take
us." " He is a distinguished captain," answered Theo
philus ; " but if you refuse, I am a magistrate myself."
I

I30 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
So saying, he seized the kind of veil which the Christian
had over his head and shoulders, gave it a twist round
his throat which nearly strangled him, and put it into
the hand of one of the policemen, to take him out of
the prison. When they reached the market-place the
Christians threw theraselves down upon the ground,
that they raight not be taken to the teraple. The
struggles of Pionius were so violent that it took six of
the constables to hold hira.
Still struggling, and shouting, "We are Christians,"
his bearers got him at last to the altar, where they laid
him on the ground. The apostate bishop was still
standing beside it, as when he had sacrificed. No
word was exchanged between him and his presbyter.
Lepidus, whose office and position is not mentioned,
asked Pionius why he and the others would not sacri
fice, like Euctemon. " Because we are Christians,"
was the answer. " What god do you worship ? "
"The Maker of heaven and earth and sea and all that
is in thera." " Is that the one who was crucified ? "
" He was sent by God for the salvation of the world."
This raised a loud laugh araong the officials, and
Lepidus cursed Christ. Pionius protested : " Reverence
religion," he cried ; " respect justice ; recognise the
claims of humanity ; be guided by your own laws.
You punish us for disobeying them, and you do not
obey thera yourselves. Your orders are to punish, not
to corapel." A rhetorician of the narae of Rufinus bade hira
stop, and give up his vain notions. " Is this your
rhetoric ? " cried Pionius ; " do you find that in your
books ? Socrates did not suffer like this at the hands
of the Athenians. Now everybody is an Anytus or a
Meletus : " these were the accusers of Socrates. " Do

PIONIUS AND ACHATIUS 131
you consider that Socrates, and Aristides, and Anax-
archus, and the rest, were men of vain notions be
cause they practised philosophy, and righteousness,
and endurance ? "
A raan of rank and local distinction rudely told
Pionius not to make such a noise. Lepidus said the
same. "And do not you employ force," replied the
martyr ; " light a fire, and we will step into it for our
selves." A voice in the crowd shouted, "This is the
raan who scares the others frora sacrificing." Garlands
were set upon the heads of the Christians, as was the
way when raen were going to sacrifice ; but they tore
thera off and flung thera away. The public servant
whose business it was, stood near with the sacrificial
food in his hand ; but he was afraid to corae near any
of the Christians to offer it to them, and finaUy, araidst
the arauseraent of the spectators, ate it himself.
The Christians meanwhile kept crying, " We are
Christians ; " and at last, seeing that all efforts to raake
thera sacrifice were useless, they conducted thera back
to prison. Blows and raockery fell upon thera as they
went. " Could you not die in your own country ? "
said sorae one to Sabina. " What is ray own country ? "
she replied : " I am Pionius' sister." The man who
was providing for the public games at Srayrna reraarked
to Asclepiades, " When you are condemned, I shall ask
to have you for ray son's exhibition of gladiators."
" That is not the way to frighten me," was the spirited
answer. As they entered the gaol, one of the police
officers gave Pionius such a knock on the head that the
blood ran. Pionius said nothing ; but the Christians
believed that his assailant's hands and side imraediately
began to swell up. The psalras and prayers of the
Christians showed their thankfulness for having been

132 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
helped to pass through the trial of their steadfastness
without yielding. What they were told of the miser
able fall of Euctemon gave a terrible point to their
thanksgivings. It was at the desire of the unhappy
prelate, so they were informed, that pressure was
put upon them to sacrifice. Euctemon had hiraself
provided the victim, and after tasting of it at the spot,
which was all that the law required, had expressed a
wish to take the rest home with hira, that he raight
raake the raost of the festive occasion. The thorough
ness with which he played his new part, wearing his
garland, and swearing by the genius of the emperor
and by the Nemeses that he was no Christian, araused
the people of Srayrna. Most of those who abjured
Christianity cut the cereraony as short as they could.
After sorae tirae the proconsul came to Smyrna, and
Pionius was brought before him. The usual interroga
tions were gone through again. " What is your name ? "
"Pionius." "WiU you sacrifice?" "No." "What
form of worship or persuasion do you belong to ? "
"That of the Catholics." "What do you mean by
the Catholics ? " The terra conveyed nothing to the
proconsul. " I ara a presbyter of the Cathohc Church."
" Are you their teacher ? " " Yes ; I taught." " Were
you a teacher of folly ? " " Of religion, sir." " What
religion?" "The religion of God the Father, the
Maker of all things." The proconsul had no wish to
prolong a theological inquiry. " Sacrifice," he said
bluntly. " No ; I can only pray to God." " Why, we
all worship the gods, and heaven, and the gods in
heaven. Why do you lift your eyes to the sky?
Sacrifice to it." " I hft ray eyes, not to the sky, but
to Hira who made it and all that is in it." " Tell me,
who was it that raade it ? " "I cannot tell you."

PIONIUS AND ACHATIUS 133
"To be sure, it was God — that is, Zeus, who is in
heaven : he is the king of all the gods." The proconsul
hoped that Pionius would accept the identification, and
so coraply with the edict ; but the Christian gave no
sign of acceptance.
He was strung up. " Sacrifice," said the officers
of the court. He refused again. They tore hira with
iron talons. "Change your mind," they said ; "what
desperation is this ? " " It is no desperation ; it is
the fear of the living God." Quintilian, the proconsul,
interposed again. " Many others have sacrificed," he
said, " and they are alive and in their right raind."
" I cannot sacrifice." " I entreat you to consider a
little with yourself and change your raind." " Not I,
sir." One of those present said, "Why are you so bent
upon death ? " " Not upon death," said the raartyr,
" but upon hfe." " You are so bent upon death that you
raake nothing of it," said Quintihan, losing soraething
of his patience. " Soraetimes when men are prosecuted
for quite a sraall sura of raoney, they will brave death
with the wild beasts. You are one of those raen. Since
you are bent upon death, you shall be burned alive."
He wrote the sentence upon the usual tablet, and the
clerk read it aloud in Latin : " We have ordered
Pionius, who has confessed hiraself to be a Christian,
to be burned alive."
The racecourse was the spot selected for the
execution. Pionius raade his way to it with alacrity,
and stripped himself with his own hands, while the
gaoler stood by. The exposure of his virginal flesh
filled him with thankfulness to God, who had kept
him in honourable purity of life. Lifting up his eyes
to heaven, " he stretched hiraself with open arras on
the stake, and raade it easy for the soldier to drive

134 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
the nails in. When he was thus fastened, the officer
in charge said once more, ' Change your mind, and
the nails shall be drawn.' He answered, ' I felt that
they were in.' Then after a raoraent's raeditation he
said, ' The reason why I hasten to die is that I may
rise the sooner.' " The Christians of early days were
accustomed to think much about the difference between
the first and the second resurrection. When the stake
was in position, another was reared beside it, to which
was fastened a presbyter of the heretical sect of the
Marcionites, whose name was Metrodore. Probably
the writer of the narrative intended to imply that there
was a likeness between the martyrdom of Pionius and
the death of Him who was crucified between thieves.
He notes that the place of honour, as on Calvary, was
given to the sufferer with whom his syrapathies lay.
" They happened to set Pionius on the right and
Metrodore on the left ; but," he adds, with perhaps
a deeper pathos than he intended, " both of them were
looking towards the east." When the logs were piled
round them, Pionius closed his eyes. The bystanders
thought that he was dead ; but he was praying in
silence, and when he had finished his prayer he opened
his eyes again. The flaraes were now high, and, with
a countenance full of joy, Pionius said his "Amen"
aloud ; then, with the words, " Lord, receive my
soul," he quietly breathed his last, "and gave his
spirit into the charge of the Father, who has promised
that He will preserve all blood that is unjustly shed,
and every soul that is unjustly conderaned."
So " he passed," say those who saw him, " through
the strait gate into the broad, great light." His very
body, to their eyes, bore testiraony to his triumph. It
was like the well-nourished body of an athlete. His

PIONIUS AND ACHATIUS 135
ears were unmutilated. The hair was not discoraposed,
and the beard was crisp and curly. The face seeraed
to shine, so that the Christians who looked upon it
were filled with joy, while unbelievers went away
conscience-stricken.-' A raonth or two after the martyrdom of Pionius
a man naraed Maxiraus, without waiting to be seized,
carae forward and offered hiraself of his own accord
to the proconsul, Optiraus, probably at Ephesus, the
usual residence of the proconsul of Asia. The following
dialogue ensued : —
" What is your name ? " "I am called Maximus."
" What is your position ? " " Born free, but a servant
of Christ." " What is your profession ? " "I am an
ordinary tradesman." "Are you a Christian ?" "Yes;
sinner though I am, I ara a Christian." "Are you not
acquainted with the imperial decrees which have lately
corae ? " " Which ? " " That the Christians are to
leave their unprofitable superstition and acknowledge
the true sovereign, who is supreme over all, and to
worship his gods." " I know the iniquitous ordinance
of the king of this world, and that was why I came
forward." " Then sacrifice to the gods." " I sacrifice
to none but to the only God, to whora I ara thankful
to say that I have sacrificed frora ray infancy." "Sacri-
! I I I I fice, if you wish your life to be spared. If you will
not, I shall bring you down with various tortures."
" That is what I have always wanted. It was for that
reason that I presented rayself, in order to exchange
this miserable temporal existence for eternal life."
The proconsul ordered hira to be beaten with rods.
While the order was executed, Optiraus said to him,
"Sacrifice, Maximus, that you may be set free from
' Von Gebhardt's Ausgew. Mdrtyreracten, p. 96.

136 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
these sufferings." " Those are no sufferings," answered
Maxiraus, " which are borne for the narae of our Lord
Jesus Christ ; they are a soothing ointraent. There
would be real sufferings for me, and everlasting suffer
ings, if I were to depart from the comraands of ray
Lord, which I learned from His Gospel."
Then the proconsul had hira strung on the hobby
horse. As the torture went forward, Optiraus addressed
hira again : " Unhappy raan, even now give up your
folly, and sacrifice, that you raay gain your life." " I
shaU gain ray life," he replied, " if I do not sacrifice.
If I sacrifice, I lose it." The thought of the com
munion of the saints comforted the solitary sufferer
in his pains. " I do not feel the rods,'' he cried, " nor
the hooks, nor the fire. The grace of Christ abides
in me ; and by the prayers of all the saints it will save
rae for ever. The saints passed through this conflict,
and overcarae your rage, and left us the exaraple of
their virtues."
The proconsul then gave his final sentence. For
his refusal to obey the sacred laws and to sacrifice to
the great goddess Diana, "the divine cleraency," which
was wielded by the proconsul, ordered him to be stoned
to death as a caution to other Christians.^
The proconsul went to Lampsacus, on the Helles
pont. There a young raan named Peter was brought
before hira for trial, who confessed himself a Christian.
When the magistrate bade hira sacrifice to Venus, he
replied that the character ascribed to Venus in the
raythologies raade her anything but a proper object
of religious worship. " I," he cried, " raust offer to
Christ, who is the living and true God and the King
of Ages, the sacrifice of prayer and suppUcation, of
^ Ruinart, p. 133.

PIONIUS AND ACHATIUS 137
penitence and of praise." The severest tortures were
used to break his spirit, but the more he was tortured
the raore resolute the lad becarae. " I thank Thee,
O Lord Jesus Christ," he cried amidst his pains, " who
hast vouchsafed to grant me this power of endurance,
to the confounding of the wicked tyrant." The raagis
trate whom he thus described, seeing that pain had
no terrors for hira, ordered hira to be executed with
the sword.^
At Troas, to which city the proconsul proceeded
with a great retinue, three raore Christians were
presented to hira. To his questions about their horae
and their religion, Nicoraachus, who took the lead
among them, answered impatiently in a loud voice,
" I ara a Christian." The others said the sarae.
" Sacrifice to the gods," said the magistrate to Nico
raachus, " as you are bidden." Nicoraachus answered,
" As you are aware, a Christian raay not sacrifice to
devils." He was hung up, and torture was applied.
He bore it for a long time ; and then, when his
strength was quite exhausted, and the breath of life
had nearly failed, the unhappy man cried loudly, " It
is a raistake. I never was a Christian ; I sacrifice to
the gods." He was instantly taken down. The sacri
ficial flesh was put into his dying hands and lips, when
a last spasra seized him ; he fell forwards, and, gnawing
his tongue, died the death of an apostate.
There was a young girl of sixteen among the
spectators, whose name was Dionysia. She was a
Christian. The sight so horrified her, that she could
not help crying out, " Poor, miserable wretch ! for the
sake of one short moment you have got pains that
cannot be expressed for ever and ever ! " Dionysia
' Ruinart, p. 134.

138 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
was dragged forward. Optiraus (if indeed it was the
sarae proconsul who sentenced Maxiraus) asked her
if she was a Christian. " Yes," she answered, " I am
a Christian. That is why I ara sorry for that poor
man, because he could not endure a little to find eternal
rest." "He is at rest," the proconsul replied: "the
great Diana and Venus have taken him. Now follow
his exaraple and sacrifice, or you will be badly handled
first, and then burned alive." " My God," the girl
answered, " is greater than you, so I ara not afraid
of your threats. He will enable rae to endure what
ever you inflict upon rae,"
The next day, Andrew and Paul, the two com
panions of Nicoraachus, were again brought before
the judge. The priests of Diana had set up an agita
tion among the people to obtain their punishment.
The two men refused to sacrifice to that goddess or to
any other. They said that they could not recognise
any of the devils whom the heathen worshipped, and
that they had never worshipped any other than the
only true God. The populace was so incensed against
thera, that the proconsul thought best to give the
Christians over to thera to be stoned to death, instead
of a raore regular form of execution. Their feet were
lashed together, and they were dragged outside the
town to die.
Meanwhile, the young Dionysia had spent a night
of agony in the hands of the ruffians to whose tender
raercies she had been consigned. The legend tells of
a rairaculous interposition which protected her from
injury ; but it is not to be trusted in every detail.
When the raorning came, it seems that she was being
led to receive her final sentence, when she met the
crowd that was dragging Andrew and Paul to their

PIONIUS AND ACHATIUS 139
death. By a sudden raovement she freed herself from
her guard, and flung herself upon her feUow Christians,
crying, " Let me die with you upon earth, that I raay
live with you in heaven." But the proconsul would
not allow her to share their forra of raartyrdora. By
his orders Dionysia was detached frora thera, and
beheaded.^ There were other raartyrs who perished about the
sarae tirae in the neighbouring province of Bithynia.
The Acts of Trypho and Respicius, as they stand,
have been rauch worked up by late hands ; neverthe
less they are based upon ancient raaterials, and there
is nothing improbable in the story which foUows.
Trypho and Respicius were Christians of the town
of Apamea, in Bithynia. The irenarch, or head of the
police, in their town, who had been bidden to bring
the Christians in to coraply with the edict of Decius,
conveyed thera to Nicaea — where afterwards the famous
Council under Constantine was held — to be tried by
the supreme authority of the province. They were
told that they must choose between sacrificing to the
gods and being burned alive. They said that to be
burned alive for Christ was a privUege of which they
desired to be worthy, and urged the magistrate to do
the duty imposed upon him by the edict. " Sacri
fice," said the magistrate : " I see that you are of fuU
age, and have a good understanding." "Ah," cried
Tryphon, " in our Lord Jesus Christ we have indeed
a good understanding. Our desire is to apply it in
such a way that we raay go through with our conflict
to the end."
At the coraraand to apply torture to them they
threw off their clothes, and offered themselves freely
1 Ruinart, p. 134.

140 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
to their executioners. For three hours they raain-
tained their cause. The judge, who did not wish them
to be killed if he could help it, sent thera back to
prison. It was a well-known practice of Roman
governors, when they wished to compel prisoners to
be compliant, to take them in their train from place
to place, loaded with chains and fetters. The governor
of Bithynia was going on a hunting expedition, and he
forced these two Christians to accorapany hira. It
was bitter winter weather, and the ground was frozen
hard, and the feet of Respicius and Trypho were
covered with open chilblains. When the expedition
was over, they were again exarained. "WUl you be
corrected for the future ? " asked the raagistrate. " We
correct ourselves every day before the Lord," answered
Trypho, — " the Lord, whora we serve without ceasing."
" Let thera be taken back to prison," said the magis
trate, " and have time to give one another good advice,
so that they raay put away this nonsense and follow
the eraperor's coraraands."
He went away again for sorae days, and on his
return to Nicaea addressed them kindly and asked
them what resolution they had corae to. They an
swered that they adhered to their former decision, and
would not give up their faith. " Have compassion
upon yourselves," he said, " and sacrifice to the great
gods. I think I see in you signs that you are learning
wisdora." It was in vain. Kind language could not
win thera. " The best corapassion that we can show
to ourselves," Respicius answered, " is to confess un
waveringly our Lord Jesus Christ, the true Judge, who
shall corae to try the deeds of all raen." The magis
trate ordered nails to be run through their feet, and
in this condition they were made to walk through the

PIONIUS AND ACHATIUS 141
wintry streets of the town ; but the men maintained
that the nails had only pierced their shoes, and not
their flesh. The magistrate, astonished at their per
severance, had their hands tied behind their backs and
caused them to be thrashed tiU those who inflicted the
thrashing were exhausted. The claw and the torches
followed, but without effect. At last the judge said
again, " Leave this folly ; think what is good for raen
of your tirae of life." Respicius answered that they
would never bow down to stocks and stones, because
they served the true God, and Hira only. "As we
have such a Lord," he said, " no pains can ever separate
us frora His love."
He gave thera one more day, and when next
morning they still refused to worship any but the
living God who is in heaven, he ordered them to be
beaten with loaded thongs. At length, after consulta
tion with his assessors, he read out his final judgraent :
"These Phrygian youths, who are Christians, and re
fuse to obey the iraperial coraraands, are sentenced to
be beheaded." The raartyrs were led to the place of
execution, and lifting up their hands they cried to
the Lord Jesus Christ to receive their souls, and to
set them in the bosom of the patriarchs, and so sub
mitted to the penalty which had been pronounced
upon them.^
In the tirae of Decius, Nestor was Bishop of Perga,
the chief city of Pamphylia, where St. Paul landed
frora Cyprus on his first raissionary journey. Although
the Acts of Nestor appear to have been cast into the
form of an edifying romance in the fourth century, it
is still possible to see in thera historical raaterials of
an interesting kind.
' Ruinart, p. 138.

142 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
The governor of the province of Lycia and Para-
phylia, whose narae is given as Epolius, was at the town
of Sida, when he felt called upon to take action against
Nestor. An irenarch was despatched with an escort to
fetch hira in chains from Perga. On his appearing,
Epolius asked him if he was Nestor, the teacher of the
Christian religion. The bishop replied, " If you have
already learned about me, you need ask no questions,
but do with me what you think right. If you ask for
the sake of information, I will tell you that I am the
teacher and guide of the Christians at Perga." Epolius
urged him to leave that vain religion and turn to the
immortal gods. Nestor answered, "You may inflict
every kind of torture upon my body, and throw me to
the fire or for food to the wild beasts, but I will never
deny the name of Christ, which is above every name.
Who would be so senseless and so little raaster of his
own raind as to turn frora the God who created all
things, and offer sacrifice to wicked devils and to un
conscious images ? " " Do you teach then," the
governor argued, "that the world was made by the
Crucified One ? " The arguraent seeraed to the
governor unanswerable ; but Nestor answered with
the full confession of his faith. It has perhaps been
araplified by the hands which have edited it, but no
doubt it was substantially as follows : " The co-eternal
Son and Word of God, who sits upon His Father's
throne, beheld the infatuation of you Greeks for the
creatures around you, and your misguided devotion to
images which cannot help nor profit, and had divine
compassion for the work of His own hands. He
would have all men to be saved and come to the
knowledge of the truth ; but since it was impossible
for raen to look upon His Godhead without a raedium.

PIONIUS AND ACHATIUS 143
it pleased Him to live among men under a veil, and
to teach thera a way of salvation through suffering.
Therefore, by the will of God His Father, and with
the co-operation of the Holy Spirit, He assumed our
flesh from the holy Virgin Mary, and by raeans of it
He lived araong men." Nestor went on to speak of the
miracles which testified to the divine nature of the
Incarnate Son, and which proved that His crucifixion
was the outcome of His own free will, and not the
sentence of the law upon a malefactor. " If," he
concluded, "it had not been His voluntary act to
surrender His flesh to the infuriated Jews to be
crucified, we Christians should not be enabled to
despise the torments which you think fit to visit us
with." When he ceased, the governor said, " You have
presumed upon my self-restraint and courtesy to
prolong your unmeaning talk. Now leave this vain
hope, and come and sacrifice, that your life raay not
end abruptly and in sorrow." " I have already told
you," said Nestor, " that you have ray free leave to do
with me what you think proper. Bodily pains shall
not move me away from the faith of the true God, my
Saviour." " Hang this piece of adaraant upon the wood," was
the governor's reply, " and let hira be well scraped and
currycorabed." The order was executed, but Nestor
did not utter a word. Epolius bade thera leave hira
hanging, and said to him, " Tell me in one word, and
without any false shame, what your mind is. Will
you be with us, or with your Christ ? " The bishop
answered, " With my Christ I ara, and always was, and
always will be." Epolius ordered him to be taken to
the field outside the town, and there fastened by means

144 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
of nails through all his joints, and left with a guard of
soldiers to die a lingering death. For many hours, it
is said, he hung there before death released him,
exhorting the Christians who came near him to
persevere in their confession of Hira who suffered
for thera.''
The Acts of Conon belong to the sarae class as
those of Nestor. Conon was an inhabitant of Magydus,
another town of Paraphylia, where he worked as a
gardener upon an iraperial estate, called Carmena. He
was advanced in years. The governor came to Magydus
to enforce the edict, and suraraoned the population by
voice of crier to sacrifice. Magydus had become so
predominantly Christian that, if we may believe the
account, the town was practically deserted ; the
inhabitants, hearing what was to be demanded of
thera, left their homes and their chattels, and fled.
Two zealous pagans of the place obtained per
mission to search for Christians in what they thought
to be likely quarters, and carae upon the unsuspecting
Conon watering his plants. They haUed hira in a
friendly raanner, and he returned the salutation. They
told hira that the governor wanted him. " Why," said
the old man, " what can he want with me, a stranger
and, above aU, a Christian ? If he chooses to look for
his own likes, let hira look, and not send for a tiUer of
the ground, who goes to his work day by day." At
this avowal of his faith, they lashed hira to a horse, and
conveyed hira to the governor. Conon made no com
plaint or remonstrance. " Our hunting was not in
vain," said one of his captors to another ; " this raan
will have to answer for all the other Christians."
When the governor — presumably Epolius — asked
' Acta Sanctorum, February, vol. iii. p, 629.

PIONIUS AND ACHATIUS 145
hira the usual questions about his name, origin, and
position, Conon rephed that he belonged to Nazareth
in Galilee, that he was akin to Christ, whom he served
frora his forefathers, and whom he knew as God over
aU things. Probably his answer was intended to bear
an aUegorical, and not a literal sense. The governor
answered, " If you know Christ, then know our gods
also. Be guided by me, and, by all the gods, you shall
gain high honours for it. I do not bid you sacrifice :
it will be enough to take a pinch of incense, and a drop
of wine, and an olive branch, and say, ' O raost high
Zeus, save this people.' Say that, and I lay nothing
raore upon you. Take ray advice, and quit that in-
faraous religion. Why are you so misguided as to
deify a man, and a raan who died a crirainal's death ?
I have learned all about it frora the Jews, — about His
faraily, and what He did araong His own nation, and
how He died by crucifixion. They brought me the
meraoirs of Hira and read thera to rae. Leave off this
folly, therefore, and enjoy life along with us." Conon
expressed a Christian's horror at such language, and his
deterraination to abide by his convictions. Threats of
tortures and of dreadful forras of death followed ; but
Conon was not to be shaken by threats. He said that
none of those things could hurt him, because he had
God on his side to strengthen him.
The governor conferred with his council, and then
ordered nails or spits to be run through the old raan's
feet, and obliged hira to go in that condition in front of
his carriage, while two raen drove hira along with whips.
When they got near the forum, Conon could go no
further. He feU on his knees, and offered his prayer ;
then made the sign of the cross, and expired. ^
' Von Gebhardt's Ausgewahlte Mdrtyreracten, p. 129. K

146 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
A less tragic end crowned the confession of a
Christian naraed Achatius, who is thought to have
belonged to an adjoining province.
" You ought to love our sovereigns," the governor
said to him, " seeing that you enjoy the advantages of
the Roman laws." "Who is there," replied Achatius,
"that loves the eraperor as rauch as the Christians
do ? We pray for him constantly, from year's end to
year's end, that he may live long, raay govern his
subject peoples with justice, and raay have peace
throughout his reign. We pray also for the preserva
tion of his armies, and for the good estate of the wide
world." " I am glad that you do," said the governor,
whose narae is said to have been Marcian ; " but in
order that the eraperor may the better recognise your
loyalty, join us in offering a sacrifice to him." " I pray
to ray Lord, who is great and true, for the health of the
eraperor ; but I may not sacrifice to the emperor, and
he ought never to demand it. Who would think of
sacrificing to a huraan being ? " " Answer rae : to
what god do you pray ? We too will sacrifice to him."
" I wish indeed that you knew my God to your benefit,
and that you would acknowledge the God who is the
true God." " Tell me his name," said Marcian. To a
similar request Other Christians refused outright ; they
knew that the name of God could only be learned by
Christian experience. Achatius took a different hne.
Perhaps to stiraulate further inquiry, he caught up a
title frora the Old Testament. " The God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," he said. In
Greek and Latin, where the " of " is not expressed, it
would sound to an uninstructed ear like "The God
Abraham, the God Isaac, the God Jacob." " Are those
the names of gods ? " asked the puzzled magistrate.

PIONIUS AND ACHATIUS 147
" Not they," Achatius replied, " but He who spake to
them ; He is the true God. He it is that ought to be
feared." " Who is that ? " asked Marcian. Achatius
mystified him still further. "The Most High," he
answered ; " Adonai, who rideth upon the Cherubim
and Seraphira." "What does Seraphira raean?" "A
servant of the Most High God, and a priest of the
throne that is lifted up."
Marcian had no desire to hear raore of that kind of
thing. " What philosophy has imposed upon you with
its vain dogmas ? " he said. " Pay no heed to what
you cannot see. Acknowledge these real gods before
your eyes." " What gods do you wish rae to sacrifice
to ? " asked the Christian. " To Apollo," was the reply,
" Apollo our preserver, who drives away famine and
pestilence, and keeps and guides the universe." The
reply was an invective against the gods of the heathen
mythology. " Sacrifice or die," said the governor.
" That is what the Dalraatian highwaymen say," replied
the bold prisoner ; " they give the traveller that choice,
— ' Your money or your life.' No one that they catch
asks what is fair and reasonable, but only what force
his captor can coramand. It is the same with you.
You tell us that we must either do what is wrong, or
perish. Justice punishes crimes. If I have been guilty
of any such, I condemn my own self without waiting
for your sentence ; but if I am led to punishment for
worshipping the true God, then it is not law that
condemns me, but the arbitrary will of a judge."
Marcian answered, " My coramission is to enforce the
edict. If, therefore, you show contempt, you raust
prepare for certain punishment." "And I am cora
raanded," the Christian answered, "never to deny ray
God. If you serve a frail man of flesh, who raust soon

148 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
depart from this world and be food for worras, how
rauch more ought I to obey the most mighty God,
whose power endureth for ever ? He has Himself
said, ' Whosoever shaU deny Me before men, him will
I also deny before ray Father which is in heaven.' "
" There," said Marcian, " I always wanted to know
that. You have just confessed the raistake of your
persuasion and of your law. God has a Son, then ? "
" Yes." " What is God's Son ? " " The Word of truth
and grace." " Is that His narae ? " " You did not ask
rae His name, but about His powers." " Tell me His
name." " He is called Jesus Christ." Marcian thought
that the Christian, in spite of his mystical phrases, was
entangled in as gross a mythology as his own. "Who
was God's wife ? " he asked ; " who bore Him this
Son ? " It was not difficult for Achatius to point out
that the processes of earthly birth are far from the
Christian ideas of the Godhead ; but referring to his
version of the Psalm, " My heart is inditing of a good
raatter," which in the Septuagint and the Latin runs,
" My heart hath brought forth a good word," he told
the governor that the Son of God, the Word of truth,
was produced " frora the heart of God." The phrase
was taken up at once. " God has a body, then ? " said
the governor. Achatius answered, " He alone knows.
We have no knowledge of invisible forra ; we can only
reverence His power and raight." " If God has no
body," said Marcian, " He cannot have a heart. There
is no such thing as perception without organs." Acha
tius answered, " Wisdom is not a product of bodily
organs ; it is the gift of God. A body is not neces
sary to thought."
The magistrate returned to safer ground. " Look
at the Cataphrygians now." This was a narae for the

PIONIUS AND ACHATIUS 149
Montanist sect of Christians, which took its rise in
Phrygia, not very far from the scene of this discussion.
" Their religion is an ancient one, but they have given
it up and come over to ray form of worship, and join
us in paying vows to the gods. Do you the like, and
obey without loss of time." Probably the governor's
assertion with regard to the apostasy of the poor Cata
phrygians had very little foundation in fact ; Marcian's
language showed that he had no real knowledge of
their history. But he hoped that the arguraent frora
their pretended example might have some effect.
"Gather together the Christians of the Catholic law,"
he went on, " and raake thera observe the religion of
our eraperor. Let all your people come with you ;
they will do what you tell them." Achatius answered :
" It is not my fancies that govern them aU, but the
commandraents of God. If I persuade them to do
what is right they will hear me, but if the opposite they
will despise rae." " Give me the naraes of thera all,"
said the governor. Achatius answered : " Their naraes
are written in the heavenly book and in the pages of
God. It is not for raortal eyes to behold what has
been inscribed by the immortal and invisible power of
God." Marcian took another sudden turn. "Where
are those magicians, your fellow-craftsmen, or your
teachers in this juggling iraposture ? " " All that we
know," answered the Christian, " we owe to God ; we
have the utraost horror of magic and its professors."
" To introduce a new-fangled kind of religion as you
do," said Marcian, " is nothing else but magic." " Our
aim," replied Achatius, "is to destroy what you first
make, and then when you have made it, you are afraid
of it. You would have no gods if the workmen were
short of stone, or the stone could not find a workman.

ISO THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
We, for our part, fear Him who fashioned us, not one
who was fashioned by ourselves. He created us, as
Lord ; He loved us, as our Father ; and, as a good
patron. He delivered us from eternal death."
" Give rae the naraes," said Marcian, " or you wUl
fall under the penalty yourself." " It is I who stand at
your tribunal," Achatius answered. " Do you ask ray
narae ? Or do you suppose that, if you had a nuraber
of prisoners before you, you could get the better of
them, when one man is raore than a match for you ?
If you want naraes, I am called Achatius. My real
narae is Agathangelus. Piso is the Bishop of Troy,
and Menander is a presbyter. Do what you Uke."
The narrative as it has reached us relates that
Marcian reraanded Achatius back to prison, and sent
the notes of the trial to the eraperor Decius himself ;
that Decius smiled when he read them, restored Achatius
to liberty, and promoted Marcian to a more important
province. This account is not very probable ; but it
may well be that the governor delayed to conderan
Achatius, and that the death of Decius, which occurred
shortly after, made it safe to release hira.^
^ Ruinart, p. 129 ; Von Gebhardt, Ausgew. Mdrtyreracten, p. 115.

CHAPTER VIII
CYPRIAN
The Latin-speaking world was not rauch behind the
Greek in the nuraber of its raartyrs and confessors in
the reign of Decius ; but less is known about them in
detail. The first in order of importance, and perhaps the
first in tirae, was the Bishop of Rorae hiraself. Fabian
had governed the Roraan church for the unusually
long space of fourteen years, and within that time had
seen eraperor after emperor perish by violent deaths,
so that his own seat must have seeraed to him safe in
coraparison with theirs. He had distinguished himself
by the care with which he had organised the church
committed to him, dividing the city into districts, which
were severally assigned to the seven deacons of Rome,
and making raany constructions in the ceraeteries
which formed so iraportant a part of Christian life at
Rome in those days. The office of Bishop of Rome,
which Fabian himself did much to raise, was already a
great office in the time of Decius. The successor of
Fabian tells a correspondent that he had under him
six and forty presbyters, seven deacons and seven sub-
deacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two readers and exor
cists, together with the doorkeepers, and a list of more
than fifteen hundred widows and afflicted persons de
pendent upon the church. Cyprian says that Decius
would rather have seen a rival emperor start up than

152 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
a bishop elected to take the place of the martyred
Fabian. Unhappily the manner of his martyrdom is
unknown, but a letter of Cyprian's remains, in which
he thanks the presbyters of Rome for the missive in
which they had informed him of the "glorious
departure " of " my excellent colleague." " I rejoiced
greatly," says the saint, "that his blameless ministry
attained so noble a consummation." ^
For more than a year the government of the church
at Rome remained in the hands of the council of its
presbyters. A letter which they wrote to the church
of Carthage expresses their views of duty in the time
of danger. " You may learn from many who go from
us to you that we have acted and are acting with all
diligence, having the fear of God before our eyes raore
than worldly dangers, and the penalties of eternity
rather than the fear of raen and the fleeting injuries
which they inflict. We do not desert the brotherhood,
but exhort thera to stand fast in the faith, and to be
ready to go with the Lord. We called back those who
went up to do what they were corapelled to do. The
church," they continue, " stands courageously in the
faith, although some fell through fear, and through
fear only — whether because they were distinguished
personages or because they W^ere seized by the fear of
men. These have been removed frora coraraunion with
us, but we have not left them to themselves, but have
exhorted and still continue to exhort them to repent, if
by any means they raay fi,fid pardon frora Hira who
alone can grant it, feapifig that if abandoned by us,
they should fall stiU lower." 2
Although at Rome, as at Alexandria, there were
many who fell away, especiaUy in the upper classes,
^ Cyprian, Epist. ix. ^ Cyprian, Epist. viii.

CYPRIAN 153
there were many others who were raade of better
stuff. Two presbyters, Moses and Maxiraus, and two
deacons, Nicostratus and Rufinus, with four laymen,
were araong the foremost. Though Decius was him
self at Rome, there was no haste in enforcing the edict
against Christianity in its severest penalties. These
four confessors, at least, lay in prison for many a
long day, eagerly desiring martyrdom but not obtaining
it. After a confinement of eleven months, Moses ex
pired in his prison. His constitution, always feeble,
was exhausted by the rigours of his place of confine
raent and of the winter which he passed in it. The
others, who kept up an animated correspondence
with Cyprian in Africa, appear to have survived the
persecution. "The very delay of your raartyrdora,"
wrote the irapassioned saint, " elevates you to yet greater
heights, and the length of tirae, so far frora detracting
from your glory, does but enhance it. A first, a single
confession is enough to make a saint ; but you repeat
your confession every time that you are invited to quit
your prison, and prefer your prison to the loss of faith
and virtue. Each day adds to you a new distinction.
Your deserts grow greater with each raonth as it rolls
over you. The raan who suffers outright gains but one
victory, but he who reraains under constant inflictions,
and meets pain without being conquered, receives a
daily crown." ^
Araongst the corapanions of Moses and Maxiraus
was one whose history, as worked out by Archbishop
Benson,^ is full of interest. Celerinus was a native of
Carthage, who lived in Rome. He came of a family
of martyrs. His grandraother, Celerina, had died a
raartyr's death in some earlier persecution ; so had
^ Cyprian, Epist. xxxvii. ^ Benson's Cyprian, p. 69 foil.

154 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
two uncles, Laurentinus and Egnatius, both soldiers in
the Roman army. At the time of Fabian's death,
Celerinus had been tortured. The emperor Decius
hiraself was present at the trial, and expressed his
astonishraent at the raan's powers of endurance. A
Carthaginian friend of Celerinus, " Lucian, a raan of
hurable birth and small reading, congratulates him in
a misspelt, ungrararaatical letter " on having by God's
will prevailed over " the arch-serpent hiraself, the fore
runner of Antichrist." He had, so Lucian says, not
merely confessed Christ, but had intimidated the perse
cutor by his utterances and by his quotations frora the
Bible, of which he was a " Uvely student." Cyprian
writes of him while Celerinus was still alive :
" He was the first to enter the present battle. He
was the standard-bearer of the soldiers of Christ.
Amidst the excitement of the beginning of the perse
cution he was confronted with the very mover and
source of the onslaught. Nothing could shake his
determination ; and by conquering his adversary he
raade a way for others after hira to conquer. His was
no victory gained quickly by a wound or two, but the
raore wonderful triuraph of a protracted conflict with
incessant and persistent pains. For nineteen whole.
days in his prison he lay in the thongs and iron of the
stocks. His flesh was emaciated by hunger and thirst.
His illustrious body shines with the glorious seals of
his wounds. The impress and token of what he went
through stands out and compels attention in the
muscles and limbs which wasted away in his long \
privations." Not all the family of Celerinus, however, were as
consistent as himself. One sister, called Candida,
certainly sacrificed — so he told his friend Lucian —

CYPRIAN 155
" and provoked the Lord to anger." The guilt of
another, who bore the name of Tecusa, was not so
great, or not so clear. As far as Celerinus could make
out, she went some distance up the Capitol to sacrifice,
but on reaching the spot known as the Three Fates,
she found sorae officer who consented to receive pre
sents from her to certify that she had sacrificed when
she had not, and so came home. Both sisters were
put out of coraraunion, and then, full of reraorse for
what they had done, devoted themselves to relieving
the wants of the Christian refugees at Rome, whom
they raet on their landing at Portus, and raaintained
thera in their destitution. No fewer than sixty-five
such refugees from Carthage alone were at one
moment dependent upon their bounty. Celerinus
appealed to Lucian to aid him in gaining their resto
ration to the coraraunion of the Church.
The naraes of many other confessors and martyrs
both at Rorae and throughout Italy are known, but
their true history is lost. That the persecution was
felt in Gaul is certain, but the history of only one
martyr of that country is preserved, and that in no
trustworthy form. It is the history of Saturninus, the
Bishop of Toulouse, who fell a victim — as so many did
at Alexandria — to the fury of a heathen populace, not
to the legal cruelties of a raagistrate. A bull had
been brought to the altar for sacrifice, when the idea
occurred to sorae one to lash the Christian to the
aniraal and drive it down the steep and stony street.
The thing was done, and the bishop's brains were
dashed out upon the stones.^
No Spanish raartyrdoms of this period are re
corded ; but the correspondence of Cyprian contains
' Ruinart, p. 109.

156 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
the naraes of two unhappy bishops — the Bishops of
Leon and Merida, who fell away from Christ. Both
of them obtained certificates of having sacrificed.
Basilides of Leon fell sick, and confessed afterwards
that in his despair and misery he had blaspheraed God.
Martial of Merida had for a long tirae been on the
borderland of heathenisra. He was a member of a
pagan burial guild, and was in the habit of attending
the guild banquets, and. Christian bishop though he
was, when some of his children died, he had them
buried in the cemetery of his guild, with rites other than
those of Christianity. It was only natural that such a
man, when the edict of Decius was published, should
have hastened to put himself under the shelter of the
law. He publicly sought and obtained an official
document stating that he had performed the idolatrous
rite and had denied Christ.
The subsequent history of the two raen is not un
interesting. BasUides abdicated his see ; the apostasy
of Martial was so evident that no further abdication
was necessary. New bishops were duly appointed in
their places. But when peace was restored, Basilides
repaired to Rome, and persuaded Stephen, who was
then the bishop there, to recognise him and Martial
as the rightful Bishops of Leon and of Merida. From
the decision of Rome the churches of Leon and
Merida appealed to Carthage, and Cyprian, as was
natural, with a council of thirty-seven bishops, assured
the Spanish churches that the decision of Stephen,
who lived a long way off and was ignorant of the facts,
was of no value, and that the claim of Basihdes and
Martial was absurd.^
The church of Africa had its full share in the
^ Cyprian, Epist. Ixvii.

CYPRIAN 157
sufferings inflicted by Decius. The leading spirit of
that church in' the middle of the third century was
Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage.
He was a rich man, and well known in Cartha
ginian society, before his conversion to Christianity.
Only two years elapsed between his conversion and his
elevation to what was then, next after Rome, the chief
bishopric of Western Christendom. He had not been
bishop for two years, when the persecution of Decius
began. At the first approach of the persecution, Cyprian,
like other great and wise prelates of the tirae, retired
from Carthage. Cyprian knew that his presence in the
city was dangerous for his fellow Christians, as well as
for himself, and he believed that it was of the highest
iraportance at the raoment that he should live to watch
over the interests of his flock. The heathen populace
demanded that he should be thrown to the lion. He
made over his large property to trustees, for the purpose
of helping the afflicted raembers of the Church. The
proconsul, not being able to find him, issued a proscrip
tion of his trustees, in which his full title was given
him — "Caecilius Cyprianus, the Bishop of the Chris
tians." Many Christians, both of his own province and
at a distance, criticised his conduct in leaving Carthage
at such a moraent. The Roraan presbyters, in par
ticular, who after the raartyrdora of Fabian directed the
church at Rorae, wrote to their brethren at Carthage,
to draw the contrast between their own brave bishop
and the hireling shepherds who flee at the approach of
danger. But they little knew the raan of whora they
were writing. Frora his hiding-place, where he lived
a life of prayer and raeditation and daily Coraraunion,
he kept up regular correspondence with the leaders of

158 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
the flock at Carthage, and aniraated the confessors
not only there, but in raany parts of the world, by
his vigorous exhortations and encourageraents ; and
huraanly speaking it was only through the wisdom of
Cyprian that, when the persecution of Decius came
to an end, the Church was guided to a right decision
on the grave questions which arose in consequence
of it. When the edict of Decius arrived at Carthage,
" some," says Archbishop Benson, " were dragged
before the raagistrates, and some maltreated by the
populace. The numbers who suffered were possibly
not great, but their sufferings were intense. The edict
prescribed confiscation, banishraent, raine-labour, im
prisonment with starvation as penalties, and torture as
the means of inquisition. In each town five coramis-
sioners were associated with the raagistrates. The
tortures were not used until the arrival of the proconsul
in April (A.D. 250). He found the severities so much
abated that sorae of the exUes had returned, but after
presiding over this tribunal in the capital, he made a
tour of the province, with his twelve dreaded fasces,
exercising such rigour that some conspicuous confessors
yielded, while others died under his engines. . . .
" There were many who instantly sacrificed pro
perty and citizenship by voluntary exUe : raany who
sought hiding in the crowds of Rorae. The first
inraates of the prison at Carthage were a presbyter
Rogatian, ' a glorious old man,' who had been left by
Cyprian, during his absence, trustee of his charities,
and a ' quiet sober-rainded raan,' by narae Felicissimus.
These were dragged thither by the raultitude. Regular
coramittals soon swelled the number. Women and
even lads were imprisoned, who had met with equal

CYPRIAN 159
defiance the threats and the kindly persuasions of the
magistrates. They declined to taste the sacrificial
victim, or sprinkle the incense, or to put on the liturgic
veil. Two terrible cells were assigned to them where
hunger, thirst, and intense heat soon did their work.
After a short time fifteen persons had perished there, of
whom four were women, besides one in the quarry, and
two under torture. Mappalicus " — a heroic name in
the traditions of the African church — " was one of the
latter. His limbs and sides streaming from repeated
blows of the torture-claw, he said to the proconsul as
he was remanded to the cell, ' To-raorrow you shall
see a contest indeed.' Next day he was tortured
again and died.
" Some scenes were yet raore dreadful. Maidens "
were raade to suffer horrors worse than death. " Subor
dinates were allowed to invent new tortures. Nurai-
dicus, a presbyter of the neighbourhood, prepared many
for death, and then with his wife was tortured by fire.
The wife was actually burnt alive, and he was left for
dead, a shower of stones having been hurled upon him
at the stake. His daughter found him breathing still ;
he was revived, and afterwards enrolled in the pres-
byterate of the capital.
" Many were after double torture dismissed, some
into banishment, some to bear the brand for life, as a
second ' seal in their foreheads,' some to resume former
occupations, beggared of all they possessed. Somequailed
and feU, who on second thoughts returned to avow
their faith, forfeit their all, and undergo their torture.
Bona was dragged by her husband to the altar, there to
justify her reappearance from abroad ; but exclairaing,
' The act is not mine but yours,' as the incense fell from
her hand, she was exiled again. No raartyrs were

i6o THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
more honoured than Castus and Aemilius, who for
such recantation were burnt to death." '
Cyprian, from his place of refuge, urged upon his
clergy the duty of ministering to the bodily wants of
the confessors in prison. He was anxious that no less
honour should be shown to the bodies of those
who died in prison, even if they had undergone no
tortures, than to those of the men who were actually
put to death for their faith. There were no truer
martyrs than they. In particular, he ordered careful
note to be made of the days on which the prisoners
passed away, that they might be comraeraorated like
other martyrs when their days came round. It gave
him great satisfaction to receive information on the
point from time to tirae. " We celebrate oblations and
sacrifices here in reraerabrance of them," he says, " and
hope soon to celebrate them with you, by the Lord's
protection." ^
At Carthage, as elsewhere, the anti-Christian move
raent set on foot by Decius died down before a year
had gone by. Decius fell in the war against the Goths
in November 251, and for another year and a half the
governraent passed into the weak hands of Gallus. The
appalling plague which swept over the erapire in his
reign gave the Christians an opportunity of doing good
which they were not slow to use ; but it woke against
thera the old cries of angered heathenism. Cyprian
himself had visions which warned hira that troubles
were at hand, which would surpass all that had yet
been experienced. But these troubles were not to
corae so soon as he expected, either in Africa or else
where. Two Bishops of Rorae in succession —
Cornelius and Lucius — were banished from the city,
^ Benson's Cyprian, p. 73 foil. * Cyprian, Epist. -xa.

CYPRIAN i6i
the former of whora died in exile, and was reckoned
araong the raartyrs ; previous legislation against the
Church remained unrepealed, and there is reason to
think that fresh legislation in the same direction took
place ; but no executions for Christianity occurred
under Gallus.
The stern and able Valerian, who had held the
revived ofiice of censor under Decius, became em
peror in the year 253. In the year 257 he took up
again the war against the Christians, whom at the outset
of his reign he had befriended.
It seems to have been his intention at the first to
shed no blood in putting Christianity down. The edict
ordered that the bishops and leading ministers of the
Church should be sent into perpetual banishment.
Gatherings of Christians were prohibited, and they
were forbidden access to their burial-grounds.
It was the 30th of August 257 when Cyprian was
brought before Paternus, the proconsul of Africa, in
accordance with the edict. The examination took
place in the secretarium, or private ofiice of the pro
consul. Paternus began, " The sacred emperors.
Valerian and Gallienus, have been pleased to send
rae a letter, in which they direct that persons who
do not follow the religion of Rome are to be raade
to conforra to the Roraan cereraonies. I have accord
ingly raade inquiries concerning yourself. What answer
have you to give rae ? " Cyprian answered, " I ara
a Christian and a bishop. I know no other gods but
the one true God, who raade heaven and earth, the sea,
and aU things that are therein. This is the God whom
we Christians serve. To Him we pray day and night,
for ourselves and for aU men, and for the safety of the
emperors themselves." " Do you intend to continue
L

i62 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
in that mind ? " "A good mind, which knows God,
cannot alter." The proconsul caught somewhat scorn
fully at Cyprian's "cannot." "Can you, then," he
asked, " in accordance with the directions of Valerian
and Gallienus, set out as an exUe for the town of
Curubis ? " Cyprian answered, " I will set out."
There was another question which the proconsul
wished to ask. " They have been pleased to write to
me about the presbyters, as well as the bishops. I
should be glad, therefore, if you would tell me who
are the presbyters residing in this city." Cyprian had
been a lawyer before his conversion, and he rephed,
" It is an excellent and useful regulation of your own
laws that informers should not be aUowed. I cannot
therefore detect and delate them ; but they wUl be
found in their respective cities." The proconsul said,
" I shall make inquiries here to-day." Perhaps he was
not disinclined to give the presbyters warning to make
their escape. Cyprian replied, " Our rules forbid any
one to offer hiraself of his own accord, and your own
opinion is against it ; so they cannot offer theraselves,
but you wUl find thera if you raake inquiry for them."
" I shall find thera," said Paternus ; and he added,
"They have also directed that no assemblies are to
be held anywhere, and no cemeteries are to be entered.
If any one disobeys this wholesorae direction, he will
suffer capital punishraent." The reply of Cyprian was
only, " Do as you have been directed." ^
Copies of this exaraination were circulated by
Cyprian's own orders araong the churches of Africa,
and we still possess a letter in which some of his
feUow-bishops, who were in penal servitude in the
mines, return thanks for the copy sent to them.
' Hartel's Cyprian, part iii., p. go foil.

CYPRIAN 163
" Like a good and true teacher," they say, " you have
clearly signified, in the Proconsular Acts, what we, your
disciples, should say after you when examined by the
governor." ^
Paternus had no wish to deal harshly with the
distinguished culprit. He gave hira tirae to make his
arrangements, and on the 14th of September Cyprian
took up his abode at the not unpleasant spot, sorae
fifty railes frora Carthage, which had been assigned to
hira as his place of exUe. The Christian inhabitants
of Curubis received him with affection and supplied
his wants. On the night of his arrival at Curubis, he had one of
those visions which meant so much for the Christians
of Africa. " There appeared to me," so he told his biographer,
who was a voluntary companion of his exile, " before
I fell asleep, a young raan of superhuraan stature, who
led rae to the Praetoriura. I thought that I was brought
to the tribunal, where the proconsul was sitting. As
soon as he saw me, the proconsul began to write down
my sentence upon his tablet, but I was ignorant of
the nature of it, for he had not put the usual questions
to rae. The young raan, however, who stood behind
hira, read with great attention whatever was written
down ; and being unable, where he was, to tell me in
so raany words, he indicated what the writing on the
tablet raeant by expressive gestures. Spreading out
his hand flat like the blade of a sword, he imitated
the executioner's stroke, and conveyed his meaning
as clearly as words could have done. I understood
that I was to suffer. I began at once to beg and pray
for a respite, if it were only for one day, till I could put
' Cyprian, Epist. Ixxvii.

1 64 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
my affairs in proper order. After I had repeated my
petition many times, the proconsul again began to write
something on the tablet. I did not know what it was,
but I felt sure, frora the calraness of the judge's face,
that he thought ray request reasonable, and was moved
by it. The young man also, who had already dis
closed by his unspoken gesture that I was to suffer,
now again hastened to raake secret signs to rae, and,
twisting his fingers one behind another, conveyed to
rae that the reprieve till the morrow, for which I had
asked, was granted. Although the sentence had not
been read out, I came to myself with a very joyful
heart at the pleasure of receiving the reprieve ; and yet
the uncertainty of the interpretation made rae tremble
so with fear, that ray bounding heart still throbbed
with dread all over at the reraains of the terror." ^
Exactly that day year the death sentence was
pronounced upon Cyprian.
It is not known whether Paternus carried out his
threat of finding the priests of the diocese of Carthage ;
but his neighbour the governor of Numidia took vigor
ous steps to carry out the requireraents of the edict.
Nine bishops of that province wrote to Cyprian from
the raines where they were forced to labour in chains
and fetters. With them were associated presbyters and
lay folk, old men and virgins, and young boys. They
had been beaten ignominiously with rods, — a punish
ment which was only applied to persons of low rank.
They worked in the dark, half-starved, ill-clothed, half
choked with the smell of the smelting furnaces, with
their foreheads branded and the hair of one half of
their heads shaven off. They missed their accustomed
baths ; they raissed immeasurably more their privUege
1 Vita Cypriani, 12.

CYPRIAN 165
of celebrating and receiving the Blessed Sacraraent.
The letters with which Cyprian cheered them were
not the only comfort which they owed to him. His
subdeacon Herennianus, with three acolytes, carried
them the raoney which supplied their necessities.^
Suddenly in the July of the year 258, a change
came over the situation. Galerius Maximus, who had
succeeded Paternus as proconsul of Africa, recalled
Cyprian from his exile. There were reasons why the
authorities wished to have him close at hand. He
returned, and " by the sacred directions " of the pro
consul took up his abode in his own " Gardens." Soon
after his conversion he had sold his beautiful country
house and grounds near Carthage for the benefit of the
poor, but his friends had bought the place back and
presented it to hira again. There Cyprian reraained,
expecting and hoping every day that he would be sent
for. The cause of this suraraons was a new decree of
Valerian. Its appalling contents are to be seen in the
letter which Cyprian wrote to Successus, Bishop of Abbir
Germaniciana, to be made known to the other bishops.
" The reason why I did not write to you at once,
dear brother, is that none of the clergy could leave
Carthage at the moment when the conflict began.
All were prepared to win the glory of God and of
heaven by the laying down of their lives.
" I raust now tell you of the arrival of the raessen-
gers whom I despatched to Rome for the purpose of
ascertaining and informing us what had really been
contained in the rescript with regard to us ; because
currency had been given to raany conflicting opinions,
destitute of any real foundation.
' Cyprian, Epist. Ixxvi, Ixxvii.

1 66 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
" The facts are these. Valerian has sent a rescript
to the senate, that bishops, priests, and deacons are to
be executed at once ; senators, and men of distinction,
and knights of Rome, to forfeit their dignity, and be
stripped of their goods ; and if after the loss of their
possessions they persist in being Christians, they are
to lose their heads ; married women are to be deprived
of their goods and banished ; Caesariani," or lower
officials of the eraperor's treasury, "who now or at
sorae forraer tirae have confessed theraselves to be
Christians, are to becorae the property of the treasury,
entered upon a list, and sent in chains to work upon
the eraperor's estates.
"The emperor Valerian added to his address a
copy of his circular to the provincial governors with
regard to us. Every day we hope to see this circular
arrive, standing in the strength of faith to endure the
suffering, and looking to the help and the loving-kind
ness of God for the crown of eternal life.
" You must know that Xystus," the Bishop of
Rorae, " was executed in his ceraetery on the sixth of
August, together with four deacons. The raagistrates
at Rome press forward with this persecution every day,
executing those who are brought before thera and
taking possession of their goods for the treasury." ^
Such was the new legislation against Christianity.
Cyprian had been suraraoned back to Carthage to be
put to death. But for sorae reason the blow was
delayed. Cyprian's friends — many of them heathens
of high position — urged hira to withdraw frora danger,
as he had done under Decius, and put safe hiding-
places at his disposal. But Cyprian refused to go.
The proconsul Galerius was at Utica ; and one day
' Cyprian, Epist. Ixx.

CYPRIAN 167
Cyprian's agents informed him that officers had been
sent to fetch hira to that city. When the officers
arrived at the " Gardens," they found the bishop gone.
He no longer wished to avoid death ; but he would
not die at Utica. From his place of retreat he wrote
to his flock at Carthage — it is the last of his epistles — to
explain to them his intentions. He said that the proper
place for a bishop to die in was his own city. As soon
as the proconsul returned to Carthage, he too would
return, but not before. It would, he said, be derogatory
to the dignity of the glorious church of Carthage if
its bishop were to suffer a raartyr's death elsewhere.
Those last utterances, in which, according to the
proraise of Christ, the Holy Ghost raight be expected
to reveal His inspiration, ought to be delivered araongst
the people whom the bishop represented. Meanwhile
they were to keep free from excitement and disorder,
and no Christian was to come forward and offer him
self to the magistrates unsought.
Galerius came to Carthage, and Cyprian, true to his
word, was there likewise. On the 13th of September
Galerius, determined that Cyprian should not escape
again, sent a surprise party to the house. It consisted
of two high officers of the proconsul's staff, with a
detachraent of soldiers. They lifted Cyprian into a
carriage, and set hira in the raidst between thera, and
drove him to the house of Sextus, where the proconsul
was staying for the benefit of his health. The faithful
deacon who had accorapanied Cyprian into exile relates
how alert and raerry his raaster looked as he drove
away to what he supposed would be instant raartyrdora.
The end, however, was not to be quite so soon.
Galerius was too ill that raorning to deal with the case,
and, as if in fulfilraent of Cyprian's vision at Curubis, he

1 68 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
remanded the illustrious prisoner till the following day.
The bishop was conducted to the house of the aide-de
camp (as he raight be called) who had brought him
to Galerius, and there he spent his last night, provided
with every comfort, and conversing freely with his friends,
among whora was his biographer, Pontius. Mean
while the report passed through the city that Thascius
— the narae by which Cyprian was best known to the
heathen population — had been brought at last before
the magistrate. A great crowd assembled near the
house where he was quartered. Many heathens were
there, and it seeraed as if the whole of the Christian
church of Carthage was gathered in the street. They
were deterrained that nothing should be done with the
bishop without their knowledge. AU night long they
kept watch at the doors of the house; it was the Vigil
of the saint's Passion. Cyprian was told how the
people were spending the hours, and sent them out a
message to see that the maidens were kept from harm.
At last " the morrow " dawned. It was a briUiant
morning. Cyprian left the lodgings of the aide-de-
carap. His way lay across the stadium, or race-course.
Those who went with hira thought of the way in which
the Apostle corapared trials like those of their raaster
to the feats of the training-ground. He was attended
by a whole array of the faithful, who advanced, says
Pontius, "as if they were going to take death by
storra." They reached the house of Sextus. The proconsul,
in his desire to give publicity to the trial of Cyprian,
had actuaUy suraraoned the populace to the spot. The
ailing man was not yet ready to leave his room when
they arrived, and Cyprian was shown into a private
apartment to sit down. It was observed that the seat

CYPRIAN 169
happened to be spread with a linen cloth. It was the
custom to deck the thrones of bishops in the church
in that manner. Cyprian was heated with his long
walk, so that his clothes were wet with perspiration.
An official, who had once been a Christian but had
fallen away, offered him a set of dry garments ; but
Cyprian answered that perhaps the complaint would
not last out the day, and remedies were therefore
unnecessary. Suddenly the proconsul called for him. He was
ushered in and placed in the dock. " Are you Thascius
Cyprianus ? " asked Galerius. He said, " I am." Galerius
had heard a word or two of the language which
Christians spoke araong theraselves. He had picked
up the word papa, or " pope " — the word of filial affec
tion applied to bishops. " You have allowed men of
sacrUegious opinions," he said, " to make you their
pope." The proconsul used the word " sacrUegious "
in its legal and technical sense, which included all
resistance to what were considered the " divine "
commandments of the emperor. Cyprian made no
objection to the use of the word. He simply answered,
" Yes." The impleraents for offering incense were
in readiness in court. " The sacred eraperors," said
Galerius, " have commanded that you should perform
the ceremony." " I shall not do it," was the answer —
or perhaps the word means strictly, " I do not offer."
The proconsul gave him one more chance. " For
your own interests," he said, " consider." " Do as you
are directed to do," was the bishop's answer ; " there
is nothing to consider where the case is so plain."
It took the proconsul but a moment to confer with
his council of assessors, as he was bound to do. It
was a mere matter of forra. Then he addressed

I70 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
Cyprian as follows : " You have long lived a life of
sacrilege, and have joined with a large nuraber of
persons in a crirainal conspiracy, and have set your
self up as an enemy to the gods of Rome and the
observances of religion. The pious and sacred princes.
Valerian the Augustus, Gallienus the Augustus, and
Valerian the noble Caesar, have not succeeded in
bringing you back to the way of their rites. Therefore,
being clearly found to be the ringleader and standard-
bearer in criraes of a very bad character, you shall in
your own person be raade a lesson for those whom
you have associated with yourself in your guilt. Your
blood shall establish discipline."
Every word seemed afterwards to the Christian by
standers to have had a prophetic iraport, a divinely
inspired second sense, like the words of Caiaphas in
the Gospel. The discipline which Cyprian's blood was
to establish was the discipline of the church. After this
speech the proconsul read his sentence from the
tablet in these words : " Our pleasure is that Thascius
Cyprianus be executed with the sword." " Thanks be
to God," was the response of the bishop.
No sooner was the sentence read than something
like an uproar began among the Christians, who were
present in immense numbers. Shouts were heard,
" Let us also be beheaded with him."
Cyprian came out of the house, guarded by a
detachment of soldiers. Centurions and tribunes
raarched on either side of him. The grounds of the
house of Sextus formed a kind of natural amphitheatre,
the sides of which were clothed with wood. The trees
were filled with syrapathising spectators. On reaching
the chosen spot, the bishop took off his hooded cloak,
and knelt down and prayed. Then he stripped himself

CYPRIAN 171
of his " dalmatic " — not at that time a specially ecclesi
astical garment — and gave it to the deacons near him,
and stood in his linen under-garment, quietly waiting
for the executioner, who was not yet come. On his
arrival, Cyprian told his friends to give him the hand
some gift of five-and-twenty gold pieces. The brethren
began to strew the ground in front of him with napkins
and handkerchiefs to catch the raartyr's blood. He
began to fasten a handkerchief round his own eyes,
but as he had some difficulty in tying the ends of it,
a presbyter named Julian, and a subdeacon bearing the
same name, tied it for him. The executioner was slow
in his preparations, and Cyprian said soraething to hira
to hasten hira. Whether it was Cyprian's words, or his
raunificent gift, or the high position and calm bearing
of the martyr, or the circurastances of the execution,
the raan becarae nervous, and could scarcely bring his
fingers to clasp the handle of his sword. The centurion
on duty was corapelled to do the work instead of
him, and with strength given from on high, as the
Christians thought, severed Cyprian's head from his
shoulders. So Cyprian died. He was the first bishop who had
raet a raartyr's death at Carthage or in Africa ; and the
death of St. Thomas of Canterbury scarcely had a greater
effect upon the history of the Church of England than
Cyprian's had upon that of his own country for ages.
The heathen populace were eager to gaze upon the
body of the great prelate who had done so rauch for
Carthage in the tirae of the plague, without religious
partiality. The Christians, pleased at this tribute of
respect, allowed the body to he all day in a kind of
state, hard by the spot where Cyprian had died. At
night they carae with wax tapers and torches, and bore

172 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
it to the burying-ground of Macrobius Candidianus,
" with prayers and a mighty triumph."
A few days later Galerius Maximus, the proconsul
who had sentenced him, died also.^
1 Vita Cypriani, and Acta Proconsularia, in Hartel's Cyirian, part iii,,
pp. xc and ex.

CHAPTER IX
MONTANUS AND FLAVIAN; MARIAN AND
JAMES
It was in the interval between the death of Galerius
and the arrival of the new proconsul that the procu
rator, who governed the province in the meanwhile,
lent his countenance to a popular demonstration against
the Christians. It was followed up the next day by
severe measures on the part of the government. By
what they considered to be a collusion of craft with
violence, a batch of Christians were taken into
custody together. They left to future generations a
record of their sufferings, which would be even more
affecting than it is, if it were not so evidently
saturated with the recollection of the Passion of Per
petua. One of the group, named Donatian, was only a
catechumen when he was seized, and he passed away
in prison, after being baptized there. Priraolus, in
like raanner, died in prison. A few raonths before, at
a tirae when he had been called in question for his
faith by the authorities, he raade his public confession
before the judge, and was reckoned, according to
the teaching of the African church, to have received
the equivalent of baptism.
Instead of being taken at once to prison, the
martyrs were at first confined in the houses of some
of the district officials. They overheard the soldiers
who guarded them say that the governor intended to

174 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
burn them alive ; but in answer to their prayers the
design was abandoned, and the governor had them
transferred to the gaol. They found the gaol no
pleasanter than it had been in the time of Perpetua ;
but for thera, as for her, it was transfigured. "We
dreaded not the foul darkness of the place. The
glooray prison shone with spiritual brightness ; and
faith and devotion, like the day, clothed us with white
light to meet the horrors of the dark and the things
which the impenetrable night concealed." Going up
to the " highest place of punishraent " was like going
up to heaven. " What days and what nights we spent
there," they go on to say in a raore natural tone,
" cannot be expressed : the raiseries of the prison are
beyond putting into words." But for a few days the
visits of their brethren brought thera refreshraent, and
" all the discorafort of the night was removed by the
consolation and gladness of the day."
A series of visions came to them, as they came
to the companions of Perpetua, and as they came to
Cyprian. The first was given to a man named Renus.
" He saw a nuraber of persons brought into court one
by one. As each one advanced, a lantern was borne
in front of hira : no one came forth who was not pre
ceded by his lantern. And when we had come forth
with our lanterns he awoke. And when he related his
vision to us we were glad, trusting to walk with Christ,
who is a lantern unto our feet, being the Word of
God." After that night they say that they were spending
"a merry day," when they were suddenly carried off
to the procurator. " Our talk," they say, " was of the
consolations of the future ; and that enjoyraent of such
happiness raight not be too long delayed, the soldiers.

MONTANUS AND FLAVIAN 175
who did not know where the governor wished to hear
us, led us about hither and thither all over the forum."
The clank of their chains was like music to the ears of
raen who were longing for raartyrdora. Then they
were called into the secretarium, or private audience-
charaber. The hour for their public trial, and for
their raartyrdora, was not yet corae ; but they felt
from what took place that day that they had already
gained one victory over the devil, and were being
reserved to gain another.
They were soon put to another test. Hunger and
thirst were tried upon them for many days in an
aggravated form. Even the poor rations of coarse
bread and cold water which the state provided were
withheld, or partly withheld from them, and a large
number of thera naturally were taken ill. When they
were in this miserable condition, they were cheered by
another vision, vouchsafed to a priest naraed Victor,
who died iraraediately after receiving it. He said that
he saw a boy corae into the prison with a countenance
of inexpressible brightness, who led thera in all direc
tions and tried every raeans of egress from the prison,
but they could nowhere make their way out. "Then
he said to rae, ' You raust still suffer a little, because
for the present you are hindered ; but be of good
cheer, for I ara with you ; ' and he added, ' Tell thera
that you shall have a more glorious crown ; ' and again,
' The spirit hastens to its God.' " This last saying
raeant, no doubt, that on leaving the body the spirits of
the raartyrs passed at once into the presence of God,
without the delay which was beUeved to beset the
spirits of ordinary Christians. The words aroused in
the raind of the priest a desire for fuller inforraation.
" His soul, so close to its passion, asked after its

176 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
appointed place, and questioned that lord, where
Paradise was. He answered, ' It is beyond the world.'
' Show it rae,' he cried. And the other replied, ' And
what room shall there be for faith ? ' Then in his
huraan weakness Victor said, ' I cannot keep what thou
coramandest ; give me a sign that I may give them.'
The lord answered and said, ' Give them the sign of
Jacob.' " The sign of Jacob was, perhaps, that ladder
set up from earth to heaven, up which Perpetua had
seen herself and Saturus climbing into the presence of
her Saviour. The sufferers rejoiced that they were
allowed to bear labours like those of the patriarchs,
though they could not hope to attain an equal degree
of righteousness. " But He who said, ' Call upon Me in the day of
trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify
Me,' for His own glory turned and remembered us,
after prayer had been made to Him, and foretold to us
the gift which His mercy gave.
" A vision was shown to our sister Quartillosia, who
was here with us. This woman's husband and son
had suffered three days before. She herself speedily
followed her kindred, while still here in the prison.
She thus related what she saw. ' I saw,' she said, ' my
son who has suffered corae hither to the prison ; and
he sat on the brira of a fountain of water, and said : God
hath seen your affliction and your distress. And behind
hira entered a young raan wonderfully tall, carrying two
bowls full of railk, one in each hand, and said : Be of
good courage ; God hath remerabered you. And from
the bowls which he carried he gave us all to drink, and
the bowls failed not. And suddenly the stone which
divided the window in the raiddle was taken away ;
and when the middle piece was taken away, the open

MONTANUS AND FLAVIAN 177
windows let in the free face of the sky. And the young
man put down the bowls which he carried, one on the
right side and the other on the left, and said : Behold,
ye have been satisfied, and there is abundance, and
a third bowl shall come to you besides ; and he
departed.' "
The next day a plentiful supply was brought to
them by Herennianus, the subdeacon whora Cyprian
had employed on a sirailar errand when he was in exile
at Curubis, and by a catechumen of the name of January.
They had been sent by one of the leading presbyters of
Carthage, whose name was Lucian. The prisoners,
who had then for two days been entirely without food,
began to revive, and the sick to recover their health.
The treatment of Christians who had more or less
crirainally fallen away under persecution caused rauch
anxiety and dissension in the church ; and these brave
confessors in the prison at Carthage were not left un
troubled by the questions raised. A woman who had
been deprived of the privileges of a comraunicant had
surreptitiously corae back to coraraunion. It appears
that one of the confessors, naraed Julian, had abetted
her in the breach of disciphne, and another of thera,
naraed Montanus, had spoken severely to him on the
subject. Some coolness had arisen in consequence
between the two raen, and did not iraraediately pass
away. That night Montanus had a vision which caused
him searchings of heart.
" I thought," he said, " that the centurions carae for
us. They led us a long journey, and in the course of
it we came to an iraraense plain, where we were raet by
Cyprian and by Leucius." Leucius was probably a
confessor to whora, among others, a letter of Cyprian's
is addressed, and who must have met his raartyrdora M

178 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
soon after. "We reached a place which shone white,
and our garraents became white, and our flesh was
changed and became whiter than our white garraents.
So transparent was our flesh that the eye could penetrate
into the depth of our hearts. I happened to glance at
my own breast, and saw there something not clean ;
and in ray vision I woke up. Lucian met me " — the
presbyter who had sent help to the prisoners who were
still alive — " and I told him ray vision, and I said to
hira, 'That spot raeans that I did not raake it up at
once with Julian.' And at that I awoke."
The vision gave the prisoners occasion to send to
their brethren at liberty an urgent and touching entreaty
to cultivate a spirit of concord and charity, and to
" imitate here what we hope to be hereafter."
At this point the writing left by the martyrs them
selves comes to an end, but the story is completed by
contemporaries who survived.
After they had borne the horrors of their confine
ment for raany months, they were at length brought
into court and examined by the new proconsul. All
confessed that they were Christians, and Lucius,
Montanus, Julian, and Victoricus confessed that they
were raerabers of the clergy, and as such were ordered
to instant execution. A young raan naraed Flavian
confessed likewise that he was a deacon ; but a body of
his heathen friends and forraer schoolfellows, who were
deterrained to save hira, asserted that his confession
was false, and he was reraanded for further inquiry.
Flavian, like Felicity, the corarade of Perpetua, was
deeply disappointed at being parted frora so goodly a
corapany ; " yet his habitual faith and devotion assured
him that it was the will of God, and the sorrow of his
bereavement and sohtude was assuaged by religious

MONTANUS AND FLAVIAN 179
wisdom. 'The heart of the king,' he said, 'is in the
hand of God ; why then should I be raelancholy, or be
angry with a raan who only does as he is bidden ? ' "
Meanwhile the others were led to the place of
slaughter. A great crowd of heathens accompanied
them, and of the brethren "who had learned from
Cyprian to pay respect to all God's witnesses for faith
and religion," but who carae on that day in greater
numbers than usual. The joyful countenances of the
martyrs would have been enough to encourage others
to follow their exaraple, even if they had said nothing ;
but there was no lack of profitable words. Lucius,
who was always gentle and modest, had been sadly
broken in health by his imprisonraent, and was unable
to bear the stifling throng. He was allowed to walk in
advance of the rest, with only a few companions. One
saying of his was remerabered for the lowliness which
it revealed. The brethren intreated hira to reraeraber
thera when he was gone, but Lucius would not presume
upon the privileges of a martyr even on the day of his
martyrdom. " Do you reraeraber me," was his reply.
Julian and Victoricus discoursed of brotherly concord,
and commended all the clergy to the loyalty of the
brethren, especially those who had provided supplies to
the starving Christians in the prison.
It was Montanus, however, who took the leading
part on that day. Stalwart in body and vigorous in
mind, and never disposed to conceal his belief for fear
of any man, he seeraed, as the hour of his raartyrdora
approached, to receive something of that dying inspira
tion which Cyprian had hoped to receive. "He that
sacrificeth unto any god," he cried repeatedly, quoting
from the Book of Exodus, "save unto the Lord only,
he shall be utterly destroyed." He spoke against the

i8o THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
pride and the factiousness of heretics, and bade them
see a raark of the true Church in the number of her
raartyrs, and urged thera to return to her bosom.
Like a true disciple of Cyprian, he reproved the
impatience of the Christians who had fallen, and who
were eager to be restored before their penitence had
been fully tested. He dwelt on the importance of
unity araong the bishops of the Church, and of
obedience on the part of the laity towards their
bishops. The executioner was preparing to deliver
his stroke, when Montanus spread his hands towards
heaven and prayed with a loud voice, which was heard
not only by the Christians near hira, but by the
heathen bystanders as well, that Flavian, whose popu
larity had hindered him frora being araong thera that
day, raight follow the third day after. Then, as a
pledge that his prayer would be fulfilled, he took the
handkerchief with which he was about to bind his eyes,
and tearing it in half, he gave the other half to the
Christians who stood by, for Flavian to bind his eyes
with it two days later ; and he charged the brethren to
keep a piece of ground for Flavian in the midst of the
graves which he and those who were slain with him
were to occupy, that Flavian might not be parted from
them in death.
Two days after, according to the prayer of
Montanus, Flavian was once more called up. His
spirits were not impaired by the unwelcome delay
which had been imposed upon hira. His heroic
mother was inseparable from hira. He was her only
son. She had been more grieved than Flavian himself
at his being sent back to prison and not to death.
Flavian was obliged to console her disappointment,
though he praised her courage. " Dearest mother,"

MONTANUS AND FLAVIAN i8i
he said, " I have always thought that I should like, if
it were granted me to confess Christ, to enjoy my
martyrdom, and to appear often in chains, and to be
put off again and again. So if I have got what I
wished for, we ought to be proud rather than sorry."
It was observed that the prison doors, as he returned
to thera, were harder to open than usual, and that the
servants of the turnkeys refused to do their work. It
seeraed to the Christians as if sorae evil spirit in the
place were protesting against the introduction of " the
man of heaven and of God " into the filth within.
The "third day" was like a day of resurrection to
Flavian. He felt certain that he was leaving the prison
to return to it no raore. When the brethren raet hira
with good wishes, he assured thera that he would
" make the peace with thera all " that day at the place
of execution. Arriving at the governor's quarters, he
was left a long time waiting for his summons, amidst a
great gazing crowd. The Christians stood at his side,
in a corapact body, holding one another's hands in
token of loving coraradeship. But his heathen school
fellows were there also, and entreated hira with tears
to put away his obstinacy. They told hira that if he
would but sacrifice for the moraent, he could do as he
liked afterwards. They told hira that it was absurd,
with a real death staring hira in the face, to think of
the dim chances of what he called a second death.
Flavian thanked thera for their affection, and for giving
hira the best advice that they could give, but told them
plainly that he thought it better to maintain the liberty
of his conscience by submitting to the slaughter than
to worship a stone. He told them that there was a
supreme God, the Creator, who alone was to be
worshipped ; that a martyr's death is not the defeat

1 82 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
but the victory of life ; and that if they wished to know
the truth, they ought to becorae Christians theraselves.
With cruel kindness his friends wished to resort to
tortures in order to spare his life. His turn carae to
be called to the bar. The proconsul asked hira why
he had told a falsehood, and pretended to be a deacon,
when he was not ? Flavian replied that it was no
falsehood, but the truth. One of the centurions
brought docuraentary evidence that Flavian was no
such thing ; but the raartyr answered, " Is it likely that
I should tell such a falsehood, and the forger of this
document tell the truth ? " " You lie, you lie," shouted
the bystanders. The proconsul once more asked him if
he spoke the truth. " What have I to gain by lying ? "
Flavian replied. At this there were loud cries for the
application of torture. " But the Lord, who had fully
proved the faith of His servant in the horrors of the
prison, would not suffer even a scratch to be inflicted
on the body of the raartyr." He " turned the heart of
the king " to pronounce sentence forthwith, and the
faithful witness was delivered to the sword without delay.
As soon as he knew that he was to die, he joined
in happy conversation with the brethren, and charged
thera to write an account of these events. He begged
thera also to relate the visions which had been given
to hira, especially during his last two days in prison.
" Before any one else had suffered except our
bishop," he said — the bishop being Cyprian — "it was
shown me on this wise. I thought that I asked Cyprian
whether the death-stroke was painful. He answered
me and said, ' When your soul is in heaven, it is no
longer your own flesh that suffers. The body does
not feel when the mind is wholly devoted to God.' "
Another vision came to hira after several of his

MONTANUS AND FLAVIAN 183
comrades had died. " I was sad at night, because ray
corapanions were gone, and I was left behind ; and
a man appeared to me, saying, ' Why are you sad ? '
I told him the reason of my sadness, and he answered,
' Does that raake you sad ? You are already twice
a confessor ; to-morrow you shall be a martyr to the
sword.' "
Another vision was this. " When Successus," the
Bishop of Abbir, to whom Cyprian's letter about the
edict of Valerian was addressed, " and Paul, with their
companions, had been crowned, and I was recovering,
after my sickness, I saw Bishop Successus corae to
my house, with his face and his rairaent exceedingly
bright, so that it was difficult to recognise hira, because
ray fleshly eyes were dazzled by his angelic splendour.
When at length I recognised him, he said to rae, ' I
ara sent to tell you that you are to suffer.' And with that
saying two soldiers came to conduct rae. They con
ducted rae to a spot where a raultitude of the brother
hood was asserabled. As soon as I was brought where
the governor was, I was ordered into the dock. And
suddenly my mother appeared in the midst of the
people, crying, ' Give praise, give praise ; for no one
has ever delivered such a testimony.' " The friends
relate that in one particular he had certainly dis
tinguished himself beyond others. When their miser
able rations had fallen short in the prison, Flavian had
frequently refused to take his share, in order that there
might be a little more for the rest to eat.
As they drew near to the Fuscianura, where he was
to be put to death, a gentle, steady rain began to fall,
which had the effect of scattering idle sightseers, and
leaving the Christians to converse freely together, and
to exchange the tokens of the Church's peace without

1 84 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
being disturbed by intruding eyes. To Flavian, full
of the thought of his Saviour's Passion, the rain that
descended upon his raartyrdora recalled a momentous
occurrence on Calvary, and he said that once more
there would be water and blood together.
Reaching a little eminence which was suitable for
addressing the large corapany of Christians, Flavian
asked for silence, and in a brief discourse gave them
all the " peace " of comraunion with the raartyrs, on
condition of their preserving the unity of the Church.
His last words were to coramend the presbyter Lucian
for election to the still vacant throne of Cyprian. Then
he moved down to the spot where he was to be kUled,
and binding his eyes with the other half of Montanus's
handkerchief, he knelt down for prayer, and as his
prayer ended he received the stroke of the sword.^
Great as were the sufferings of the Christians in
proconsular Africa, the persecution in the neighbouring
province of Numidia was yet worse. An unknown
writer, who appears to have belonged to Carthage,
gives an account of what befell himself and two of
his Christian friends in the course of a journey which
they took at this tirae in Nuraidia.
The writer, with his friends Marian and James,
reached Muguas, which was a suburb of Cirta, now
Constantine, and made some stay there. While they
were at Muguas they were honoured by a visit from
two illustrious Numidian bishops, naraed Agapius and
Secundinus, who had been banished under the first
edict of Valerian, and now, like Cyprian, were recalled
to be put to death under the second. Both were men
of charitable, peace-loving disposition. Secundinus had
frora youth dedicated hiraself, like St. Paul, to a life
^ Franchi de' Cavalieri, Gli Atti dei SS. Montana, &c.

MARIAN AND JAMES 185
of single chastity. They took up their lodging for
a few days with the three travellers. " Being full of
the spirit of life and grace," they lost no opportunity
of inspiring other Christians with the raartyr's faith.
They preached the word of God, by which they them
selves lived, to the brethren at Muguas in a way that
kindled every hearer with enthusiasm.
Among those who were most profoundly moved by
their example and their discourses were Marian and
James. They had already been to some extent prepared
by a vision which came to James in the course of their
journey. While the three men were driving along the
uneven road in their springless carriage, James fell into a
deep sleep in the raiddle of the day, under the glaring
sun. His friends called to him, and at last succeeded in
waking him. James told them the dream which he
had drearaed. " I have had a fright," he said, " though
not unraixed with joy ; and you, brothers, must rejoice
with rae. I saw a young raan of iraraense height
clothed in a flowing tunic of such white light that
it was irapossible to look steadily at hira. His feet
did not touch the ground, and his face was above the
clouds. As he ran past, he threw two purple girdles
into our laps — one into yours, Marian, and one into
mine — and said, ' Follow rae quickly.' "
Marian and Jaraes had not long to wait after the
departure of the bishops before the palra was put into
their hands. Two days after, a band of centurions
came to apprehend thera, accorapanied by a nuraber
of heathen fanatics frora Cirta. The legate of the
province was so zealous in executing the edict of
Valerian that the ordinary agencies of the police were
not sufficient for his purposes, and the railitary were
called into requisition. The viUa where Agapius and

1 86 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
Secundinus had lodged was proved in the eyes of the
authorities to be a nest and rendezvous of Christians,
To their great and unbounded delight, the three friends
were carried off into the city, the unknown writer as
a prisoner, the others drawn by their affectionate
anxiety on his behalf. The enthusiasm with which
Marian and James encouraged the other under his
exaraination showed that they were Christians. They
were arrested and exarained, and confessing bravely,
were cast into prison.
Dreadful tortures were inflicted upon thera by the
officer on duty, with the approbation of his superior
and of the magistrates of Cirta, "those priests of the
devil," as the writer calls them, " who thought that the
faith of Christians, who care so little for the body, could
be broken by the rending of their limbs." Jaraes, whose
faith was of an austere type, and who had already been
a confessor in the persecution of Decius, led or allowed
his captors to believe that he was not only a Christian,
but a deacon. Marian, on the other hand, who held
the office of a " reader," was tortured because he would
not acknowledge that he belonged to a higher order
in the Church. The brutal torraentors hung hira up
by the thurabs, and tied weights to his feet to raake
him heavier — unequal weights, to increase the strain
upon one side. While he was in that position his
body was torn with the iron claw. But he could not
be induced to say either more or less than the truth,
and was taken back to prison, rejoicing. There James
and he, with other brethren, " celebrated the glad
victory of the Lord with raany prayers."
That night, after all that his poor body had gone
through, Marian had a vision. "There was shown to
rae an exceedingly lofty white tribunal, upon which sat,

MARIAN AND JAMES 187
like the governor of a province, a judge with a very
handsorae countenance. Before it was a prisoner's
dock, or scaffold, which instead of the usual lowly
platforra, reached by a single step, was furnished with
a whole flight of steps and was raised to a very great
height. Confessors were being set before the judge,
one class after another, and the judge kept ordering
thera off to the sword. My turn came. Then I heard
a loud and powerful voice say, ' Fasten Marian up.' I
began to mount the scaffold, when behold, all of a
sudden, Cyprian appeared to me, sitting on the right
hand of the judge, and reached out his hand, and
lifted me to a higher part of the scaffold, and smiled,
and said, ' Come and sit beside me.' Then followed
the hearing of fresh classes, whUe I sat by as an assessor.
And the judge rose up, and we escorted hira to his
praetorium. Our way led through pleasant raeadows, and
scenery delightfully clothed with green and leafy woods,
where towering cypresses and pines which knocked
against the sky threw their thick shadows. It seeraed
as if the whole district round was crowned with these
green woods. There was a dell in the raiddle, where
a clear and copious spring of pure water rose and
flowed without stint. And behold, the judge vanished
from our sight. Then Cyprian caught up a bowl
which lay beside the spring, and, like a thirsty raan,
filled it at the spring, and drained it, and filling it
again reached it out to me, and I drank it, nothing
loth. And as I was saying, 'Thanks be to God,' I
woke at the sound of my own voice."
Marian had a fellow-prisoner, whose narae was
vEmilian. He belonged by birth to the order of
knights, of which special raention was raade in the
edict of Valerian. He was nearly fifty years of age.

1 88 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
and had lived a life of virgin purity from the beginning.
In prison he continued the discipline of fasting and
prayer which he had practised before. One day when
they were expecting to receive the Blessed Sacrament
on the morrow, and ^raihan had redoubled his fasting
and his prayers in preparation for it, he lay down for
a few rainutes of sleep at noon and drearaed a vivid
dream. "They were fetching me out of prison," he said,
" to trial, when my heathen brother met rae. He was
very curious about us, and asked in anything but
corapUraentary tones how long we had been kept in
the penal darkness and starvation of the prison. I
answered that Christ's soldiers find in the word of
God clear light in the darkness and satisfying food in
hunger. When he heard that, he said, ' I assure you
that all you who are in the prison, if you persist in
your obstinacy, will be put to death.' " The edict of
Valerian had left it a somewhat open question in each
case whether a raan of .^Emilian's rank should be put
to death. " I was afraid," .^railian continued, " that
he was mocking rae with a falsehood of his own devis
ing ; and desiring to make sure of my heart's wish, I
said, ' Is it really true that we shall all suffer ? ' He
repeated his assertion, and said, ' You will very soon
corae to the sword and to blood. But I should like
to know,' he pursued, ' whether all of you who despise
this life receive an equal recorapense in heaven, without
any distinction.' I replied, ' I ara not able to offer an
opinion on so great a subject ; but lift up your eyes
for a raoraent to the sky, and you will see an innuraer-
able raultitude of stars shining. Do all the stars shine
with an equal glory of light ? Yet it is the sarae light
that shines in thera all.' His increasing curiosity

MARIAN AND JAMES 189
found another question to ask. ' If there is a distinc
tion among you,' he said, ' which of the number are
the most deserving of the Lord's good wUl ? ' ' There
are two in particular,' I replied, ' whose naraes are
known to God, but raust not be told to you.' At the
end, to his yet more determined and erabarrassing
questions, I answered, 'They are those whose crowns
are the more glorious because the more hardly and
tardily won ; and for this reason it is written, It is
easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than
for a rich raan to enter into the kingdora of heaven.' "
After these visions, the Christians still reraained
a few days in prison before they were brought to
the magistrates of Cirta, in order that the preliminary
examination raight be raade, and the articles of the bill
against them might be made out, to be forwarded to the
legate. WhUe this was done, the eyes of all the
heathen in court were drawn to one of the bystanders,
who was so inflaraed by the approach of raartyrdora
that " Christ shone in his face and bearing." In great
indignation the raagistrates asked hira if he belonged
to the same name and religion ; and the raan " in an
instant clutched the sweet corapanionship and con
fessed." The legate was at the great railitary colony of
Lambaesis, which was about eighty railes from Cirta.
Thither the growing band of raartyrs was despatched,
together with the articles of their exaraination at
Cirta. They were thrown into prison again at Lam
baesis, " the only forra of hospitality," says the writer,
" which the heathen bestow upon the righteous."
Meanwhile for many days there had been a great deal
of Christian bloodshed at Lambaesis. The " ingenious
cruelty " of the legate had hit upon an expedient for

190 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
bringing the Christians round. He separated the lay
Christians from those who were in orders, and dealt
with them first, in the hope that when deprived of
the exhortations of their clergy they would abjure their
faith. The nuraber of lay believers to be tried was so
large that James and Marian and the others who belonged
to the clergy had to bear the weariness of a long delay,
and were a little depressed in consequence.
Araong those who had been put to death before the
arrival of Jaraes and Marian was the bishop Agapius.
He had been accompanied by two girls, named Ter-
tuUa and Antonia, whom he loved as his own daughters.
His earnest prayer for thera had been that they might
attain raartyrdora along with hiraself. This prayer he
had repeated raany and raany a time, until at last he
was stopped by a voice which came to hira, saying,
" Why dost thou ask so often for that which was granted
at thy first request ? "
When Jaraes was suffering frora depression in the
prison at Larabaesis, the raartyred Agapius appeared to
him in his sleep. It was on the last day of his life that
James related the occurrence to his friend, while waiting
for the executioner to perforra his duty. " Yes, indeed,"
he said ; " I ara going to sup with Agapius and the
other blessed raartyrs. Last night, my brethren, I saw
our friend Agapius, surrounded by all the others who
were imprisoned with us at Cirta, looking raore glad
than the rest, and holding a solemn and joyful banquet.
Marian and I were carried away by the spirit of love to
join it, as if to one of our love-feasts, when a boy ran
to meet us, who proved to be one of a pair of twins
who suffered three days ago in company with their
mother. He had a wreath of roses round his neck,
and carried a beautiful green palra advanced in his

MARIAN AND JAMES 191
right hand, and he said, ' Why are you so impatient ?
Rejoice and be glad, for to-raorrow you also shall sup
with us.' "
The next morning the governor, " obeying the pro
mise of God," although he knew it not, gave the sen
tence which set the clerical members of the party free
from the tribulations of the world. They were brought
out to a place where a stream ran through some flat
ground between hilly banks, which forraed a theatre
for the spectators. The nuraber of persons to be
beheaded was large, and the executioner thought it
advisable, in order to avoid the heaping up of corpses
in one place, or the waste of tirae in reraoving one to
make room for another, to arrange his prisoners in
rows, and to take them one after another at a run.
When their eyes were bound, as the custom was, a gift
of spiritual sight came to sorae of them. They told
the brethren near them that they spied a troop of
young men in white rairaent, riding on snow-white
horses. Others confirraed their statement, saying that
they could hear the neighing and the tramp of the
horses. A prophetic inspiration fell upon Marian, and
he cried that the avenging of the saints was at hand,
and that plagues like those of the Apocalypse were
proceeding out of the height of heaven to the earth,
pestilence, captivity, and faraine, earthquakes, and the
bites of poisonous flies. The raother of Marian, a
brave woraan of the name of Mary, had reached the
place of execution in time to see her son die. She
covered the poor severed neck with kisses, congratula
ting herself that she had been permitted to be the
mother of such a son.^
' Franchi de' Cavalieri in Studi e Testi (1900) ; Von Gebhardt, p. 134.

CHAPTER X
LAWRENCE AND FRUCTUOSUS
It is a misfortune that the Acts of the raartyrs of
Rorae have not been preserved in the sarae purity as
those of the African saints. Stephen, the headstrong
Bishop of Rorae who entered so fiercely into contro
versy with Cyprian, was succeeded in August 257 by
" a good peaceable priest " — so Cyprian's biographer,
Pontius, describes hira — whose narae was Xystus — or
Sixtus, as he was called in later tiraes. Xystus was a
Greek, a native of Athens, and a devoted teacher. His
short episcopate was raarked by the care which he
bestowed upon the relics of the martyrs. In particular
he removed the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul from
their original resting-places on the Vatican hill and on
the road to Ostia, and buried them in the safer cemetery
on the Appian Way which has given its narae of Cata-
cumbas to all sirailar cemeteries underground.
It is possible that these activities of Xystus may
have had some share in provoking the terrible second
edict of Valerian, who in his first edict had forbidden
the Christians to enter their cemeteries. On the 6th of
August 258, Xystus was sitting in his chair and teach
ing in the cemetery called the Cemetery of Praetextatus,
which, as being private property, may have seemed less
dangerous than some of the others, when a body of
soldiers burst in to arrest him and carry him to the
prefect. His condemnation was iraraediate ; the terms

LAWRENCE AND FRUCTUOSUS 193
of the edict were that " bishops, priests, and deacons
were to be executed at once." But instead of taking
hira to sorae custoraary place of execution, he was
carried back to the spot where he was found holding
his forbidden assembly. The faithful endeavoured to
defend their beloved teacher at the cost of their own
lives ; but Xystus put them aside, and gave hiraself up
to the sword, and was slain in the ceraetery. Four of
his seven deacons perished with hira.^ When the
ceraetery was opened in the year 1848, there was still
to be seen a rude drawing of hira seated in his chair,
with a disciple at his feet. Near it was scratched an
invocation of January, Agathopus, and Felicissiraus,
who were three of the four deacons beheaded with
him. A fifth of his faithful deacons was destined to attain
a greater celebrity even than Xystus himself. His
name was Lawrence. When he saw that Xystus was
to die, and to die without hira, Lawrence could not
control his grief. According to the tradition of the
Church, he cried, " You never used to offer the sacrifice
without your attendant deacon ; will you now leave hira
behind ? " Xystus replied, " I do not leave you behind
for long. A more glorious conflict awaits you. In
three days' time you will follow me."
As deacon, and, according to sorae accounts the
head deacon, of the great church of Rorae, Lawrence
was entrusted with the charge of the money by which
its fifteen hundred widows and pensioners were main
tained, and of other treasures belonging to the com
raunity. The prefect of the city sent for hira, and
demanded the surrender of the property. The story
' Cyprian, Epist. Ixxx. The inscriptions of Damasus relating to Xystus
may be seen in Benson's Cyprian, p. 489 foU. N

194 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
goes that Lawrence promised to comply, but asked for
three days in which to collect the articles and to make
an inventory of them. During the respite, he sold the
precious vessels that were under his care, and gave
everything away to the poor. When the day came,
Lawrence invited the prefect to follow him to one of
the churches of the city, and there showed him in long
rows the aged, the maimed, the blind. According to
another version of the story, he induced the prefect to
send a number of waggons to fetch his treasures, and
then presented himself at the head of the strange
muster. " These," he said, " are the treasures of the
Church." Enraged at the lesson which Lawrence
wished to teach him, the prefect, instead of sending
him at once to the sword, which was the usual death
in this persecution, ordered him to the fire. Perhaps
he intended it for a torture rather than for a capital
punishment, hoping that Lawrence might be induced
by it to renounce his Christianity ; for he expressly
ordered that it should be a slow fire. The martyr was
accordingly stretched upon an iron grate, or gridiron,
and laid over the coals. Neither his faith nor his wit
failed under the trial. After he had lain for a good
while slowly roasting, he said to his torturers, " You
can turn me now ; I ara done enough on that side." ^
These were not the only martyrs of the church at
Rome under Valerian. A priest, a subdeacon, a reader,
and a doorkeeper were put to death at the sarae time as
Lawrence, — doubtless for their share in the gathering
in the cemetery of Praetextatus. Many other " com
panions of Xystus " are referred to in the inscription
which Damasus, a hundred or a hundred and twenty
years later, put up in the chapel where Xystus was
1 Ambrose, De Offic. Ministr. i. 41, ii. 28 ; Prudentius, ircpl Zre^. ii.

LAWRENCE AND FRUCTUOSUS 195
buried. It was probably at this time that a raartyrdora
took place in which no prefect or judge had part.
The Christians were accustoraed, when circurastances
perraitted, to send the Blessed Sacrament from the
altar of the church to the confessors in prison, as well
as to others who were hindered from comraunicating in
the asserably of the faithful. The honour of bearing it
was often given to those who were called acolytes. An
acolyte naraed Tarsicius was passing on this sacred
errand frora one of the catacorabs along the Appian
Way to Christians in the city. The Eucharist, probably
in a sraall box, or perhaps wrapped in a linen cloth,
was concealed beneath his cloak. Soraething in his
raien .and bearing made hira an object of suspicion to
a band of soldiers whora he raet. They stopped hira,
and inquired what he was carrying. Tarsicius refused
to let thera see. They struck hira and beat hira, but
he was proof against their violence. At last they left
hira dead, with his secret still undisclosed. " He chose,"
said the epitaph which Daraasus cut over his grave,
" rather to lay down his life under the blows than to
betray that heavenly Body to mad dogs." ^
If in the time of Decius the church of Spain pre
sented only exaraples of apostasy, it can boast of at
least one group of martyrs under Valerian. On Sunday,
January 16, in the year 259, Fructuosus, the Bishop of
Tarragona, had retired to rest, when a band of six raen
frora the governor's office were sent to seize hira. At
the sound of their feet, the bishop arose at once, and
went to the door to raeet thera. " Come," said the
soldiers ; " the governor has sent for you and your
deacons." " By all raeans let us go," said the bishop ;
" or will you wait while I put on ray shoes ? " They
1 Damasus in Migne's Patr. Lat. xiii. 392.

196 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
said that he could please himself. When he was ready,
they took him at once to prison. The prison, however,
was not very jealously guarded. The brethren passed
in and out, bringing comforts for their bishop, and
begging him to reraeraber them when he should have
passed to his glory. He was even able to administer
baptism in the prison to one of his disciples.
On the 2ist, which was a Friday, Fructuosus and
his two deacons were brought before the governor,
whose name was .^raiUan. " Have you heard what
the emperors have ordered ? " the governor asked.
" I do not know," said Fructuosus, " what their orders
may be, but I ara a Christian." " They have ordered
the worship of the gods," said JEmilian. " I," said the
bishop, " worship one God, who made heaven and
earth, the sea, and all things that are therein." The
governor said, " I suppose you are aware that there are
gods." " Indeed I ara not," answered Fructuosus.
" You shall soon know it," said .^Emilian. The bishop's
only reply was to cast himself in silence upon God.
" Who," asked the governor, " will be listened to, or
feared, or worshipped, if the gods are not religiously
honoured, nor the countenances of the emperors
adored ? "
He turned to the deacons. " Do not listen to the
words of Fructuosus," he said to one of thera, whose
name was Augurius. " I worship the Alraighty God,"
the raan replied. .(Emilian addressed the other deacon,
Eulogius. " Do you worship Fructuosus too ? " he
asked. " No," he answered, " I do not worship Fruc
tuosus, but I worship the same God as Fructuosus
does." .(Emilian carae back to the chief prisoner.
" Are you a bishop ? " he asked. The word was
expressly mentioned in the edict of Valerian, with a

LAWRENCE AND FRUCTUOSUS 197
terrible penalty attached to it. " Yes," said Fruc
tuosus ; " I am." " You mean that you were" said
the governor, and condemned them to be burned alive.
As they passed to the araphitheatre, where they were
to die, the heathen populace, to whom Fructuosus had
greatly endeared hiraself — perhaps during the great
plague which had lately ravaged the erapire — were even
more moved with grief than the Christians. The Chris
tians were proud of their bishop's approaching glory.
Some of them pressed forward and offered to the
sufferers a cup of drugged wine, to relieve their dying
pains ; but the martyrs put it frora thera. Wednesday,
in the early Church, as well as Friday, was commonly
observed as a strict fast until after midday. This dis
cipline the good bishop and his deacons had observed,
even in their prison. It was still only ten o'clock in
the morning. It was not yet time, they said, to break
their fast. As they entered the amphitheatre, one of
the church readers drew near, with streaming eyes, to
draw off the bishop's shoes ; but the bishop answered,
" Let be, my son. I will do that myself. I ara quite
strong and happy, and assured of the Lord's proraise."
Another Christian seized his hand and begged that he
would reraeraber hira. In a loud voice Fructuosus
answered, " I raust bear in mind the whole Catholic
Church, dispersed from the east even to the west."
They raounted the pile on which they were to burn.
In spite of the officers in charge, Fructuosus cried aloud
to his fellow Christians in the araphitheatre, " You will
not be left without a shepherd. The kindness of the
Lord can never fail, nor His proraise, either here or
hereafter. This which you see is but the weakness of
an hour." The flaraes consuraed the fastenings which
held thera to the stake ; and the raartyrs, availing thera-

198 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
selves of their liberty, threw theraselves upon their
knees in the midst of the fire, and stretched out their
arms cross-wise, as was the custora of the early Chris
tians at prayer, and so reraained until they died. Some
of the brethren who were servants of .lErailian, believed
that they could see the three raartyrs ascending crowned
into heaven, and pointed thera out to the governor's
daughter.^ The records of raartyrdoras under Valerian in the
eastern part of the empire are less complete and less
trustworthy than of those in the west.
Eusebius relates that there were three young Chris
tians who lived near Caesarea in Palestine, of which
Eusebius was himself bishop sorae fifty or sixty years
later. Their names were Prisons, Malchus, and Alex
ander. They were safe and unmolested in their quiet
country homes, but hearing of martyrdoms elsewhere,
they began to reproach themselves for sitting tamely at
their ease and keeping their religion hidden. Having
formed their resolution, they started for Caesarea, and
— in spite of the discouragement which the Church had
always offered to such a proceeding — presented them
selves together before the magistrate, declared them
selves Christians, and were condemned to the wild
beasts. About the sarae tirae, in the sarae city, the
same dreadful death was awarded to a poor woman
who belonged, like Metrodorus at Smyrna in the per
secution of Decius, to the heretical sect of the Mar
cionites. Eusebius does not record her name ; perhaps
by his time it had been forgotten upon earth.^
At another Caesarea, in Cappadocia, a young
martyr, named Cyril, won great renown. It is not
clear from the account which we possess whether his
' Ruinart, p. 191. " Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vii. 12.

LAWRENCE AND FRUCTUOSUS 199
father was a heathen, or a cautious and timid Christian.
The boy, however, had the narae of our Lord con
tinually upon his lips, professing in the most unguarded
manner that he was obeying the instigation of Christ.
Threats and floggings seemed only to whet his appetite
for a greater endurance ; and at last his father, with
the approval of the neighbours, turned him out of the
house without any means of support. Cyril seemed to
be wholly unconcerned at this unnatural treatment, and
was only delighted when the police brought hira before
the tribunal of the magistrate. " I forgive you, boy,"
said the magistrate, " and so does your father. He will
take you home again. You can have all the comforts
of your father's house if you will be a good boy and
think what you are about." The boy answered : " I do
not mind being punished for what I have done. I am
very happy with God, in spite of being turned out. I
shall have a better home by-and-by. I am glad to
become poor, that I may be rich. I am not afraid of
a good death. I see a better life before me." The
magistrate did not wish to put a boy to death, but
thought that a feint of execution would bring him to
his senses. He ordered his hands to be tied, and that
he should be led to the fire. The officials reported
that the boy had shed no tear, nor showed any sign of
alarm. The magistrate recalled hira and said, " You
have seen the fire, boy, and the sword. Be good,
and you shall enjoy yourself at horae again with your
father." Cyril only answered indignantly, that it was a
great shame to fetch him back when the fire and the
sword were ready, and begged that they would make
short work with hira, and send him to the better home
and the true riches. Some of the bystanders were
moved to tears, but he told them that they would have

200 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
rejoiced if they had known where he was going. He
asked for no better way of spending his life. And so
he went to die.^
There was an aged ascetic, probably at this time,
who lived at Patara, on the southern coast of Asia Minor.
His name was Leo. An acquaintance of his, called
Paregorius, had suffered death, perhaps in the persecu
tion of Decius, and Leo felt deeply grieved that his
own life had been spared. One day the proconsul,
LoUianus, carae to Patara. A festival of the god
Serapis was being held, and the officials took the
occasion to enforce the edict which compelled all the
inhabitants to join in the sacrificial acts. Leo saw the
people streaming to the festival, and withdrew indig
nantly to the place where the relics of Paregorius had
been buried, and there prayed, as he was wont to do.
He returned to his house with a mind preoccupied by
the thought of his martyred friend. A dreara that
night showed hira a great torrent in which he and
Paregorius stood, and in spite of the violence of the
flood he found it not difficult to reach the point which
Paregorius had reached before him. Next morning he
started once raore for the grave of his friend. He
chose the public road, which led past the temple of
Fortune. The temple was all lighted with lanterns and
tapers. Leo flung aside his self-control. He dashed in
pieces the lanterns, and trampled the tapers underfoot,
crying aloud, " If you think that the gods have any
power, let thera defend themselves." A hue and cry
was raised after him, and on his return horae he found
himself arrested by order of the governor. Confronted
with the charge brought against him, Leo replied that
lights and tapers were vain and senseless things, and
1 Ruinart, p. 213.

LAWRENCE AND FRUCTUOSUS 201
that what the true God cared for was the contrite heart
and the humble soul, and exhorted the magistrate to
honour that God and His only-begotten Son, the
Saviour of the world and the Creator of our souls.
The magistrate replied that all this was irrelevant to
the charge : Leo had been accused of an act of
violence and was giving a lecture on Christianity.
He offered hira liberty and friendship on condition of
obedience to the edict, but Leo refused to worship gods
who were no gods. The lash was applied, but Leo's
heart was uplifted to the Lord, and he seemed to feel
nothing. The patient magistrate was willing to forgo
an act of sacrifice if Leo would only repeat after him
the formula, " Great are the gods." " Great they are,"
answered the martyr, " to destroy the souls that believe
in thera." At last the patience of the official gave way.
Yielding to the clamour of the multitude, he ordered
the old raan to be dragged away by the feet and
thrown into the torrent which rushed through the
town. Leo burst into thanksgivings to the God who
allowed him so soon to be reunited to his friend
Paregorius, and into prayers for the conversion of
those who slew him. He was dead before they
reached the rock from which they hurled hira.^
The tale of Nicephorus, the martyr of Antioch, has
been transmitted to us in a forra intended to bring out
its edifying value, but it is not on that account to be
despised. There was a priest at Antioch, called Sapricius, who
had fallen out with Nicephorus, a layraan, forraerly an
intiraate friend of his, and refused to be reconciled with
hira. On the outbreak of the persecution of Valerian,
Sapricius was arrested, and raade his confession boldly
^ Ruinart, p. 478.

202 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
before the governor. He bore his tortures like a
Christian, and was led away under sentence of death.
As he passed to execution Nicephorus ran to meet him,
fell at his feet, and begged his pardon ; but the priest
raade him no answer. At the gate leading out of the
city, Nicephorus met him again, and cried, "Martyr of
Christ, forgive me the wrong I did you as a man, and
give me absolution. The crown is already given you
by the Lord whom you have not denied, but have con
fessed before many witnesses." But the martyr was
obstinately silent. Even the hangmen reraarked upon
the eagerness of Nicephorus. " We never saw such a
fool," they said ; " the raan is going to be beheaded :
what can you want from a conderaned man ? " " Ah,"
answered Nicephorus — and the answer completely
breathes the spirit of the time — "you do not know
what I ask frora the confessor of Christ, but God
knows." The intercessions of the raartyrs were held
to be all-powerful with God.
They carae to the place of execution. Once more
the importunate penitent approached Sapricius, re-
rainding hira of the Gospel words which say, "Ask,
and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you ; " but the
heart of the priest was as hard as ever. Then the
executioners ordered Sapricius to kneel down and
have his head cut off, in accordance with the edict
of Valerian. The terror of death carae over him.
" Why ? " he asked. They told hira it was because
he would not sacrifice to the gods, and because he
disobeyed the imperial command, and all for the sake
of a man called Christ. " Do not strike me," cried the
poor wretch. " I will do what your emperors require.
I will sacrifice to the gods."

LAWRENCE AND FRUCTUOSUS 203
The turn of Nicephorus was corae. In the utraost
distress he urged Sapricius to revoke his words, and
not to cast away the crown which his confession and
his torture had so nearly won. His exhortation, like
his previous entreaties, fell upon deaf ears. Nicephorus
offered himself to the executioners. " I ara a Christian,"
he exclairaed ; " I believe in the narae of our Lord
Jesus Christ, whom this man has denied. Behead me
instead of him." So the unforgiving man fell away,
and the penitent becarae a martyr in his stead.^
The last raartyrdora of this period with which we
are acquainted took place at Caesarea, in Palestine, the
scene of the raartyrdora of Priscus and his friends.
There was a military officer there, named Marinus, of
good birth and large fortune, who was a Christian
believer. The position of a centurion in his legion fell
vacant, and Marinus was the next in succession for the
office. He was about to receive his proraotion when a
rival stepped forward and said that, as a Christian, it
was impossible for Marinus to comply with the require
ments of the post, araong which was an act of sacrifice
to the emperors. The judge, a man of the narae of
Achaeus, questioned Marinus on the subject, and he
acknowledged that he was a Christian. Achaeus gave
hira three hours in which to think things over, leaving
him free to go wherever he pleased meanwhile. As
soon as he left the court, Marinus was raet by the good
Theotecnus, bishop of the place, who took hira by the
hand and drew hira into the church. He led hira into
the sanctuary itself, where none but the clergy were
allowed to go. There, lifting the corner of the soldier's
cloak, he pointed to the sword which hung at his side ;
then, taking from the altar the copy of the Gospels
' Ruinart, p. 209.

204 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
which lay upon it, he offered it to Marinus, and bade
him choose between the book and the sword. Un
hesitatingly Marinus grasped the book. " Hold fast
then," said the bishop, "hold fast to God, and may
you attain what you have chosen, by the strength which
God gives. Go in peace." Marinus returned from the
church to the court. The three hours were at an end,
and the herald was preparing to sumraon him. With
increased fervour he proclaimed his faith, and was sent
away to die. A noble Roman senator, named Astyrius,
or Asterius, a friend of the iraperial faraily, who was
present at the scene, took the corpse upon his shoulder,
swathed it in precious stuffs, and buried it with great
pomp.^ By the tirae that Marinus suffered. Valerian was no
longer eraperor. In a disastrous campaign against
Sapor, King of Persia, he had been taken prisoner. For
the few years that he survived, the unhappy emperor
was treated with barbarous insolence by his captor,
who made hira bend his neck to make a mounting-
block when he raounted his horse or his chariot ; and
when he died, his body was flayed, and the skin, dyed
red, hung up in a Persian temple. His son, Gallienus,
renounced the impossible task of crushing Christianity
out, and for the first tirae in history raade it a recog
nised religion of the Roraan empire.
' Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vii. 15, 16 ; Knopf's Ausgewahlte Mdrtyreracten,
p. 78.

CHAPTER XI
THE BEGINNINGS OF DIOCLETIAN
The year of our Lord 284 is the era from which sorae
Christian nations of the East stiU date. It was the
year in which Diocletian becarae eraperor ; and so
terrible was the persecution which began in his reign,
that all former persecutions seemed to the Christians
as nothing in coraparison of it. They called the date
of Diocletian's accession " the Era of Martyrs."
It was not tni Diocletian had reigned for many
years that he turned his hand against the Church. At
the beginning, like Valerian, he favoured Christianity.
His own wife and daughter were reckoned Christians
by a writer who lived in the imperial city and must
have known. His most trusted charaberlains and
court officials were all avowedly Christians. Christians
were entrusted with the governraent of provinces and
high offices of state, and were expressly dispensed, it is
said, frora attending religious cereraonies which were
not agreeable to their consciences.
Nevertheless, even those days of peace and tolera
tion were not wholly free frora danger to Christians.
Some locahties, some positions in life, involved perU.
This was especially the case with the army, and a few
zealous Christians, especially in Africa, became martyrs
for their faith, as others had done before them, by
coming into collision with the rules of miUtary dis
cipline. 305

2o6 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
In the year 295, while Dion, the proconsul of Africa,
was engaged in levying new troops, a young raan named
Maximilian was brought before hira to be measured,
as he sat in the forum at Theveste. The proconsul
asked him his narae, but he answered, " Why should
you want to know ray name ? I cannot serve in the
army ; I am a Christian." There were raany Christians
in the array, and Dion would not listen to the excuse.
" Measure hira," he said. While they were doing it,
Maxirailian repeated, " I cannot serve ; I cannot do
what is wrong." " Take his height," said the proconsul.
He was five feet ten. " Let hira be raarked," said the
proconsul. Maxiraihan resisted. " I cannot do it," he
said ; " I cannot serve." " You had better serve," said
Dion, " or it will be the worse for you." " I cannot,"
repeated the young raan ; " cut off ray head if you like,
but I cannot be a soldier of the world ; I ara a soldier
of ray God."
Maxirailian's father was standing by. It was his
business to collect the raoney paid by conscripts who
wished to coramute their service for a fine. The
proconsul suspected that there was sorae collusion
between the father and son. " Who has induced you
to behave like this ? " he asked the young raan. " My
own raind," replied Maxirailian, " and He who caUed
rae." Dion turned to Victor, the father. " Give your
son good advice," he said. " He knows his own busi
ness," replied Victor ; " he has his own ideas of what
is good for him.'' " Serve," repeated Dion to Maxi
railian, " and take the badge." " I will not take the
badge," he answered ; " I already have the sign of
Christ my God." " I will soon despatch you to your
Christ," said Dion. " I wish you would do it at once,"
the young man retorted ; "that is ray glory."

THE BEGINNINGS OF DIOCLETIAN 207
Dion said no more, but ordered the officials to
hang the leaden badge round his neck. But Maxi
railian struggled against the distasteful emblem. " I
will not take the badge of worldly warfare," he cried ;
" if you put it on me, I shall tear it off. It is of
no use. I am a Christian ; it is not lawful for rae
to wear this bit of lead round my neck after receiving
the saving sign of my Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of
the living God, whom you do not know, but who
suffered for our salvation, whom God delivered up
for our sins. All we Christians are His servants.
We follow Hira as the Prince of life and the Author
of salvation." "Take the badge, I say, and serve,"
persisted Dion, " or you wUl come to a bad end."
" I shall not come to an end," replied the enthusiastic
young man ; " my name is already with my Lord.
I cannot serve." Dion condescended to argue once
more. " Think of your youth," he said, " and serve ;
it is the proper thing for a young man." Maxirailian
answered, " My service is for ray own Lord ; I cannot
engage in worldly warfare. I have already told you
that I ara a Christian." Dion the proconsul answered,
" There are Christian soldiers in the sacred bodyguard
of our lords Diocletian and Maxiraian, Constantius
and Maxiraus : they serve." But no arguraent would
convince MaximUian. " I suppose," he said, " that
they know what is good for thera ; but I ara a
Christian, and cannot do what is wrong." " What
wrong do raen do who serve in the army ? " the
proconsul asked. " I need not tell you," said Maxi
railian ; " you know well enough what they do."
Once raore the proconsul urged him to comply :
" Come," he said, " serve ; or else if you flout the
service, you are on the way to perish." " I shall

2o8 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
not perish," answered Maximilian ; " and if I pass
out of the world, my soul lives with Christ my Lord."
The patience of the proconsul was exhausted, or
his stock of arguments faUed. " Strike out his name,"
he said to the officials. Then, turning to MaximUian,
he said, " Because you have disloyally refused the
service, you must receive sentence accordingly, as a
caution to others." Then he read the sentence off his
tablet : " Maximilian has disloyally refused the oath of
service, and is therefore adjudged to be beheaded."
The young man answered, " Thanks be to God." He
was twenty-one years old — "twenty-one years in the
world," says the ancient record, " three months and
eighteen days."
As they led him to the place of execution, he
said to the Christians near him, " Beloved brethren,
hasten with all your might and with eager desire
that you may be permitted to see the Lord, and
that He may bestow upon you a crown like mine."
They marked the bright sraile with which he said
to his father, " Give this executioner ray new garment
which you had got for me to wear on joining the
service. Thus I shall receive you," he added, with
a reference to the Lord's proraise to those who should
forsake fathers for His sake, " I shall receive you an
hundredfold, and we shall rejoice together with the
Lord." His death was instantaneous. His mother,
Porapeiana, received the body from the raagistrate,
and laid it in her own bedroora ; then carried it to
Carthage and buried it, " under the hill near the
palace," — or raore probably " near the square " — close
by the grave of the martyr Cyprian. A fortnight later,
the mother herself died, and was buried in the same
spot. " His father, Victor," adds the siraple and

THE BEGINNINGS OF DIOCLETIAN 209
touching record, "returned to his horae with great
joy, giving thanks to God that he had sent such a
gift before hira to the Lord, and deterrained to follow
after." ^
At Tangier, the birthday of the eraperor was
being observed by the troops with feasting and
sacrifices, when Marcellus, a centurion of the Trajan
legion, horrified at some feature in the ceremonies that
seems to have been new to hira, rose up and, standing
before the eagles of the legion, threw off his military
belt, and solemnly cried with a loud voice, " I ara a
soldier of Jesus Christ, the King eternal." Then cast
ing away the centurion's vine-stick and his weapons,
he added, " Frora this raoraent I cease to be a soldier
of your eraperors ; and as for worshipping your gods
of wood and stone, I despise thera. They are deaf and
dumb idols. If the terms of the service are such
that we are forced to sacrifice to the gods and to
the emperors, see, I throw away my vine-stick and my
belt ; I renounce the standards and refuse to serve."
The soldiers who heard him sat for a while
astonished ; then they arrested hira, and reported
the occurrence to the coraraanding officer, called
Fortunatus, who ordered him to be put in prison.
When the festival was ended, Fortunatus took his
seat on the bench and sent for Marcellus. "What
was it," he asked, " that raade you unbuckle your
belt contrary to railitary regulations, and throw it and
your vine-stick away ? " Marcellus answered by a
plain statement of what he had done, and of the
reasons which he had given at the time. Fortunatus
said, " It is irapossible for rae to pretend that 1 ara
unacquainted with your rash conduct. I shaU there-
1 Ruinart, p. 263 ; Knopf, Ausgew. Mdrtyreracten, p. 79. O

2IO THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
fore refer the matter to the emperors and to the
Caesar. You shall yourself be sent unhurt to my
lord Aurelius Agricolanus, the deputy prefect of the
Praetoriura." On the 30th of October, Marcellus appeared before
Agricolanus. The letter of Fortunatus was read, re
hearsing the charge brought against hira. "This
soldier," ran one sentence in the letter, "throwing
away his railitary belt, avowed himself a Christian,
and before all the people uttered many injurious
words against the gods and against Caesar," Asked
whether he had said what he was charged with saying,
Marcellus replied that it was true. " Were you serving
as an ordinary centurion ? " said the magistrate. " I
was." " How came you to be so mad as to abjure
your oath and speak Uke that ? " " There is no
raadness in those who fear the Lord." " Did you
say the very words which are given in detail in the
coraraandant's report ? " "I did." " Did you throw
away your weapons ? " "I did. It was not proper
for a Christian man, who is in the service of the
Lord Christ, to serve the troublesorae things of the
world." The case was perfectly clear. Such a breach of
discipline could not be passed over. Agricolanus had
no choice but to dictate the sentence : " Marcellus, who
was serving as an ordinary centurion, and who publicly
abjured his oath, saying that he was polluted by it, and
uttered other words full of raadness contained in the
coraraandant's report, is conderaned to be beheaded." As
he was led away to die, Marcellus said to Agricolanus,
"God bless you." "That," says the ancient record,
" was the proper way for a martyr to leave the world."
A raan naraed Cassian, doubtless already a Christian,

THE BEGINNINGS OF DIOCLETIAN 211
was acting as military secretary to Agricolanus. It was
his duty to take notes of the trial, and to write down
the sentence dictated by the magistrate. But when he
heard Marcellus condemned to die, Cassian threw his
pen and his ledger upon the ground, and expressed
aloud his detestation. Marcellus laughed for joy.
The magistrate was not unnaturally annoyed. He
sprang from his seat and asked for an explanation.
Cassian answered that the sentence which he was
required to take down was an unjust sentence.
Agricolanus could not permit such a contempt of
court, and ordered him to be committed at once to
prison. He came up for trial on the 3rd of December,
raade answers like those of Marcellus, and was joined
to his fellow Christian in a sirailar raartyrdora.^
It is, perhaps, with good reason that recent scholars
refer to this sarae period a group of martyrdoras which
took place, apparently, at Dorostorum in the province
of Moesia, in what is now called Bulgaria.
There were two soldiers named Nicander and
Marcian, who had won promotion in the army, but
were expected to comply with some religious usage
in order to take it up. This they were unable to
do, as they had lately become Christians. The
governor of the province, who bore the name of
Maximus, called thera up, and said, " If you are
acquainted with the orders of the eraperors, which
require you to sacrifice to the gods, step up and obey
the orders." " It is only required," Nicander answered,
" of those who are willing to sacrifice. We are Christians,
and cannot be bound by such a requireraent." Maximus
pointed out that by refusing they would lose the
increased pay to which their promotion entitled them,
^ Ruinart, pp. 265, 267 ; Knopf, p. 82.

212 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
and asked why they should incur the loss. " Because,"
answered Nicander, "the riches of the ungodly are a
pollution to raen who desire to serve God." "You
need only honour the gods with a grain of incense,"
the governor pleaded. Nicander replied, " How can a
Christian man worship stocks and stones, and forsake
the everlasting God whom we worship, who made all
things of nothing, and who is able to save both me and
all who trust in Him ? "
The wife of Nicander was present. She was a
woraan of the name of Daria, whom the wars had long
separated frora her husband, and who was now rejoicing
in his return to her. With the intensity of a Christian
woman's love she set herself to encourage her husband
in his resolution. Addressing him with that respectful
title which St. Peter approved on the lips of Sarah, she
said, " My lord, take good heed that you do it not.
Take good heed, ray lord, that you deny not our Lord
Jesus Christ. Look up to heaven, and you will there
see Hira to whora you are bound in loyalty and
conscience. He is your helper." Maximus, the
governor, heard some of these reraarks. " You bad
woraan," he exclaimed, "why do you wish your
husband to die ? " " That he may live with God,"
she rephed, "and never die." "No, no," said the
governor ; " it is nothing of the sort ; you want to be
raarried to a finer speciraen of a husband, and so are in
haste to get this one out of existence." " If you imagine
that such a thing is in ray mind, and that I mean to do
as you say," the brave woraan answered, " kUl rae first
for Christ's sake, — if," she added, " you have been told to
do that with women as well as with men." It was not
a tirae of general persecution. " I have had no instruc
tions to proceed in that way against woraen," the

THE BEGINNINGS OF DIOCLETIAN 213
governor answered, " and I shaU certainly not do what
you wish ; but you shall go to prison."
As soon as Daria was gone, Maxiraus went on with his
attempts to persuade her husband. He begged him to
pay no heed to his wife or any other such adviser. " If
you hke," he said, "you can take tirae to think over the
question whether it is better to live or to die." Nicander
answered, " You may consider the tirae which you offer
me as finished. I assure you that I have gone into the
matter and ara persuaded that the one thing to care
about is how to be saved." The good-natured governor
understood him in the sense of being saved from bodily
death, and thought that Nicander was prepared to
sacrifice. " Thank God," he cried ; and turning on his
heel, he began to walk up and down with one of the
members of his judicial councU, in a state of high
satisfaction. " I too thank God," replied Nicander.
To the Christians who watched him he appeared to
be "in the spirit," like St. John in the Apocalypse.
Thanksgivings poured from his lips, and prayers that
he might be delivered from the stains of this world of
temptation. The governor heard him. " You said
but now that you wished to live," he reraarked ; " do
you now desire again to die ? " "I wish," answered
Nicander, "to live the eternal life, not the teraporal
life of this world. That is why I put my body in your
power. Do what you like ; I ara a Christian."
All this tirae Marcian had been silent and unques
tioned. The governor now addressed hira : " What do
you say, Marcian ? " he enquired. " I say the same as
my feUow-soldier," he replied. Maximus answered,
"You shall be thrust into prison together, then, and
shall assuredly suffer the penalty."
Twenty days were spent in prison. Then the two

2 14 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
raen were again brought to the bar. Maxiraus asked
thera whether they had had tirae enough to consider
the question of obeying the iraperial orders. The task
of answering feU upon Marcian. "The multitude of
your words," he said, "wiU not make us abandon our
faith or deny God. He is with us. We see Him, and
we know what He is calling us to. Do not detain us.
Our faith in Christ is perfected to-day. Despatch
us quickly that we may see the Crucified, whom you
heathens do not hesitate to curse with your wicked lips,
but whora we Christians revere and worship." "Very
well," answered Maxiraus ; " you shall be delivered
to death as you desire." " By the health of the
eraperors," said Marcian, "we entreat you to despatch
us quickly. It is not the fear of your tortures," he
added, " that makes us adjure you thus, but the wish
to attain quickly the object of our desire." Maximus
wished to part on good terms with the men whom he
condemned. " The order which you disobey," he said,
"is not of my making. I am no persecutor of yours.
It is the coraraand of the eraperors, with which I have
nothing to do. I am clean from your blood. If," he
added, perhaps somewhat wistfully, "you know that
you are going on a good journey, I congratulate you.
May your desire be accomplished." So saying, he
pronounced the capital sentence upon them. The
two martyrs exclaimed with one voice, as to a Christian
friend, " Peace be with you, kind governor."
They went their way rejoicing and blessing God,
attended by their friends. Nicander's wife was there,
and with her a man named Papian, whose brother
Pasicrates had suffered martyrdom a short tirae before,
Papian carried in his arms the infant son of Nicander
and his wife. Marcian's wife with her chUd was also

THE BEGINNINGS OF DIOCLETIAN 215
there, but not in the same serene exaltation as Daria.
She was either a heathen, or more probably a nominal
Christian. Her garraent was torn, and as they went
along she raised loud laraents. " I told you in the
prison," she cried, " that this was what it would corae
to. I was afraid it would be so, and I shed raany tears
for it. Woe is rae 1 will you not answer rae ? Take
pity on me, my lord. Look at your darling little son.
Turn your face towards us ; do not disown us. Why
are you so hasty ? Whither are you going ? Why
do you hate us ? You have been carried off like a
sheep to the slaughter." Marcian at length turned to
the poor woraan, and eyed her sternly. " How long,"
he said, " has Satan blinded your raind and soul ? Go
your way and let rae go raine. Allow rae to perfect
my martyrdom for God." A Christian named Zoticus
seized Marcian's hand, and cheered him on. " Be of
good courage, domine frater," he said ; " you have
fought a good fight. How shall we weak ones gain
such faith ? Remember the promises which the Lord
has made, and which He will so soon pay. Perfect
Christians are you indeed : blessed are you." The
unhappy wife was still following with her cries, attempt
ing to hold Marcian back. " Hold ray wife," said
Marcian to Zoticus ; and Zoticus did so.
When they came to the spot, the spirit of the
martyr relented a little. Looking round about hira,
he saw Zoticus in the crowd and, calling hira to
his side, he begged him to bring his wife to him.
Then, kissing her, he said, " Depart in the Lord. You
cannot bear to see me celebrate my raartyrdora, with
your mind beguiled by the evil one." He kissed his
child, and looking up to heaven he said, " Lord God
Almighty, take Thou care of him." Then the two

2i6 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
martyrs erabraced one another, and stepped a few
paces apart to be put to death. At that raoraent,
however, Marcian cast another glance around him,
and saw the wife of Nicander vainly endeavouring to
get to her husband through the crowd. Stretching
out his hand to her, while the people raade way for
him, he brought her to Nicander. " God be with you,"
said the husband. " Be of good courage, good my
lord," said the wife. " Show them how you can strive.
I spent ten years at horae without you, and there was
not a raoment when I was not wishing to God that
I might see you. Now I have seen you, and I am
glad that you are setting out for the land of life. I
shaU sing louder now. How proud I shall be, to be
a raartyr's wife ! Be of good courage, ray lord. Bear
your witness to God, that you raay deliver rae also
frora everlasting death.'' Such confidence had the
Christians of those days in the power of a raartyr's
prayers. Handkerchiefs were bound round the eyes
of Nicander and Marcian, and in a raoraent the skilled
stroke of the sword sent thera where they desired to be,^
This was not the only case of Christianity with
which the huraane Maxiraus was called to deal. About
a raonth earlier, as it seeras, a veteran naraed Julius was
brought before him. "What do you say, Julius?" he
asked ; " is the charge against you true ? " " Yes," said
the veteran ; " I ara a Christian. I wUl not say that I
am anything but what I am." " What then ? Did you
not know of the order of the emperors, prescribing sacri
fice to the gods ? " " Yes, I knew," said Julius ; " but I
am a Christian, and canriot do what you wish. It would
not be right for me to deny the living and true God."
" What is there so very serious," argued the governor,
^ Ruinart, p. 484.

THE BEGINNINGS OF DIOCLETIAN 217
" in offering sorae incense, and going your way ? " "I
cannot go beyond the coraraandment of God," said
Julius, "and obey unbelievers. In that unprofitable
service, in which I went up and down for six and twenty
years, I was never court-raartiaUed for misconduct or
breach of discipline. Seven times I was engaged in active
service, and never disputed the orders of those above
me, nor did I fight worse than anybody else. The
comraanding officer never once found fault with rae.
And do you think that I, who was faithful in that
which was worse, am likely to be unfaithful in what
is better ? " " What service have you seen ? " asked
Maximus. " I served ray tirae under arms," answered
Julius, " and fought in the wars in my rank even when
I was entitled to retire ; but all the while I worshipped
the living God who raade heaven and earth, and to
this day I still pay Hira faithful service."
Maximus, who was capable of recognising excel
lence, and anxious to befriend it, said, " Julius, I see
that you are a sensible and a serious man. Take ray
advice therefore, and sacrifice to the gods." " I will
not do as you desire," said Julius, " nor run into sin
and eternal punishment." " If you think that sin,"
said the magistrate, " let it be laid to ray charge. I
wUl apply force to you, that it raay not look as if
you had coraplied wiUingly. Then you can go horae
with no further anxiety. You will receive the raoney
distributed at the tenth year of the reign, and nobody
will trouble you any more." The offer was aU the
more seductive because it was so kindly intended ; but
Julius saw behind the indulgent governor the evil
power which spoke through hira. " Neither that
raoney of Satan," he exclaimed, " nor your crafty
persuasion can draw me away from the eternal Lord.

2x8 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
I cannot deny God. Give sentence against rae, there
fore, as a Christian.'' " Unless you wiU be obedient
to the iraperial orders and sacrifice," said Maximus, " I
will cut your head off." Julius was delighted at this
change of language. " That is a good thought," he cried :
" I beseech you, religious governor, by the health of the
emperors, to put it in execution, and to give sentence
upon rae, that ray desires raay be fulfilled." " If you
do not change your raind and sacrifice," answered
Maxiraus, " you shall be delivered over to your desire."
" I shaU thank you," said Julius, " if you wUl but do
it." " You are in such a hurry to die," said Maximus ;
" you think that you will suffer for some praiseworthy
object." Julius answered, " If I am permitted to suffer
thus, everlasting glory will await rae." " If you were
suffering for your country and for the laws," said the
governor, " you would have everlasting praise." " It is
indeed for the laws that I shall suffer," replied the
martyr, " but for the laws of God." " Laws," retorted
Maxiraus, " which were bequeathed to you by a dead
raan who was crucified. See what a fool you are, to
make more of a dead man than of the live eraperors."
" He died for our sins," answered Julius solemnly,
" that He might bestow upon us eternal life ; but He
is God who endureth for ever, and whosoever confesses
Hira shall have eternal life, and whosoever denies Him,
everlasting punishment." " I am sorry for you," said
Maximus, " and I advise you to sacrifice and live with
us." " If I live with you," was the reply, " it is death
to rae ; but if I die, I live." " Hear me," said Maximus
once more, " and sacrifice, or, as I promised you, I shall
put you to death." " That is what I have asked again
and again," Julius answered, " if I may be counted
worthy that you should do it." Maximus said, "You

THE BEGINNINGS OF DIOCLETIAN 219
have chosen death rather than life." " I have chosen,"
said the Christian, "death for the raoment and then
life everlasting." The sentence was then pronounced.
" Julius, who refuses to obey the orders of the emperors,
is to receive capital punishment."
On coraing to the place where executions were
generally perforraed, aU the Christians gave Julius the
kiss of peace. The martyr perhaps thought how his
Master had received a kiss frora a traitor. " Let
each one," he cried, " take heed how he gives the
kiss." Among the other Christians present was one
called Hesychius, hiraself a soldier like Julius and like
Nicander and Marcian. He was even then in custody,
and perhaps Maxiraus had thought that it would be
good for hira to see the realities of martyrdom. Hesy
chius cried aloud to Julius, " I entreat you, Julius, to
fulfil with joy what you have undertaken, and receive
the crown which the Lord proraised to those who
confess Hira ; and reraeraber rae, for I ara about to
follow you. Bear ray best greetings also to those
servants of God, Pasicrates and Valention, who by a
good confession have gone before us to the Lord."
Julius, erabracing Hesychius, answered, " Brother,
make haste and come. Those whom you greeted
have already heard your message." With these words
Julius took the handkerchief and bound his own eyes.
Then, stretching out his neck, he said, " O Lord Jesus
Christ, for whose narae's sake I suffer thus, vouchsafe
to set my spirit araong Thy saints." So he was be
headed.^ 1 Ruinart, p. 482 ; Analecta Bollandiana, x, 50.

CHAPTER XII
HADRIAN AND NATALIA; LUCIAN;
THEODOTUS
Such occurrences as these were a prelude to the
great persecution which broke out in the year 303. In
the early morning of February 23 in that year, a band
of officials was sent forth to destroy the fine church
at Nicomedia, now Ismid, on the Sea of Marmora,
which was at that time the capital of the empire,
where Diocletian and his son-in-law Galerius had been
in conference together all the winter. Next day an
imperial edict was posted in the city to announce that
all Christian churches were immediately to be levelled
to the ground, and of course all assemblies of Christians
prohibited, that all copies of the Christian Scriptures
were to be burned, that all Christians who held official
positions were to be outlawed, and all private Christians
reduced to slavery, while Christians who were slaves
already were pronounced incapable of emancipation.
It was Diocletian's express wish that in extirpating Chris
tianity no blood should be shed. He knew what had
happened in earlier persecutions. " As a rule," he said,
" the Christians are only too happy to die." His own
repression of Christianity was to be conducted on milder
principles. But the very first utterance of them drew
Christian blood. A gentleman of Nicomedia openly
strode up to the pillar to which the edict was affixed
tore the paper down, and rent it in pieces. Shortly

HADRIAN AND NATALIA 221
before, high-flown proclamations had been displayed,
announcing an iraperial triumph over the barbarians of
the northern frontier. " Look," he cried ; " new vic
tories over the Goths and the Sarmatians ! " He was
immediately arrested for his defiant act, and, after
tortures, was roasted to death.^
Such measures were not enough to satisfy the
fanatical Galerius. A fire broke out in the palace
shortly after the promulgation of the edict. Con
stantine, who was on the spot at the time, ascribed
the fire to lightning sent by the judgment of God.
Lactantius, who was living at Nicomedia, says that it
was kindled by the orders of Galerius himself. At
any rate Galerius used it as a weapon against the
Christians. He accused them of attempting to burn
himself and Diocletian aUve. The elder emperor was
very angry, and had his servants put to the torture
to find out the cause of the fire, but nothing was dis
covered. A fortnight later another fire was discovered.
In a storm of real or feigned indignation, Galerius took
his departure, saying that he had no intention of staying
at Nicomedia to be burned by the Christians.
The second fire produced the desired effect. Dio
cletian went to work in earnest with the Christians
around him. All were called upon to sacrifice. His
daughter Valeria, and his wife Prisca, were the first to
be suraraoned. They were not ready to be raartyrs, and
they sacrificed. The Christian servants proved raore
staunch. A youth of the narae of Peter was brought
into an open place in the raidst of the city, and, on his
refusal to sacrifice, was stripped naked and raised aloft,
and scourged in the sight of all, until his bones began
to show through the skin. It was hoped that when
^ Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum, 13.

222 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
his strength failed he would raechanicaUy coraply with
the orders given hira, in spite of hiraself. But Peter
was inflexible. When his wounds becarae numb and
lost feeling, they brought salt and vinegar and rubbed
it into them ; but it had no effect upon Peter. Then
a gridiron was sent for, and they laid hira upon it, like
Lawrence, over a slow fire, but Peter expired on his
gridiron without a word or act of disloyalty to Christ.
Others of the household were handled after the same
fashion. The chief chamberlain, naraed Dorotheus,
who had been the prop and mainstay of the palace,
and had been more like a son to Diocletian than a
servant, was quietly strangled, together with another
charaberlain, Gorgonius. The poor bodies were buried
by the surviving Christians ; but Diocletian, who pro
bably knew something of the inspiration which Christians
drew from their visits to the raartyrs' burying-places,
ordered the remains to be dug up again and flung into
the sea.-'
There was as yet no edict of persecution to touch
the life of Christians in general, and Diocletian was still
anxious not to shed more blood than he could help ; but,
following to sorae extent the example of Valerian, he
now put forth an edict which ordered that all the clergy
of the Church — bishops, priests, deacons, and even
those of still lower rank — should be cast into prison.
There they reraained, those who were arrested, until
the following December. On the 21st of that month,
303 — or, according to Lactantius, on the 20th of the
preceding month — the emperor Diocletian kept the
twentieth anniversary of his accession. In accordance
with a coraraon custora, he proclaimed that the prisons
should be emptied on that occasion ; and that even
' Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii. 6, cp. 13.

HADRIAN AND NATALIA 223
those prisoners who were Christians should be released,
on condition of sacrificing first. If they were unwiUing
to sacrifice, torture raight be applied to induce them
to do so. Three or four months later, in March or
April 304, when Diocletian was incapacitated by illness
from taking part in the work of government, his col
league, Maxiraian, put forth an edict that all Christians,
wherever found, were to be compelled to sacrifice in
pubhc, or upon refusal were to die.
In the following year, Diocletian and Maxiraian,
according to their long-formed intention, abdicated their
sovereignty and retired into private life. Their places
were taken by Galerius and Constantius, with Maximin
and Severus for their Caesars. In the western half of
the empire the persecution ceased ; but in the eastern
half it continued, differing in intensity in different pro
vinces and at different periods. In the year 308 came
the first signs of a relaxation on the part of the suprerae
authorities. Orders were given to inflict the sentence
of death raore sparingly ; but the huraanity which
dictated this decree betrayed itself by prescribing that
dreadful rautUations should take the place of death, and
hundreds of unfortunate Christians were conderaned to
lose an eye or a foot, and in this raiserable condition
were set to work in the raines and quarries, as slaves of
the imperial treasury. At last, in 311, when Galerius
lay dying of a horrible disease, he published a strange
edict of toleration, in which he began by explaining why
the persecution had been undertaken, then confessed
that it had completely faUed of its object, and ended by
requesting the Christians to pray for him.
The city of Nicoraedia, which had felt the first
rigours of the long persecution, continued throughout
to be worthy of its good beginning. There, at the very

224 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
seat of empire, the law was for the raost part observed
according to the letter, and raartyrdoms were at first
few. One way in which the law was observed told
hard upon the Christians. The magistrates arranged
to have altars standing in their offices and in the courts
of justice, and, before any one was allowed to bring or
defend an action, he was required to prove himself to be
no Christian by sacrificing. If he refused, he forfeited
the protection and assistance of the law. Short of
death, the Christians of the place showed a noble ex
araple. There was one, an African (as it appears) by
birth, naraed Donatus, to whora Lactantius dedicated
his History of the persecution, who passed through the
hands of three successive governors of Bithynia, and
was tortured by thera all in turn. Nine several times they
tortured him. Stripes, the iron claw, the fire, and the
knife were all tried upon hira in vain. " For six years
the prison," as Lactantius says, " was his horae." At last
the toleration edict opened his prison doors, and he
came forth into liberty once more, and with him a
nuraber of other brave confessors.'
Upon the arrival of Galerius on one occasion at
Nicoraedia, a body of three and twenty confessors had
borne striking testiraony to their faith, when a young
raan, who was the chief of the officium (as it was called),
that is, of the officials in attendance upon the magis
trate who examined them, was so powerfully impressed
by what he saw, that he asked of them the secret of
their courage. It was a not infrequent occurrence in
the history of raartyrdora. This young man's name
was Hadrian. The dauntless three and twenty were
brought before Galerius in person ; and when the
eraperor, incensed at an answer of theirs, called upon
' Lactantius, De Mprtibus Pers., 15, 16, 35.

HADRIAN AND NATALIA 225
his officium to raake a note of it, Hadrian stepped forth
and said, " Make a note of ray narae araong theirs : I
too am a Christian." "Are you raad ?" asked Galerius ;
" do you also wish to throw your life away ? " "I ara
not raad, sir," Hadrian replied ; " I was once raad,
but have corae now to a right mind." " Do not talk,"
said Galerius ; " but beg my pardon. Say in the presence
of all that what you said was a mistake. Your answer
shall be erased from the minutes of the court." " No,"
said Hadrian ; "from henceforth I will ask pardon of
God for my evil deeds and for the errors of ray life
past." Hadrian was thrown into prison with the other
confessors. He had been raarried a little raore than
a year to a lady of the narae of NataUa. His wife was
of Christian parentage, and was overjoyed at his con
version. She visited hira and his fellow Christians in
the prison, and rainistered to their wants, encouraging
Hadrian to persevere in his confession. He proraised
that he would let her know when his final trial was to
take place.
It is said that when the day was fixed, he persuaded
the gaolers to release hira, on the security given by his
fellow-prisoners that he would return in proper tirae.
He went accordingly horae ; but his wife was terrified
at the sight of hira, thinking that he raust have pur
chased freedora by apostasy. She was only reassured
when he told her that he had come in fulfilment of his
promise, and that his trial was at hand.
Galerius took his seat, and ordered the Christians
to be produced in court, stripped to the waist for tor
ture. The others, who had been tortured before, were
so crippled and lacerated that they could not raove ;
and on the advice of the officials, Galerius gave orders
P

226 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
that Hadrian should be brought in first. He came,
carrying with his own hands the "hobby-horse'' on
which he was to be tortured. Natalia was there to
keep him true to his profession. " Do you persist in
your madness," asked the terrible Galerius, " and wish
to make a bad departure from this Ufe ? " Hadrian
answered as before, that his days of madness were over,
and that he was prepared to pour his life out. "WiU
you not sacrifice, then, nor worship the gods, as 1 do
myself, and as every one else does ? " " You are in
error," Hadrian boldly answered. "Why do you draw
others into error, destroying both yourself and all this
people, whora you persuade to worship gods which
have no life, and to forsake the God who raade heaven
and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein ? "
" Do you think our gods to be so little," asked the
emperor, " when they are great ? " "I do not think
thera to be either great or little," was the answer ;
" they are nothing at all."
Galerius bade the officials beat hira with rods, and
to keep repeating, as they did so, " Do not blaspheme
the gods." At this signal, NataUa slipped from the
court, found her way to the cell of the other confessors,
and told them that her husband's martyrdom was
begun, and sought their prayers for his support. Her
husband, meanwhile, replying to the eraperor's cora
raand, reraarked, " If I am tortured thus for blasphem
ing those that are no gods, what shall you have to bear
for blaspheming the living and true God ? " Galerius
condescended to reply, "You learned that language
from those impostors." " Why," answered the man in
torture, "do you call them impostors, who are our
guides to eternal life ? Rather it is you who deceive
people, and bring them into the snares of destruction."

HADRIAN AND NATALIA 227
The beating was raade raore severe ; and after a
tirae Galerius pursued, " Corae now, acknowledge the
gods, and spare yourself and your youth." Hadrian
was about eight and twenty years of age. "Why,"
said the eraperor, " do you so wantonly destroy your
self ? I swear to you by the great gods that I cannot
look on such a fine young man without pity." " I am
sparing rayself," said Hadrian ; " I do not wish to
perish altogether." " Acknowledge the gods, then,"
Galerius urged, " that they raay be favourable to you
and restore you with honour to your forraer station.
You are not like those others who were iraprisoned
with you. You are the son of a well-born and honour
able raan, and though you are young, you deserve
proraotion. Those others are poor creatures, of un
healthy peasant origin." But Hadrian would not be
separated from his new friends. " I dare say," he
answered, " that you know about ray horae and faraily
and ancestors ; but if you knew the faraily of those
holy raen, and their wealth, and the horae that they are
looking for, you would throw yourself instantly at their
feet, and beg thera to pray for you ; and, raoreover,
you would break your gods with your own hands."
Hadrian was turned over, and beaten on the belly.
After a while, the eraperor told the beaters to stop.
The delicately nurtured body could not bear rauch more.
" You see," said the eraperor, " how I wish to spare
you. If you will only call upon the gods with your
voice " — he raeant, without perforraing any sacrificial
act — " I will have physicians brought at once to attend
to your wounds, and you shall be with me to-day in
ray palace." Hadrian replied that he would do so, if
the gods would proraise with their own lips to do what
Galerius had said that they would do for him. " What,"

22 8 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
said the eraperor, " they cannot speak." " Why, then,"
rejoined the Christian, "do you sacrifice to things
which cannot speak ? "
He was removed again to the prison ; and there,
with some, at any rate, of the other confessors, had his
wrists and ankles broken with a rod of iron. It is said
that NataUa held his poor hands upon the block while
it was done. Mortification set in, and Hadrian died in
his prison. The young widow — so the story runs —
who was a woman of wealth and of property, was
forced to flee to Byzantiura to escape the attentions of
an officer of the town who desired to raarry her. She
carried with her, as her chief treasure, the hand of her
martyred husband, erabalraed, and wrapped in a purple
covering, which she always kept at her bed's head.^
The sufferings of the celebrated Saint Euphemia
are recorded for us in an interesting fashion in an
oration of Asterius, Bishop of Araasea, who vividly
describes a series of pictures which adorned the church
at Chalcedon, erected in her honour upon the very site
of her raartyrdora — the church in which the fourth
Ecuraenical Council was afterwards held. Chalcedon
was in Bithynia, sorae fifty miles frora Nicomedia.
As Asterius' oration was delivered before the end of the
fourth century, and the picture does not seem to have
been newly painted when he described it, the picture
may be considered good evidence for the story which it
tells. The first scene depicted is this. "The judge sits
on a lofty throne, looking with a fierce countenance
upon the virgin. With him there are magistrates,
attendants, and a number of soldiers. There are also
two secretaries holding tablet and pencil : one of them,
1 Acta Sanctorum, Sept. 8.

HADRIAN AND NATALIA 229
lifting his hand from the wax, looks intently at the
virgin standing at the bar, bending his face towards her
as if asking her to speak louder, lest he should mis-
report her and get into trouble for it. The virgin
stands there in a black dress, with the pallium of a
philosopher over it. Two soldiers present her to the
governor, the one in front pulling her, the other push
ing her from behind. The virgin's bearing shows a
mixture of modesty and firmness. She is bending
forward, with her eyes downcast, as if shrinking from
the stare of the men, but she is not at all dismayed,
and has no timidity about the encounter.
" In the next scene, a couple of executioners are
already plying their task, stripped naked, except for a
light tunic. One has seized her head and bent it back
wards, so as to place the virgin's cheek conveniently
for the other to torture her. The other stands over
her and breaks her teeth. Instruraents of torture, the
raallet and the screw, appear. So vividly has the
artist's brush depicted the blood, that you think that
it is strearaing from her lips, and turn away with a
groan. " Once more, the prison ; and once raore the pure
virgin sitting there, in black garraents, and all alone.
Both her hands are stretched towards heaven, appeal
ing to God to help her in her need. Over her head, as
she prays, appears the sign which Christians worship
and represent — the syrabol, I doubt not, of her ap
proaching passion.
" A little later, in another corapartraent, the painter
has kindled a mighty fire, with thick red flames issuing
here and there. In the raidst of it he has placed
Euphemia, stretching her hands towards heaven, but
with no trace of sadness upon her countenance —

230 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
nothing but joy at passing to the life of disembodied
bliss." '
When Maximin, the successor of Galerius, took up
his abode at Nicomedia after the death of that emperor,
and revived for a time the bloody strife with Christianity,
that city became the headquarters of the expiring perse
cution. Maximin seems purposely to have directed his
attention to the destruction of the theologians of the
Church. Thither the great scholar, Lucian of Antioch,
was sent to be examined by the emperor hiraself.
Lucian, a native of the same town as the witty satirist
of that narae who ridiculed the Christian martyrs of
the tirae of Trajan, and perhaps a raeraber of the same
family, had spent a lifetime in the work of biblical criti
cism. His learned revision of the Septuagint was
received as the standard text of the Greek Bible by all
the churches of Syria, Asia Minor, and European
Greece. Upon his arrival at Nicoraedia he was invited
to make a speech in his own defence before the emperor
Maximin in person. A part of it is still preserved.
" It is no secret," he said, " that the God whom we
Christians worship is one God, who was preached to us
by Christ, and who is breathed into our hearts by the
Holy Spirit. We are not, as you suppose, the victims
of some erroneous huraan persuasion, nor are we, as
others are, the blind followers of an ancestral tradition
which has never been subraitted to criticism. Our
authority for what we believe about God is God Him
self. Such great and transcendent conceptions could
never have entered into the thoughts of raen, if they
had not been brought horae to us by the power of His
own Spirit, and revealed by the teaching of His own
Word and Wisdom. ^ Asterius, Orat. xi. ; Ruinart, p, 431.

LUCIAN ; THEODOTUS 231
" I confess that we ourselves were once in error,
and thought that the images which our own hands had
raade were gods, the creators of heaven and earth ; but
their clairas were refuted by the consecration which
we ourselves bestowed upon their perishable materials.
Whatever raeasure of devotion they received was in
proportion to the beauty which they derived from the
artist's hand. But the Alraighty God, who was raade
by no hands of ours, but whose handiwork we are,
pitying our human errors, sent His own Wisdom into
this world clothed in flesh, to teach us that the God
who made heaven and earth was not to be sought for
in the work of men's hands, but in the realm of the
eternal and the unseen. He gave us also laws for life
and rules of discipline — that we should avoid luxury,
welcome poverty, cultivate a meek temper, carefully
proraote peace, love purity of heart, raaintain endurance.
All that you are now doing to us. He foretold to us.
He said that we should be brought before kings, and
set at the judgraent seat of governors, and slaughtered
like aniraals for sacrifice."
Sorae years before Lucian was brought to Nico
raedia, a new weapon against Christianity had been
forged. A little book was coraposed which professed to
contain the true and official account of our Lord's trial
before Pilate. It doubtless showed Hira to have been
guilty of many crimes for which He was justly sen
tenced to death. These Acts of Pilate obtained a very
wide circulation ; and during the last year or so, Maximin
had ordered that copies should be displayed in public
places for people to read, and had even commanded
that all schools should be provided with them, and
that the school children should learn them by heart,
and be examined in them, and compose rhetorical

232 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
exercises upon thera. To this aborainable fiction
Lucian referred in his speech before Maxirain.
" Imraortal as He was by nature," Lucian said,
" because He was the Word and Wisdora of God,
He gave Hiraself up to die, that He raight give us in
His incarnate life an example of endurance. We, to
whom He showed Hiraself alive from the dead after
three days, were under no false impressions about His
death. He did not die such a death as those forged
modern Acts of PUate assert ; but innocent, pure, and
spotless. He submitted to death for this purpose and
this only — ^that He raight overcorae death by His
resurrection." So Lucian bore his testiraony, in the face of the
emperor Maximin hiraself, as St. Paul bore testimony
before Nero. But Maximin was not persuaded. Lucian
was beheaded, but in the privacy of his prison. A few
days before his death, he wrote a farewell letter to the
church at Antioch, of which he was a presbyter. He
told thera of raany others who were associated in the
sarae suffering as hiraself. Among them was Anthimus,
the Bishop of Nicomedia, whose life had been spared
during all the previous eight years of terror. " A whole
choir of martyrs," he wrote, " salute you all at once ;
and I tell you the good tidings that Pope Anthimus has
just been perfected by the course of raartyrdora." ^
If the law was strictly observed round Nicoraedia, in
the neighbouring provinces scruples of that kind seem
soon to have been cast aside. Shiploads of Christians
were taken out to sea and sunk. There was a town
in Phrygia where the entire population had become
Christian, including the civil and mUitary authorities.
Whether it was feared that an insurrection would take
^ Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae, iv. 5 ; cp. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii. 6.

LUCIAN ; THEODOTUS 233
place there when the moment came for demolishing
the church, cannot now be told ; but a regiment of
soldiers was sent to the place, who surrounded it on
every side, set fire to it, and burned not only the
church, as the edict ordered, but the whole town, with
all the raen, women, and children that it contained.''
It was not wonderful that in such circumstances
the Christians themselves occasionally lost their heads
and behaved rashly and unbecoraingly. At Araasea,
the capital of Pontus, there was a young soldier of the
narae of Theodore, known to the Church by the title of
Theodore the Tiro, that is, the Recruit. He was of
hurable origin, a native of Syria, and, having only
lately joined the array, occupied no prorainent posi
tion in "the legion of the Marraarites," to which he
belonged. On sorae occasion Theodore raade it plain
that he was a Christian, and was accordingly brought
before the governor of the province and the officer
in coraraand of the troops. On being asked why he
would not sacrifice to the gods, he answered, " I know
nothing of gods. You are wrong in giving the name
of gods to seducing devils. My God is Christ, the
only begotten Son of God." An officer who had a
reputation for wit interposed and asked him scoffingly
how God came to have a Son. Theodore replied like
a well-instructed Christian that the generation of the
Son of God is not like huraan generation, and retorted
upon his questioner by a reference to the worship for
which Araasea was faraous — the worship of the Mother
of all the gods, which he conderaned in no raeasured
and, we raay add, in no undeserved terms.
The authorities were not anxious to be hard upon
Theodore. They gave him time to think things over.
' Lactantius, Instit. Div. v. ii ; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii. ii.

234 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
They did not even place him under arrest. The temple
of the Mother of the gods stood in the middle of the
city, on the bank of the river Iris. Theodore raade use
of his liberty to go that night to the teraple and to set
it on fire. He made no concealment of what he had
done, but gloried in his destruction of the scene of a
hideous idolatry. It is said that the authorities even
then were forbearing enough to promise hira not only
pardon but promotion if he would sacrifice. But
Theodore answered with words of outrage not only
against the gods but against the emperors. The
magistrates tortured him, but araidst his tortures
Theodore the Recruit kept singing the verse, " I will
alway give thanks unto the Lord ; His praise shaU ever
be in ray raouth." A short but raerry iraprisonment
ended in a death by fire.^
The government of the province of Galatia was
entrusted to a raan named Theotecnus, who was him
self an apostate from Christianity. He had already
gained a reputation for skill and firmness in dealing
with his forraer co-religionists, and even the know
ledge that he was coraing to the province caused many
Christians to take flight. Those who reraained pre
pared theraselves for the worst.
Soon after his arrival a raan naraed Victor was
arrested for speaking words that reflected upon the
crimes attributed in heathen mythology to the gods.
Every effort was used to make Victor abandon his
faith. Proraises of worldly advantage in case of
corapliance, and dreadful threats of what refusal
would involve, were employed in turn. Victor
reraained steadfast, and bore the beginning of his
' Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio de S. Theodora Martyre ; Analecta Bollard.
ii- P- 359 ' Conybeare, Monuments, p. 220.

LUCIAN; THEODOTUS 235
tortures in a way that won the admiration of all
beholders. But when his trials were almost over,
and he was on the point of receiving his crown, he
sent a message to the governor, asking for a short
space for deliberation. The beating which he was
undergoing was at once stopped, and the man was
taken back to his prison. Victor died in the prison
as the effect of what he had gone through, leaving
it doubtful whether he was to be reckoned with the
raartyrs or with the renegades.
The chief part in encouraging Victor to reraain firra
was borne by a raan called Theodotus, whose history
forras one of the raost curious and interesting records of
the tirae. Theodotus kept an eating-house in Ancyra,
the capital of Galatia ; and one way in which he raade
use of his business to serve the purposes of the Christian
Church was this : — Theotecnus had given orders that
every article of food or drink that was sold in the city
should be defiled by being offered to idols, or by
contact with soraething that had been offered. He
raade a special point of treating in this way all bread
and wine, hoping thus to strike a blow at the Sacra
raent which he knew to be the raainstay of the Church.
Theodotus found raeans to sell to Christian custoraers
what he had bought frora Christian tradespeople, and
in this way secured that there should always be un
polluted eleraents at hand for the celebration of the
Christian mysteries. The victualler's shop, says NUus,
his biographer, became to the faithful of Ancyra what
the Ark was in the time of Noah's Flood ; no one
could be saved except by it.
One day a curious adventure happened to Theo
dotus. He had gone to a place on the banks of the
river Halys, about forty railes frora Ancyra, where

236 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
he fell in with a party of Christians whora he had
forraerly befriended. They raade a little picnic in a
wooded glade, and sent sorae of their corapany to the
village hard by to invite the priest of the place to join
thera. The church of this remote village had escaped
destruction, and the priest, whose name was Fronto,
was just coming out of it after the hour of prayer.
When the repast was ended, Theodotus remarked with
a smile that the place was a suitable place for bestow
ing a martyr's relics, and asked Fronto why he was
doing nothing. " Ah ! " answered the good man, " put
me in the way to get sorae rehcs, and then find fauU
with rae for doing nothing. First get your relics, I
say, and then think of building." He spoke in jest ;
but Theodotus drew his ring frora his finger, and,
giving it to the priest, proraised that he would find
hira sorae relics, and so returned to Ancyra.
There he found everything in confusion, as if there
had been an earthquake. Seven Christian virgins,
sorae of them of an advanced age, had been seized
by Theotecnus, who, after being foiled in an outrage
ous attempt upon the purity of their lives, decided to
make an example of thera in another way. A yearly
festival carae round, when it was the custom to bathe
the images of Artemis and Athena in a lake near the
city. The iraages were taken in procession in chariots,
accompanied by an excited crowd. Theotecnus placed
the seven unfortunate women in chariots, in a stand
ing position, with no clothes to cover them, and
raade thera go in this procession in front of the idols.
He himself took part in the frantic ceremony. Upon
arriving at the lake, Theotecnus argued with his victims,
but to no purpose. The heathen priestesses drew near
and offered thera garlands and white raiment, if they

LUCIAN ; THEODOTUS 237
would take part in the bathing of the images. When
they indignantly refused, the governor had stones hung
round their necks ; they were rowed out into deep
water and drowned. Soldiers were stationed to guard
the lake lest the bodies should be recovered by the
Christians. Theodotus raeanwhile, who had been brought up
by one of the seven, had been praying earnestly and
incessantly for thera, that their faith raight carry them
through. In the deep darkness of the next night but
one, Theodotus, with some corapanions, was able to
evade the guards and to get possession of the dead
bodies, severing the ropes which fastened thera to the
stones by means of a sharp scythe. The next morning,
however, it was discovered that the bodies had been
stolen. One of those who had assisted Theodotus in
the work was iraprudent enough to venture into the
city to gratify his curiosity, and was soon detected.
On being brought before Theotecnus and threatened
with tortures and death, he confessed that Theodotus
had led the party, and what they had done with the
bodies, which the governor iraraediately fetched and
burned. When Theodotus heard this, he bade farewell to
the friends about hira, and betook hiraself straight to
the court where the forraidable governor was sitting,
surrounded by the implements of persecution. Theo
tecnus made no atterapt to terrify him ; he took
another course. To gain so strong a man was worth
an effort. " Not one of these tortures shall touch
you," he said, " if you will be wise and sacrifice. You
shall have a free pardon for the criraes which you
have coraraitted. You shall be a special friend of raine,
and enjoy the farailiarity of the emperors themselves.

238 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
They shall write to you with their own hands, and you
to thera." He went on to offer the priesthood of
ApoUo, with all the influence and patronage which
belonged to that dignified office, if only Theodotus
would forswear " that Jesus, whora Pilate, once a
judge like me," he said, " crucified in Judaea." The
people in court ventured to applaud his speech, and to
congratulate Theodotus on his good fortune.
The answer of Theodotus was not such as to
invite further offers from the apostate. Amidst the
hubbub which arose in the court, Theodotus was placed
upon the rack ; Theotecnus hiraself, it is said, left
his chair and actually assisted in the torture. All
the usual horrors were tried. At last, when blazing
torches were held under hira, the raartyr sraelt the
burning of his own flesh, and turned his nostrils a
little on one side. Theotecnus, on the watch for the
least sign of weakness, was soon beside hira. " If
you had not blaspheraed the gods," he said, " you
would never have suffered thus. I should advise you
— for you are only a shopkeeper — not to talk any
raore against the emperors, who have power to shed
your blood." The martyr's reply was sufficient to
raake Theotecnus order the executioners to dash his
teeth out, as Eupheraia's were dashed out. Theodotus
only answered, " If you should cut ray tongue out, and
all ray organs of speech, God can hear a Christian
who cannot speak."
He was remanded to prison. The governor
thought that it would be beneficial to have him led
thither, just as he was, fresh from the torture, through
the market-place, that everybody might see what
Christians had to expect. Theodotus said to the
people who crowded round him, " It is fitting for

LUCIAN ; THEODOTUS 239
those who believe in Christ to offer to Him such
sacrifices as I have offered ; for He first suffered
thus on behalf of each of us." After five days in
prison, fresh arguraents and fresh tortures were applied
to hira. Theodotus was not insensible to the pain.
" O Lord Jesus Christ, Hope of the hopeless," he
cried aloud, " hear ray prayer and assuage this agony,
for it is for Thy holy narae that I suffer it." He
received grace to endure ; and at last Theotecnus
wrote his sentence of release : " Theodotus, a patron
of the Galilaeans, and an enemy of the gods, who
wUl not obey the emperors, and treats me also with
disrespect, is condemned by my authority to undergo
the penalty of the sword, and his beheaded body to
be burned with fire." He was executed, praying to
God that the violence of the eneray might come to
an end in hira, and that peace raight be restored to
the Church.
The sequel of the story is not the least interesting
part of it. The body of Theodotus lay unconsuraed
beneath a heap of wood and straw, under a guard
of soldiers, when Fronto, the presbyter from the
village on the Halys, appeared upon the spot, with
an ass laden with old wine. It was evening, and
the soldiers were preparing their supper, and in
friendly terms invited the good old man to join
them. He did so, and gave them sorae of his wine
to drink. Their tongues were loose, and he soon
found out what their business at that raoment was.
More and raore of Fronto's wine went down their
throats ; and when they fell into a drunken sluraber,
the wine skin which the ass bore was exchanged for
the body of the raartyr. Theodotus' ring was restored
to his finger. " Corae now, raartyr," said the old

240 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
man, " fulfil the promise that you made me," and
turning the ass's head towards home he drove her
off to the spot which Theodotus had thought to be a
good place for a martyr's body to be buried in.^
¦¦ Ruinart, p. 295 ; Franchi de' Cavalieri in Studi e Testi, vi.

CHAPTER XIII
THE FORTY OF SEBASTIA
How literally Christians were reduced to the position
of outlaws by the first persecuting edict of Diocletian
is shown by the story of Julitta, as told by the great
St. BasU. Julitta was a wealthy widow of Caesarea in
Cappadocia, of which St. Basil was afterwards bishop.
An unscrupulous fellow-citizen had possessed hiraself
little by little of a great part of her property, and
threatened to swallow up what was left. Julitta at
length deterrained to bring a lawsuit against hira.
The day of the trial carae ; the suit was called by
the herald ; the widow's counsel began to open the
case, and to point out the wrongs which she had
suffered at the hands of the defendant. Suddenly
the defendant interrupted the proceedings, and raain
tained that there was no case to corae before the
court. He pointed out that those who would not
worship the gods and forswear Christ were not in
a position to claim legal redress. The judge acknow
ledged that the plea thus advanced was true ; he could
do no otherwise. Incense was brought, with fire, and
Julitta was asked whether she would qualify by offering
it. Though taken aback by a turn which, in her
ignorance, she had not expected, Julitta refused to
save her worldly goods by casting away her soul.
To every suggestion of a perhaps not unfriendly
=4. Q

242 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
raagistrate she only replied that she was a servant
of Christ. She was conderaned to be burned, and
went to the stake with alacrity, exhorting any Christian
woraen who were near her to be as brave as the
raen. " Eve," she said — or St. BasU puts the words
into her raouth — " was not only made flesh of Adam's
flesh, but bone also of his bone." It was the courage
of women like Julitta which in the end broke the
forces of the persecuting Roraan Erapire, and of the
powers of evil which wielded thera ; and St. BasU
raight well cry that the arch-enemy who began by
boasting that all the world was his, and that "his
hand would find as a nest the riches of the people
and gather them like eggs that are left, so that not
a wing should move," ^ was reduced to impotence
by a widow's steadfastness.^
There was no part of the empire where Christianity
had gained a greater hold than in the province of Cap
padocia and the regions adjoining it. The independent
kingdom of Armenia, close at hand, was already a
Christian kingdora, under a Christian king ; and the
Armenian subjects of the Roman emperors were already
beginning that vast succession of obscure martyrdoms,
which, to the sharae of Christian Europe, continues to
this day. Partly, perhaps, in consequence of its Chris
tianity, and partly for other reasons, that region was in
a state of ferraent and disturbance at the tirae when the
persecution of Diocletian began ; and the emperor
thought it advisable to place the government of Cap
padocia and the border in the hands of two special
comraissioners, naraed Lysias and Agricola.
In levying recruits for the array, the agents of
Lysias deterrained to press into the service a young
1 Isaiah x. 14. 2 gasil, Hom. v.

THE FORTY OF SEBASTIA 243
raan naraed Hiero, who owned and cultivated a sraall
farm near Tyana. Hiero was at work in the fields with
a party of labourers, when he saw the recruiting party
coming. Detesting the thought of miUtary service,
with all its dangers for a Christian, the rash man deter
rained to resist. Drawing the handle out of a raattock,
he laid it lustily about the intruders, until they thought
it safer to retire. Then, with his raen, he took refuge
in a cave, and prepared for a siege. The case, however,
was hopeless frora the first ; and the brother of Hiero,
who came with a message from the chief magistrate of
the neighbouring town, persuaded hira to surrender
before coraraitting himself further.
Paying a farewell visit to his blind mother, Hiero
set out for the town of Melitene, where Lysias was.
There he suddenly found himself in prison with one
and thirty others, all of whom were Christians. They
made a compact together that none of thera would
sacrifice if called upon to do so. On his appearing before
Lysias, however, next raorning, the coraraissioner asked
Hiero nothing of the kind, but only whether it was he
who had resisted the recruiting agents. He confessed
what he had done. The coraraissioner, wishing to raake
an exaraple of hira, ordered his hand to be cut off at the
wrist. The others were whipped, and all were thrust
into prison. One of the party, by bribing a dishonest
warder, got his name erased from the indictment, and
escaped in the night ; but the rest remained for trial.
Four days later, they, or a certain number of them,
were exarained by Lysias, and were conderaned, after
being beaten with rods, to have their heads cut off. A
rich Christian negotiated with Lysias for the head of
Hiero ; and according to Hiero's own desire the hand
which had been first severed, and which had been

244 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
preserved by Christian friends, was taken as his legacy
to the blind mother.-'
The position of head registrary in the court of Lysias
was held that year by a Christian veteran, who bore
the Greek name of Eustratius, but was known to his
Arraenian friends by the native narae of Cyrisices. His
mind was tormented by the scenes which he was com
pelled to witness. It was his duty one day to cite into
court a presbyter naraed Auxentius, who had already
raade a good confession before Lysias, As he did so,
he declared his adrairation for the presbyter, and avowed
hiraself also to be a Christian, and a Christian from
infancy. For seven and twenty years he had been in
the service, and in the same department of the service,
as a railitary secretary. His avowal soon brought him
to torture by fire, but Eustratius uttered not a sound,
and only srailed at the pain. " Would you like me to
think of some other little pleasure for you ? " asked the
irritated raagistrate. Eustratius welcomed the proposal.
" Then bring some strong brine, raixed with vinegar,"
said Lysias ; " scrape his burns with a bit of broken
pottery, and pour plenty of the brine over the place,
until he has had enough of these attentions." Eustratius
bore it quietly. " It is theatrical ostentation," said Lysias,
who was a learned raan and perhaps knew the views of
Marcus Aurelius about Christian raartyrdora ; " let him
now tell us whether he will corae to the altar and wor
ship the gods." Eustratius was not rainded to do so.
" Perhaps," said Lysias, " your bodily exhaustion has
affected your raind, and raade you delirious. Put away
your groundless hopes, and accept the salvation which
I offer you." But Eustratius would have none of it.
His exaraple was contagious. One of his under-
' Symeon Metaphrastes (Migne), vol, iii. p. 109.

THE FORTY OF SEBASTIA 245
lings, called Eugenius, now stood out and said with a
loud voice, " I too ara a Christian, and I curse your
reUgion, and ara deterrained to resist your wishes and
the coraraand of the eraperors, as ray superior Eustra
tius has done." " It is difficult to punish these people,"
exclaimed the coraraissioner. " It wants a great deal
of tirae and leisure to exaraine thera, and I have enough
to do in looking after affairs of state. Put these two
raen in irons, along with the others whora I have to
exaraine." When darkness fell,. the magistrate started on a night
journey towards the city of Nicopohs. He gave orders
that the Christian prisoners should follow his train.
Nails were placed in their shoes, to raake the raarch raore
painful. The second day they carae to a place, Arauraca,
which happened to be the native place both of Eustratius
and of Eugenius ; but although people flocked to gaze
at the great raan and at his afflicted followers, none of
the kinsfolk or friends of Eustratius dared to come near
him. One m'an of the district, however, naraed Mar-
darius, took the opportunity to proclaim himself a
Christian, and to claira the honour of being added to
the nuraber of the prisoners. Auxentius the presbyter,
who also belonged to Arauraca, was undergoing an
exaraination at the raoraent. " Do not give rae any
raore trouble, Auxentius," said Lysias ; " pay yourself
the corapliraent of thinking yourself worthy to be saved.
Let us hear now whether you have given up this silly
and dangerous obstinacy, and will enter into favour
with the gods again." " I will tell you in very few
words," answered the priest ; " I swear to you by the
justice above us which takes account of all things, that
my mind is not to be changed. I know and worship
one God and one only." Lysias conderaned him to be

246 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
beheaded. " Now," he said, " bring the one who just
attached hiraself to the others. We will soon give him
the honour which he courts." WhUe they were getting
Mardarius ready, the raan appealed to Eustratius:
" Pray for me, Cyrisices ; and tell me what to answer
this wolf of a man. I ara no scholar, and he wiU laugh
at me." " Say nothing, brother," replied Eustratius,
" except, ' I am a Christian ; ' 'I am a servant of
Christ.' " Mardarius did as he was told. To all ques
tions his answer was the same. The " wolf " of a
raagistrate had hira tied up head downwards, by a rope
passed through the tendons of his heels, and hot irons
put to hira. After a tirae, Mardarius expired, with
thanksgiving upon his hps, and Eugenius foUowed
closely after him.
The troubles of Lysias were not yet over for the
day. He went out into the field near the town to hold
a review of the troops. He was particularly struck by
the looks of a tall, handsorae soldier called Orestes.
He was paying the man a compliment, when accident
ally it carae out that Orestes was a Christian. His belt
was iraraediately taken away, and he was expelled from
the army and placed under arrest. When Nicopolis
was reached, there was quite a Christian demonstration
araongst the troops who were stationed there. The
feeling was so strong that Lysias did not dare to try
his Christian prisoners at Nicopolis, but despatched
Eustratius and Orestes under escort to his brother-
coraraissioner Agricola at Sebastia. There Orestes was
soon done away with. Agricola seems to have made
an attempt to save Eustratius from his fate by suggest
ing that he should raake a pretence in public of
worshipping the gods, and seek forgiveness frora his
own God afterwards. Eustratius naturally rejected the

THE FORTY OF SEBASTIA 247
base suggestion with contempt, and died like a good
Christian in the fire. He was fortified, it is said, for
his last conflict by receiving the Holy Communion
in his prison from the hands of the good Bishop of
Sebastia, St. Blaise, who had not yet suffered the
martyrdom which he afterwards endured.'
It became a kind of fashion araong the martyrs of
that region to make a dying testaraent disposing of
their property and of their relics, and the wills which
Hiero put in the hands of Antonius, and Eustratius in
those of St. Blaise, are araong the raost trustworthy
parts of their history. The raost elaborate testaraent
of this kind was that of forty faraous soldiers who died
a year or two later at Sebastia while Agricola was still
in office. " Meletius and Aetius and Eutychius," so runs this
curious docuraent, "the prisoners of Christ, to the holy
bishops and priests, deacons and confessors, in every
city, and to all others who belong to the Church,
greeting in Christ.
" When we by the grace of God and the coraraon
prayers of all shall finish the strife that is set before us,
and come to the rewards of the high calling, we desire
that then this will of ours may be respected, to wit,
that our relics be conveyed to our father the presbyter
Proidus, and our brethren Crispin and Gordius, and
the zealous laity who are with thera, to Cyril and
Mark and Sapricius the son of Amraonius, in order
that our relics raay be deposited near the city of Zela,
at the spot called Sarin. For although we all corae
from different localities, we have chosen one and the
same resting-place. Since we have set before ourselves
one coraraon strife for the prize, we have agreed to
^ Symeon Metaphrastes (Migne), vol. iii. p. 468.

248 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
make also one coraraon resting-place in the aforesaid
spot. These things have seemed good to the Holy
Ghost and have pleased us. Therefore we which are
with Aetius and Eutychius and the rest of our brethren
in Christ beseech our honoured parents and brethren
to have no grief or distress, but to respect the decision
of our brotherly fellowship, and to consent heartily to
our wishes, in order that you raay receive frora our
common Father the great recompense of obedience
and of sharing in our sufferings. Moreover we intreat
all raen that no one will secure for hiraself any single
fragment of our relics gathered out of the furnace, but
to give them up to the persons aforenamed with a view
to their being gathered together in the same place, in
order that by such a proof of earnest determination and
of disinterested goodwill he raay receive the gain of
a share in our sufferings theraselves ; even as Mary,
abiding steadfastly by the torab of Christ, saw the Lord
before the rest and was the first to obtain the grace of
joy and blessing. If, on the other hand, any one shall go
counter to our wish, let him have no part in the sacred
gain, but incur the penalty of the entire disobedience,
for depriving us of our right by his petty selfwill, by
corapelling us as far as lay in his power to be sundered
frora one another, when our holy Saviour by His special
grace and providence has united us together in faith.
" And if the boy Eunoicus by the favour of the
gracious God shall be brought to the same end of the
strife, he has requested to have the same dwelling-place
with us. But if he shall be preserved unhurt by the
grace of God and should be further proved in the
world, we charge him to look liberally to our chapel,
and we beseech him to keep the comraandraents of
Christ, that in the great day of resurrection he may

THE FORTY OF SEBASTIA 249
obtain part in our felicity, because while he was in the
world he endured the same afflictions with us. For
goodwill to a brother looks to the righteousness of
God, but disregard for kith and kin traraples upon
God's coraraandraent ; for it is written, ' He that
loveth unrighteousness hateth his own soul.'
"Therefore I beseech you, brother Crispin and
brother Gordius, and I charge you, to keep aloof frora
all worldly luxury and error. For the glory of the
world is deceitful and has no stay in it ; it blooras for
a little while, and then fades away like the grass,
coraing to an end even before it begins. Desire rather
to have recourse to the gracious God, who gives riches
that never fail to those who flee to Hira, and bestows
the prize of eternal life upon those who believe in
Hira. This tirae is an excellent tirae for those who
desire to be saved ; it fixes generously the date for
repentance, and takes away pretence frora the practice
of life, allowing nothing to be put off to the future,
because the change raay come at any moraent. If
thou knowest this, look to that which is profitable, and
show in thy conversation the sincerity of thy religion,
that if thou art overtaken while so doing, thou mayest
wipe out the handwriting of forraer sins, for He saith,
' Wherein I find thee, in that will I also judge thee.'
Endeavour ye therefore to be found blameless in the
comraandraents of Christ, that ye raay escape the
eternal fire that never sleepeth. For that the time is
short, the divine voice hath long ago told us loudly.
Therefore honour charity above all things, for charity
alone satisfies all requirements, by the law of brotherly
love obeying God. For through the brother that is
seen God who is not seen is honoured ; and though the
word speaks only of brothers in the natural sense, it

2 50 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
raeans all those who love Christ. For our holy Saviour
and God said that those were brethren who, without
being connected by birth, were bound together by
uprightness in regard to the faith, fulfilling the will
of our Father which is in heaven.
" We greet the honoured presbyter Philip, and Pro-
clianus, and Diogenes, together with the holy church.
We greet the honoured Proclianus at Phydela, and
those that are his, with the holy church. We greet
Maxiraus, with the church ; Magnus, with the church.
We greet Domnus, with his ; lies, our father, and
Valens, with the church. I, Meletius, also greet my
kinsmen, Lutanius, Crispus, and Gordius, with theirs;
Elpidius, with his ; Hyperechius, with his. We greet
also those at Sarin, the presbyter, with his ; the deacons,
with theirs ; Maxiraus, with his ; Hesychius, with his ;
Cyriac, with his. We greet all those at Chaduthi by
narae. We greet also all those at Charisphona by name.
I also, Aetius, greet my kinsfolk, Mark and Aquilina,
and the presbyter Claudius, and my brothers, Mark,
Trypho, Gordius, and Crispus, and my sisters, and my
wife Domna, with ray little child. I also, Eutychius,
greet those at Ximara, my raother JuUa, and ray brothers,
Cyril, Rufus, and Riglus, and Cyrilla, and ray newly
raarried wife Basilia, and the deacons Claudius, Rufinus,
and Proclus. We greet also the servants of God,
Sapricius the son of Araraonius, and Genesius, and
Sosanna with theirs. So, honoured friends, we all greet
you all, forty brethren and fellow-prisoners — Meletius,
Aetius, Eutychius, Cyrion, Candidus, Angias, Gains,
Chudion, Heraclius, John, TheophUus, Sisinius, Smarag-
dus, Philoctemon, Gorgonius, Cyril, Severian,Theodulus,
Nicallus, Flavins, Xanthius, Valerius, Hesychius, Domi
tian, Doranus, Helian, Leontius, otherwise called Theo-

THE FORTY OF SEBASTIA 251
ctistus, Eunoicus, Valens, Acacius, Alexander, Bicratius,
also called Vivian, Priscus, Sacerdon, Ecdicius, Athana
sius, Lysiraachus, Claudius, lies, and Melito. We then,
the forty prisoners of the Lord Jesus Christ, have sub
scribed with our hand by one of our nuraber, Meletius,
and have confirraed aU that is above written, and it has
pleased us all. We pray with our souls, and with the
Divine Spirit, that we may all obtain the eternal good
things of God and His kingdom, now and for ever and
ever. Araen." ^
The story of these forty, as it was known to St.
Basil sorae seventy years later, told how, after many
other sufferings and trials, the general in coraraand in
Cappadocia made them spend one cold winter's night,
when a keen north wind was blowing, with little or no
clothing, on the ice-bound pool round which the city
of Sebastia was built. Not far off frora the spot where
they were posted was the public bath, with its corafort
able shelter and abundance of warra water. Towards
raorning one of the inseparable forty could bear it no
longer. He crept to the cheerful warrath, but it was
as rauch as his strength perraitted. Upon reaching
the baths he died. His place araong the forty, how
ever, was not left empty. As soon as it was discovered
that one out of the band was missing, another Christian
volunteered for his crown, and won it. Death was at
last hastened by the breaking of their legs. The mother
of one of them, said to have been Melito, whose narae
stands last among the signatures to the will, was present,
and seeing that her son's body, which still breathed, was
not put on the cart which conveyed the others away,
took it up in her own arms, and carried it to the heap
in which his corarades were laid. Their wish to be
1 Von Gebhardt, p. i66 ; Knopf, p. 107.

252 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
undivided was so far accorapUshed ; but it was not long
before the popular craving for relics overcame the
deference due to their request,, and fragments of the
bodies, though none knew to which of the forty they
belonged, found their way to many churches far from
the chosen Sarin.^
That "wolf" Lysias, under whom Hiero and Eu
stratius suffered in Cappadocia, is not improbably the
same person as the Lysias who, in the neighbouring
province of Cilicia, gave judgment upon Claudius,
Asterius, and Neon, and upon two female feUow
Christians of theirs.
" Lysias, the president of the province of CiUcia,
sitting upon the judgment-seat in the city of Aegae,
said, ' Let the Christians who have been delivered by
the officials to the magistrates of this city be presented
for my judgraent.' The warder Euthalius said, 'Accord
ing to your coraraandment, my lord, the magistrates of
this city present the Christians whora they have been
able to get hold of. They consist of three boys, brothers,
and two woraen with a baby. One of them is now
before your worship. What are your excellency's
coraraands with regard to hira ? ' "
There was no need to find out whether the young
raan was a Christian ; that was already ascertained by
the magistrates of the city. " What is your name ? "
asked Lysias. " Claudius." " Do not throw away your
young life by raad folly. Come this moraent and sacri
fice to the gods, according to the comraandraent of our
lord the Augustus, and so escape the horrors prepared
for you." " My God," replied Claudius, " does not
require such sacrifices, but works of raercy and upright
lives. But your gods are unclean devils, and that is
1 Basil, Hom. xix. ; cp. von Gebhardt, p. 171.

THE FORTY OF SEBASTIA 253
why they are pleased with sacrifices of this kind, de
stroying for ever the souls of those who worship thera.
You wUl never persuade rae to worship thera." Lysias
ordered hira to be got ready for the rods. While this
was being done, he told hira that he had instructions
from the emperors to offer rewards and promotions to
Christians who consented to sacrifice. "Their rewards,"
answered the young raan, " are teraporal ; but to confess
Christ is everlasting salvation." He was placed on the
hobby-horse and flarae applied to his feet. A bit of
flesh frora his foot was cut off and shown to hira.
Claudius only answered, " Fire and tortures cannot
hurt those who fear God. It only helps them to ever
lasting salvation, because they suffer these things for
Christ's sake." The hooked talons tore his sides.
Other tortures followed in succession. They only
made hira assert more confidently that torture was
the way to salvation, and at last he was sent to prison,
and his brother Asterius was called in.
After the usual preliminaries Lysias ordered him
to the hobby-horse, saying, "Torture his sides, and as
you do so say to him, ' Even now obey and sacrifice.' "
Asterius replied, " I ara the brother of the one who
answered you just now. He and I are of one raind,
and raake the same confession. Do what you can.
You have ray body in your power, but not ray soul."
Fresh tortures were tried. " Fool ! raadman ! " cried
the poor tortured boy, " why do you torraent rae ?
Do you give no heed to what the Lord wiU make you
pay for this ? " After still further measures had been
taken, " Blind," he cried, " blind altogether ! I only
ask of you to leave no part of my body untortured."
The third boy. Neon, carae into court. " My son,"
said Lysias, "corae and sacrifice to the gods, and escape

2 54 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
torture." " If your gods have any power," answered
the boy, " let them defend themselves frora those who
deny thera, without wanting you to defend thera. But
if you are as bad as they are, I ara much better than
your gods and than you. I will not obey you. My
God is the true God, who made heaven and earth."
" Hit him about the neck," said the governor ; " and
as you do it say, ' Do not blaspheme the gods.' " " Is
it blasphemy," asked the boy, " to tell the truth ? " His
feet were stretched upon the horse ; hot coals were
laid upon him ; his back was lashed with thongs.
" When it was done," say the Acts, " Neon said,
' What I know to be for my good and profitable for
ray soul, that I will do. I cannot change ray mind.' "
Lysias withdrew to the magistrate's private apart
ment, and drew the curtain. Then he came out and
read his sentence frora the tablet : " Let the brothers
Claudius, Asterius, Neon, who are Christians, who
blaspheme the gods, and refuse to sacrifice, be crucified
outside the gate, and let their bodies be left to be torn
to pieces by the birds."
The two women reraained to be dealt with.
Doranina was the first to be presented. " You see, my
good woman," said Lysias, " the tortures and the fire
prepared for you. If you wish to escape them, come
and sacrifice to the gods." " I do not wish," Doranina
answered, " to fall into eternal fire and into everlasting
torments ; and therefore I worship God, and His Christ,
who made heaven and earth and all things that are
therein. Your gods are stone and wood, the work of
men's hands." Lysias ordered her to be stripped naked,
and laid out flat, and beaten all over. The very
order was enough to kill her. " By your eminence,"
exclaimed the executioner, " Doranina has died already ! "

THE FORTY OF SEBASTIA 255
"Throw her body into a deep place in the river," said
Lysias. Then came Theonilla. To her the same invitation
was made, to which she replied in almost the same
words as Doranina. " Slap her face," said the governor ;
" throw her down on the ground ; tie her feet together,
and torture her well." When this was done, TheoniUa
indignantly exclairaed, " Whether you think it good to
torture a gentlewoman and a stranger like this, you
know best. God sees what you do." Lysias ordered
thera to hang her up by the hair and to slap her in the
face. "Is it not enough," TheonUla burst out, "that
you have stripped rae naked ? I ara not the only
one that you have covered with sharae, but your
own raother and wife also through rae, for aU woraen
are of the sarae nature." Lysias asked her whether
she were wife or widow. " It is three and twenty
years," answered TheoniUa, " since I was left a widow.
I have reraained a widow for ray God's sake, fasting
and watching in prayers ever since I forsook the
unclean idols and knew ray God." The answer of
Lysias to this pathetic speech was to bid the torraentors
shave her head with a razor to see if anything would
make her ashamed, to put a girdle of wild briers about
her, to tie her to four stakes, and to beat her all over
the body. The last device was to put burning charcoal
under or over her, and to let her die of the fumes.
But before the charcoal was brought, TheoniUa, like
Doranina, was mercifully released. " Sir," reported the
warder and the executioner, " she is no longer alive."
" Get a sack," said the governor, " and put her body in
it ; tie it tight, and let it be thrown into the sea." ^
What becarae of the little babe which was with these
' Ruinart, p. 233 ; Surius, August 23.

256 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
raartyrs we are not told. But the fate of another
innocent child has gained for him and for his mother
¦ — another Julitta — a wider celebrity than Theonilla's,
JuUtta, like Theonilla, was a stranger to the province of
CUicia in which she suffered. Her home was Iconium ;
but when the persecution broke out there, she started,
with two maid-servants and her little son of three years
old, named Cyric or Cyriac, in search of a place where
either the Christians were less raolested or she herself
would be less well known than at Iconiura. Seleucia,
to which she first went, was even raore disturbed than
the horae which she had left, and she passed on to the
great city of Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul and the
capital of Cilicia,
There she soon found herself before the judgraent-
seat of the governor. She confessed herself a Christian
without hesitation, and told the governor what Christians
thought of the worship of idols. Her babe was in her
arms. The governor bade his attendants to bring him
the pretty child, and to lay Julitta down and flog her.
They did so. The frightened child naturally struggled to
get back to his raother. When the governor atterapted
to set him upon his knee, the little lad, who heard his
mother saying again and again under the blows, " I am
a Christian," literally resisted tooth and nail, and catch
ing up his raother's cry, called out, " I ara a Christian ;
I ara a Christian." As the child kicked in the governor's
erabrace, he seized the foot with his hand. The child
fell over the edge of the tribunal and was kUled on
the spot. Julitta saw what happened, and cried out
from her place of torture, " I thank Thee, O Lord,
that Thou hast suffered my child to be perfected
before me, and to receive the crown that fadeth not
away." After this, various tortures were employed

THE FORTY OF SEBASTIA 257
upon her, and she was asked again to have pity upon
herself and sacrifice ; but Julitta answered that she
would not sacrifice to devils, that she worshipped
Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and that she
was hastening to be with her child again. Her head
was at last cut off. Her little son has given his name
to one of the most famous of French schools, and her
own name is borne by at least one parish far away in
Cornwall.' Julian, a young martyr who suffered, like Claudius
and his brothers, at Aegae in Cilicia, had a reraarkable
history. For a whole year he was dragged about frora
place to place in the train of the governor of the province
— then a raan called Marcian — and exarained with tor
tures at frequent intervals. His steps were followed
frora city to city, by his devoted mother Asclepiodora,
who carried with her the linen and the spices with
which she hoped to be allowed to swathe his body after
death. One day Marcian said to hira suddenly in the
raiddle of an exaraination, " Julian, have you a mother ? "
Probably it was his intention to induce the mother to
work upon her son's feelings and make hira abjure.
Julian feared that his raother raight be seized and
tortured. It has often been raaintained by Christian
people that it is lawful to tell a lie in order to save
another's life. Julian boldly answered, " No." After
he had been reraoved from the court, Marcian inquired
what the officials in attendance had to say upon the
point. Sorae of the citizens who were present inforraed
hira that Julian's mother was alive. The young man
was recalled. "Why did you teU rae a lie," asked
Marcian, " and say that you had no raother ? " " It is
lawful for rae," he answered, " to teU a lie on behalf of
' Analecta Bollandiana, i. p. 192 ; Ruinart, p. 419.

258 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
my own mother, who has borne such fatigues for me."
Marcian said that the officials should arrange for her to
be summoned. "My raother will come," said Julian,
" and," he added, " she will not spare me." The end of
the story, as told by St. Chrysostora, was that the judge,
casting about for a raode of death which should cause
horror by its novelty, ordered JuUan to be tied up in a
sack with a nuraber of serpents and scorpions, and
thrown into the sea. Eusebius tells us of another
raartyr of the same period, named Ulpian, who was
drowned at Tyre wrapped up in a raw hide with a dog
and an asp.^
^ Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xv. p. 73 ; Acta Sanctorum, March, vol. ii.
p. 421.

CHAPTER XIV
TARACHUS, PROBUS, AND ANDRONICUS
The province of Cilicia was the scene of the trials of
three raen, whose sufferings, and whose words in the
course of suffering, are recorded for us with raore
fulness of detail than those of any other raartyrs of the
period. The president of the province at the tirae was
Flavins Gains Nuraerianus Maxiraus, — the last being the
name by which he was usually called.
Tarachus, Probus, and Andronicus had first been
brought before Maximus at the city of Pompeiopolis,
but apparently he had not been able then to go into the
case, and they were presented again to him at Tarsus by
the centurion whose business it was. The following
dialogue took place between Maximus and Tarachus : —
" What is your name ? You shall answer first, as
being the senior in rank and appearance and age." " I
ara a Christian." " Stop that impious language, and say
what your narae is." " I ara a Christian." " Hit hira
on the raouth, and say to him, ' Do not give crooked
answers.' " " I tell you the name that I bear in my
very self ; but if you ask my name in general use,
ray parents gave rae the narae of Tarachus. In the
array I was called Victor." " What is your station in
life ? " "I ara a soldier, of a Roraan faraily, born at
Claudiopolis in Isauria ; but because I am a Christian,
I deterrained lately to retire." "You raean that you
were not allowed to reraain in the army ; you were too

26o THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
impious. Who gave you leave to retire ? " "I begged
Fulvio, the head centurion, to let rae go, and he did so."
" I see your hair is grey ; I should be glad to do my
best for you in the way of proraotion, and to raake you
a friend of the eraperors, if you wiU obey rae and come
near and sacrifice to the gods. The eraperors them
selves constantly do so on behalf of the whole world."
" The emperors theraselves are grievously mistaken ;
Satan has imposed upon them." " Strike him on both
sides of his face for saying that the emperors are
mistaken." " I said, and I say again, that they are but
men, and they are deceived." " Drop your would-be
sagacity, and sacrifice, I say, to the gods of your
fathers." " I serve the God of ray fathers, not with the
blood of sacrifice, but with a pure heart. God has no
need of such sacrifices as those.'' " I respect your time
of life, and have compassion for your advancing years ;
therefore I advise you to put away all madness, and to
pay honour to the eraperors, and to show respect for
rae. Be led by me and reverence the law of our
fathers." " I will not depart frora the law of my
fathers." " Corae near then and sacrifice." " I cannot
corarait ungodliness ; I said, I honour the law of my
fathers." " Is there any other law besides this, bad
raan ? " " Yes, there is one, which you transgress in
worshipping stocks and stones, the devices of men."
" Hit him across the neck, and say to him, ' Do not
play the fool.' " " I shall never depart from this folly,
which is ray salvation." " I will cure you of this folly,
and raake a sensible raan of you.'' " Do what you
please ; my body is in your power." " Have off his
tunic, and take rods to him." " Now you have made
rae a raore sensible raan indeed ; with your stripes you
have strengthened rae to trust yet more firmly in the

TARACHUS, PROBUS, AND ANDRONICUS 261
name of God and His Christ." "Unholy, thrice accursed
man ! do you serve two gods ? You confess it yourself,
and yet you deny the gods." " I serve the God who is
God indeed." " And yet you said that Christ also is
a God." "That is so. Christ is the Son of the living
God, the hope of Christians, by whora we are saved
even though we suffer." " Stop this idle talk, and corae
and sacrifice to the gods." " It is no idle talk, but the
truth. I ara now sixty years old, and I was always
brought up to speak the truth and never to depart frora
it." Deraetrius the centurion here joined in : " Spare
yourself, raan ; listen to what I say, and sacrifice.''
" Go away," answered Tarachus ; " keep your advice
for yourself, rainister of Satan." Maxiraus said, " Let
this raan be put in heavier irons and taken to prison.
Bring the next in seniority."
Probus was presented. " Put away all foolish
language," said Maxiraus, "and tell rae what you are
called." " My first and best name is a Christian ; ray
second, by which raen call rae, is Probus." " Of what
station in life ? " " My father was a Thracian, but I
was born at Sida in Paraphylia. I ara a civilian, but
a Christian." " Little good wUl you get frora that
narae. Follow ray advice, and sacrifice to the gods,
that you raay receive honour frora the eraperors, and
be a friend of raine." " I do not want the honour of
the eraperors, nor ara I anxious for your good offices.
I had a considerable property, but I gave it up, to serve
the living God through Christ." " Take off his cloak ;
gird hira up and put him at the stretch. Beat him
with thongs of raw hide." The compassionate cen
turion Demetrius again spoke : " Spare yourself, raan ;
you see your blood running to the ground." " My body
is at your disposal," answered Probus ; " but your

262 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
punishments to rae are an anointing with sweet oint
ments." After a time, Maxiraus began again his attempts
at persuasion. " Will you not have done with this
madness now ? do you persist in it, unhappy man ? "
" I am not raad. I ara wiser than you ; I do not
serve devils." "Turn hira over and beat him on the
belly." " Lord, help Thy servant." " As you beat
him, say, ' Christian man, where is your helper ? ' "
" He has helped me, and He helps rae stiU. I care so
little for your punishraents that I will not obey you."
" Think of your body, unhappy wretch. All the floor
is covered with the blood frora it." " Let rae tell you
this : the raore my body suffers for Christ's sake, the
better it is for the health of ray soul." " Put him in
irons, and stretch him to the fourth hole. Let him
have no attention paid to him. Bring the other to the
middle of the judgment-seat."
Andronicus was placed there. "What is your
name ? " "I ara a Christian. That is what you want
to know. There ; I have told you that I ara a Chris
tian." "Those before you got no benefit from that
name. I ask you a short question ; give rae a short
answer, — your narae ? " " If you ask the common
narae that I bear araong raen, I ara called Andro
nicus." " What is your origin ? " "I ara of good
birth. My parents occupy the highest position at
Ephesus." " Get rid of all stupid fancies, and be
wUling to take ray advice. I speak to you like a
father. Those before you chose to play the fool, and
they did themselves no good by it. But you, now, be
loyal to the emperors, and sacrifice to the gods of our
fathers, and you shall find the benefit of it." "You
are right to call thera the gods of your fathers. Your
father is Satan. You are his chUdren, and you are

TARACHUS, PROBUS, AND ANDRONICUS 263
devUs like him. You do his works." "Your youth
makes you rash. It will get you into worse trouble."
" You raay think rae young in years, but in soul I ara
of fuU age for anything." " Stop that talkative tongue,
and sacrifice to the gods, that you may be spared ill
usage." " Do you think me so senseless as to do worse
than those before rae, out of whora you got nothing ?
I am readier than you are." " Take off his clothes ;
gird hira, and hang hira up." Demetrius the centurion
spoke : " Before your body is marred, take ray advice,
ray poor fellow." " It is better for ray body to be
marred than my soul. Do what you please." Maxi
raus said, " Follow my advice and sacrifice ; if I touch
you I shall cripple you." " I never have sacrificed,
not even as a chUd, and I will not sacrifice now, —
certainly not to the devils to whom you compel me
to do it." " Get to work upon hira." An officer
naraed Athanasius who was there said, " Obey the
governor. I ara old enough to be your father. I give
you good counsel." " Go away. Give good advice to
yourself, because at your years you are so void of
understanding as to persuade me to worship stones
and devils." Maximus said, "The punishments have
not yet touched you, unhappy man, because I wish
you to have compassion upon yourself, and stop this
folly, which does you no good." " This foUy of ours is
necessary for those who have hopes in Christ. 'Wisdom'
endures for a tirae and procures eternal death for those
who have it." " Who taught you this folly ? " " The
word of salvation, by which we live and shall live ; we
have a God in heaven, who is our hope of resurrection."
" Part with this folly of yours before I have you crippled
with long tortures." " My body is at your mercy.
You have the power : do what you please." " Slash

264 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
his shins as hard as you can." " Let God behold
and judge you speedUy ; I have done nothing wrong,
and yet you punish me as if I were a murderer."
" Do you caU it nothing wrong to be irreligious to the
gods and to the eraperors, and to show conterapt for
my judgment-seat ? " "I am contending for religion —
the religion of the true God." " You would be religious
if you honoured the gods, who are the objects of the
religion of the emperors." " That would be not
religion, but irreligion, if I were to forsake the living
God and worship stocks and stones." "Are the
emperors irreligious, then, villain ? " " They are, in
ray opinion ; and if you also choose to use your reason,
you know that it is irreligious to sacrifice to devils."
"Turn the instruraents the other way, and prick his
sides." " I ara at your raercy ; abuse my body as you
will." " Bring salt, and scrape his sides with pot
sherds." " Your injuries have only strengthened my
body.'' " I shall destroy you bit by bit." " I am not
afraid of your threats. My conviction is stronger than
anything that your malice can devise. I despise your
punishraents." " Put chains upon his neck and his
feet, and keep hira in prison."
Frora Tarsus the governor proceeded to Mampsista,
or Mopsuestia, and the three prisoners, according to the
coraraon custora, were taken along with hira. Tarachus
was brought into court.
" Well, well, Tarachus," said Maximus, " I suppose
that the reason why people honour old age is because
of the greater wisdom in counsel that coraes with it.
Therefore give yourself good advice, and do not to
day persist in your former notions, but sacrifice to the
gods and earn the praise of piety." " I am a Chris
tian," answered Tarachus, " and I pray that you and

TARACHUS, PROBUS, AND ANDRONICUS 265
your emperors may earn the sarae praise, and raay put
away all hardness of heart and blindness, and be quick
ened by the true God to a higher and better grounded
conviction." " Knock his mouth with stones, and say
to him, ' Cease your folly.' " " If I were not of sound
raind, I should be a fool as you are." " See, your
teeth are all loosened ; have pity on yourself, unhappy
man." " Nothing that you can do hurts me, not if you
were to cut off all my extremities. I stand steadfastly
before you in Christ which strengtheneth me." "Follow
my advice ; you had better. Come and sacrifice."
" If I knew that I had better do it, I should not suffer
as I do." " Strike hira on the raouth, and tell hira to
cry out." " When my teeth are dashed out and ray
jaws crushed, I cannot cry out." " Will you not even
now coraply, impious man ? Come to the altars, and
pour a drink-offering to the gods." " Though you have
stopped ray voice so that I cannot cry out, you cannot
hinder the thoughts of ray soul. You have raade rae
bolder and firraer." " I wUl take down your firraness,
ruffian." " I ara at your disposal ; whatever you devise,
I shall be raore than a raatch for you in the narae of
God who strengtheneth rae." " Open his hands and put
fire in thera." " I ara not afraid of your fire, which
endures for a raoraent ; but I ara afraid lest, if I were
to obey you, I should become a partaker of the eternal
fire." " Look, your hands are consuraed with the fire.
Will you leave off your raadness, senseless raan, and
sacrifice ? " " You talk to rae as if I had begged you
not to use your arts of persuasion upon ray body. I am
proof against all that you are doing to me." " Tie his feet
and hang hira up aloft by thera ; then send up a thick
smoke in his face." " I thought nothing of your fire ;
do you suppose that I shall be afraid of your smoke ? "

2 66 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
" Consent to sacrifice, now that you are hung up.''
" You raay sacrifice, sir ; you are accustoraed to
sacrificing — even to sacrificing raen. But God forbid
that I should do so." " Put strong vinegar mixed with
salt up his nostrils." " Your vinegar is sweet, and
your salt has lost its saltness." " Mix mustard with the
vinegar and pour it into his nostrils." " Your officers
are deceiving you, Maxiraus ; they gave rae honey
instead of vinegar." " I will think of some punishments
for you next court day, and will put an end to your
folly." " And I shall be the readier for your devices."
" Take him down ; put hira in chains and give him over
to the gaoler. Call the next."
"Tell me, Probus," said the governor, when he
appeared, "have you determined to be rid of the
torments, or have you not yet put away your folly ?
Corae near and sacrifice to the gods, as the emperors
do for the comraop salvation of raankind." " I am
readier than you even to-day, and the former examina
tions and pains have given rae vigour. Try rae there
fore with all the punishraents that you can think of to
proraise ; for neither you, nor your emperors, nor your
father Satan will ever persuade me to be so irapious as
to worship gods whora I do not know. My God is the
living God in heaven. I worship and serve Him."
" Are not these gods living gods, execrable man ? "
" How can they be living gods, when they consist in
stocks and stones, the works of men's hands ? Great
ignorance makes you go wrong, sir, in doing service to
thera." " Do you think that I ara wrong in adraonish-
ing you, abominable creature, and in doing service to
the gods ? " " ' Let the gods that have not made the
heavens and the earth perish,' and all who worship
them. For ' he that sacrificeth to other gods shaU be

TARACHUS, PROBUS, AND ANDRONICUS 267
utterly destroyed.' We ought to offer to the Lord of
heaven and earth, not with blood, but with praise in a
pure heart, with truth and knowledge of Himself."
" Make an end of these pernicious subtleties of yours,
and sacrifice to the gods, Probus, and be saved." " I
cannot serve many gods. The God whora I know to
be God indeed, Hira I serve and worship devoutly."
" I will not ask you to worship raany gods, as you say ;
come to the altar of Zeus and offer." " I have a God
in heaven, and Him I fear. I do not serve those whom
you call gods." " I said before, and I wUl say it again,
sacrifice to the great god, the invincible Zeus, who
watches over us." " Him whora all the poets describe
as the husband of his own sister, an adulterer and
corrupter of the young, a fornicator and profane, not to
speak of the other disgraceful and unraentionable things
attributed to hira — O unrighteous and unholy man, do
you bid me worship him ? " " Hit him in the mouth
and say to him, ' You must not blaspherae.' " " Why do
you strike me ? I told you that it was his worshippers
who say these things about him. That is no lie, but
the truth, as you very well know." " I am only
nursing your folly by not putting you to pain. Make
some irons red hot and set him to stand on them."
" Your fire is cold ; it does not burn me." " Make
thera as hot as possible and put hira on them, holding
him fast on each side." " Your fire has got cold ;
your rainisters are raocking you." " Tie him tight, and
stretch hira out, and lay his back open with raw thongs,
saying to hira, ' Sacrifice, and do not be a fool.' " " I
was not afraid of your fire, and I do not care for your
tortures. If you have any other engine of torture, use
it, that I raay show the God who is in rae." " Shave
his head, and pile burning coals upon it." " You have

268 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
burned ray feet and ray head, and have proved that 1
ara a servant of God and can bear your threats." " If
you were a servant of the gods, you would have
sacrificed to thera like a religious raan." " I am a
servant of God, not of gods who destroy those who fear
them." " Are not all those worshippers of theirs, who
stand near this judgraent-seat, honoured by the gods
and the eraperors, whUe they look upon you being
punished for speaking ill of the gods ? " " Believe me,
they are all lost unless they repent of what they have
thoughtlessly done, and unless they become servants of
the living God." " Smite his face, and make hira say
'gods,' not 'God.'" "Do you coraraand ray raouth
to be struck for saying the truth, you lawbreaker ? "
" I shall not only coraraand your raouth to be struck,
but your blaspheming tongue to be cut out, that you
may cease your fool's language and corae and sacrifice."
" If you choose to cut out the organ of speech, I have
within me the imraortal tongue with which to answer
you." " Let this one also be taken for the present into
the prison. Call Andronicus to the bar."
Andronicus had not seen or heard how his fellow-
sufferers had answered. " Those who were exarained
before you," said Maxiraus, " endured great punish
raents, and it did thera no good, my poor fellow ; not
till after all that ill-usage, and hardly then, were they
persuaded to reverence the gods. Now they are to
receive great honours from the eraperors. Make up
your mind before the tortures. Get yourself off the
punishments, and by sacrificing to the gods show
yourself a religious man and a good subject of the
Augusti, that you too raay receive suitable honours
frora them. If you will not, I swear to you by the
gods and by the invincible eraperors, the punishments

TARACHUS, PROBUS, AND ANDRONICUS 269
that I shall inflict on you for disobedience will be
no simple matter." " Do not tell me," answered
Andronicus, "that those who confessed before me
were guUty of such feebleness ; and do not imagine
that you can cheat me into yielding to crafty words.
They never denied the law of our fathers, or consented
to forsake their hopes in our God and join in your
madness ; nor will I so far fall behind them in faith
and endurance towards our Lord and God and Saviour.
I do not know your gods, and I fear neither you nor
your tribunal. Fulfil your threats. Apply your
punishraents. Get your instruraents of torture in
order. Use every endeavour against God's servant.
Force me." " Stretch hira upon the stakes, and flog
hira with raw thongs." " You have not done much to
me ; you proraised rae something great, and swore by
the gods and by those emperors whora you consider
to be gods. Are these your threats ? " Athanasius,
who had before endeavoured to persuade hira, said,
" Your whole body is one wound, ray poor fellow, and
do you think that nothing ? " " Those who love a
living God," replied Andronicus, " do not care for these
things." Maxiraus said, " Sprinkle salt upon his back."
" You raust have more salt than that sprinkled,"
retorted the sufferer, "if I ara to keep, and to be able
to withstand your cruelty." " Turn hira over, and beat
hira on the beUy, that his first stripes raay be torn open
again and may get down to his marrow." " I was
wounded with your first tortures, and yet aU ray body
is sound, as you saw when I stood at your bar just
now. He who attended me then will heal rae again."
" Did I not give orders, rascally soldiers, that they
were to receive no attention frora any one, but to
reraain uncared for, so that they raight be reduced

270 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
by their wounds and so comply ? " One of the
turnkeys answered, " By your greatness, no one took
any care of them, nor has any one been in to see
them. They were kept in chains in the inraost ward."
" How then do their wounds not raake raore show?"
" I do not know how they healed up, by your
excellence." " Foolish man," said Andronicus, " our
Saviour and Physician is great, and He heals those
who are true to God without applying remedies. He
heals those who hope in Hira by His word. He dwells
in heaven, but He is with us wherever we are. You
do not know Hira ; you have no understanding."
" Those foolish speeches wUl do you no good ; but
come and sacrifice to the gods, or I shall do away with
you in a horrible manner." " Once and again I have
told you the selfsarae thing. I am not a child, to
be coaxed and deceived with words." " You shall
not get the victory over me, or despise rae and my
judgment-seat." " Neither wUl we be conquered by
your threats, whether in words or in tortures. You
shall find us true champions of God, who enables us
through Christ our Saviour. Perhaps even you, sir,
begin partly to see that we shall not be afraid of you
and of your ill-usage." " Let a variety of instruments
of torture be prepared for me against his next exaraina
tion, and let this man be secured in irons and taken
back to prison. Let no one see them in their
confineraent." The third exaraination took place at Anazarbus.
" Has the respite frora scourging made you willing
at last to give up your impudent profession, Tarachus ?
Come and sacrifice to the gods, by whora the universe
stands." " God forbid that the world should be
governed by those beings for whom is prepared the

TARACHUS, PROBUS, AND ANDRONICUS 271
fire and the everlasting punishment, and not for them
only, but for all you who do their will."' "WUl you
stop your blasphemy, criminal ? Do you think that
such effrontery wUl gain you your end, by making rae
cut your head off and set you free ? " " If I were to
die quickly, that would be no great trial. Now do what
raore you please, that the reward of ray conflict in the
Lord raay be increased." " You have suffered no raore
than other classes of prisoners who are tortured by the
law." "That is another proof of your want of under
standing and of your gross blindness. You do not see
that the workers of wickedness deserve to be punished
thus, while those who suffer for Christ's sake obtain a
recorapense frora Hira." " Detestable crirainal, what
recompense do you expect after a horrible death ? "
" You have no right so much as to ask about it, or
to be told what reward is in store for us. That is
why we subrait to your insane threats." " Wretch, do
you speak to rae as if you were my equal ? " "I ara
not your equal, and I pray that I never may be ; but I
have liberty to speak, and no man can stop me, through
God which strengtheneth me by Christ." " I wUl cut
that liberty out, you ruffian." " No one can take away
ray liberty — neither you, nor your eraperors, nor your
father Satan, nor the devils whora you are so raisguided
as to serve." " The very fact that I talk with you con
firras you in your frenzy, impious wretch." " You
have only yourself to blame. My God whom I serve
knows that I abhor the very sight of you, and much
less do I wish to converse with you." " Now, consider
what it would be to have no more tortures, and corae
and sacrifice." " Both in my first confession at Tarsus,
and in my second examination at Mampsista likewise, I
confessed that I was a Christian, and I ara the sarae

272 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
person here. Believe rae, that is the truth." " When
once I have killed you with tortures, what will you gain
by repenting, unhappy raan?" " If I had meant to
repent, I should have been afraid of your first blows,
and of your second, and should have done what you
wished. Now I am established, and in the Lord
I do not care for you. Do what you please, shameless
man." " I have made you more shameless by not
punishing you." " I told you before, and I say it
again : you have my body in your power ; do what you
please." " Bind hira and hang him up, that he may
not be a fool." " If I were a fool, like you, I should
join in your impieties." " Now that you are hung up,
do what I tell you, before you undergo the pains you
deserve." " Although, to begin with, you have no right
over my person, to torture in this way an old soldier,
which is illegal, still I raake no objection to your mad
ness. Do what you please." " A soldier honours the
gods and the Augusti, and receives gifts and promotions
for his piety ; but you were impious, and were dis
missed from the army in disgrace. I shall order you
to be worse tortured for it." " Do what you please. I
have asked you to do so again and again. Why do you
put it off ? " " Do not flatter yourself, as I said before,
that I am disposed to put you quickly out of existence.
I shall execute you inch by inch, and give your remains
to the beasts." " What you do, do at once. Do not
proraise without perforraing." " Crirainal, you think
that after death your body will be tended by silly
woraen and anointed with sweet ointraents ; but I shall
take care, with regard to that, that your reraains shall
be destroyed." " 111 use my body now, and when you
have killed me, do what you please with it." " Come
near, I say, and sacrifice to the gods." " I told you

TARACHUS, PROBUS, AND ANDRONICUS 273
once for all, but it makes no impression on you, that
I will neither sacrifice to your gods nor worship your
abominations." " Take hold of his cheeks and rip
them up." " You have disfigured and marred my face,
but you refresh my soul the more." " Wretched raan,
you compel rae to behave very uncorafortably towards
you." " Do not think to terrify rae with words. I ara
ready for you at every point. I wear the armour of
God." "Thrice accursed creature, what armour do
you wear ? — tell rae. You are naked, and all over
wounds." " You do not know these things. You
cannot see ray panoply. You are blind." " I ara
patient with your raadness. For all your exasperating
answers I shall not disraiss you sumraarUy frora your
body.'' " What harra have I spoken ? You cannot, I
repeat, see rae and what I have on, not being pure in
heart, but irreligious and an eneray to the servants of
God." " I understand that you have long lived a bad
life, and, as sorae tell me, you are a sorcerer as you
stand here at the bar." " I never was so, nor am now,
for I do not serve devils as you do, but God, who gives
rae endurance and suggests to me the word that I shall
speak to you." "Those words will do you no good.
Sacrifice, that you may have an end of ill-treatment."
" Do you take me for a witless fool, not to listen to
God and hve for ever, but to you who would do ray
body good for a season and destroy ray soul for ever
and ever ? " " Make sorae spits red-hot and run thera
into his breasts." " You raay do raore than that, and
yet never induce God's servant to yield and to worship
the figures of devils." "Bring a razor and take his
ears off. Shave his head and put red-hot coals about
it." " You have taken away ray ears, but the ears of
ray heart are as sound as ever." "Take the skin off

274 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
his cursed head with the razor and cover it with red-
hot coals." " If you were to order all my body to be
flayed, I will not leave ray God, who strengthens me
to endure your weapons of wickedness." " Take those
hot irons and put thera under his armpits." " May
God behold and judge you to-day." "What God do
you call upon, accursed wretch ?^— tell me." " One
whom you know not, though He is near us, who will
render to each according to his works." " I am not
going to kill you outright, so that, as I said before, they
may wrap your remains in linen and whimper over
them and worship thera ; but I give you a dreadful
death, and order you to be burned, and I shall scatter
abroad the ashes of your body." " I told you before,
and I say again, do what you please. You have re
ceived power in this world." " Let hira be taken back
to prison and kept for the next wild beast fight. Bring
the second. " Have you reflected and taken counsel with your
self, Probus, that you may not fall into the same pains
which you yourself endured some tirae ago, and which
the last unfortunate wretch has endured ? I think you
have, and ara persuaded that like a sensible man you
have changed your mind and are prepared to sacrifice,
that you may be honoured by us, having proved your
self devout towards the gods. Come near and do it."
" We have but one way of thinking, sir, for we serve
God, both of us. Do not iraagine that you wUl hear
anything from rae but what you have already heard
and learned. It wUl be of no use to flatter, nor will
you persuade rae by threatening, nor unman my
courage by your idle talk. I stand before you to-day
a bolder man than before, and I despise your fury.
What are you waiting for, foolish man ? Why do you

TARACHUS, PROBUS, AND ANDRONICUS 275
not make bare your madness ? " " You have agreed
together now to be impious and to deny the gods."
" You have spoken the truth ; for once you have not
lied, though as a rule you lie. We have conspired
together in religion, and in regard to our conflict and
confession ; therefore we withstand your malice in the
Lord." " Before you raeet worse treatraent at ray
hands, reflect, and raake an end of this folly of yours.
Pity yourself. Be willing to take my paternal advice,
and pay reverence to the gods." " I see that you will
believe nothing at all, sir ; but beheve rae when I swear
to you by ray good confession towards God, that neither
you, nor the devils that you are raisguided enough to
worship, nor your father Satan, nor those who have
given you power against us, shall be able to overthrow
our faith and affection towards God." " Bind him and
gird him, and then hang him up by the toes." " Will
you not cease your iniquity, wicked tyrant, contending
on behalf of the devils which you resemble ? " " Be
guided by rae before you suffer. Spare your own body.
You see what pains are before you." " AU that you do
to rae is profitable to ray soul ; therefore, do what you
please." " Heat the spits and put them to his sides,
that he may not be a fool." " The more fool you think
me, the wiser I ara to God." " Heat the spits once
raore, and burn well into his back." " My body is at
your disposal. Let God behold frora heaven ray shame
and ray endurance, and judge between rae and you."
"Wretched raan, the very God whora you invoke has
given you over to suffer these things, as your choice
deserves." " My God is a lover of men, and wishes no
harra to any raan ; but every man knows what is best
for hiraself, and has his free will and is raaster of his
own mind." " Pour some wine off the altars upon

276 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
him, and put sorae flesh in his mouth." " Lord Jesus
Christ, Son of the living God, behold this violence from
Thy holy height and give sentence with me." "You
have endured a great deal, unhappy raan, and yet see,
you have tasted of the altar. What can you do now ? "
" It was no great stroke of business to pour over me by
violence, as best you could, against my will, of your
unclean sacrifices. God knows ray wUl." "You both
ate and drank, idiot. Proraise to do it for yourself,
and you shall be taken down out of your bonds." " I
defy you, lawbreaker, to overcome my confession. Let
me tell you that if you were to pour upon rae of all
your unclean raeats at once you will do rae no harm,
for God in heaven sees the violence done to me,"
" Heat the spits and burn the lower part of his legs
right through." " Neither your fire, nor your tortures,
nor (as I have told you raany tiraes) your father Satan
shall induce God's servant to abandon the confession
of the true God." "There is no part of your body
-still sound, unhappy wretch, and do you not yet under
stand ? " "I gave my body over to you for this pur
pose, that my soul might remain sound and unspotted."
" Heat sorae sharp nails and pierce his hands with
thera." "Glory to Thee, O Lord Jesu Christ, that
Thou hast vouchsafed even to allow ray hands to be
nailed for Thy name's sake." " So raany tortures are
beginning to make you still more foolish, Probus."
" So rauch power, Maxiraus, and your raalice, which
is without raeasure, have made you not only foolish
but blind, for you know not what you do." "Villain,
how dare you call one who contends for piety towards
the gods fooUsh and bUnd ? " "I wish that you were
blind in your eyes, and not blind in heart ; now you
think that you see, while you are gazing in darkness,"

TARACHUS, PROBUS, AND ANDRONICUS 277
" With your whole body disabled, do you accuse me,
miserable creature, because I have left your eyes still
uninjured?" "Even if your cruelty should tear my
eyes out of my body, the eyes of my heart cannot be
blinded by men." " I shall cut out your eyes, foolish
raan, and punish you in that way also." " Do not
promise without perforraing. You cannot terrify the
servant of God. If you do it indeed, you cannot
injure ray invisible eye." "Put his eyes out, that
though he has a little while to live he raay have no
light," "There ; you have taken away ray bodily eyes,
but I defy you, cruel tyrant, to deprive rae of ray living
eye." " Can you talk like that in the dark, wretch ? "
" If you knew the darkness that is in you, you would
call rae blessed, ungodly man." " Your whole body is
dead, and will you not leave off this idle talk, wretched
creature?" " As long as my breath reraains in rae, I will
not cease to speak by God's help, who strengthens rae
in Christ," " After all these tortures, do you expect stiU
to live ? I assure you that I shall not leave you to die
for yourself." "This is why I strive to contend with
you, accursed raan, that ray good confession raay be
raade perfect, and that I raay die at your hands in
whatever raanner it raay be, merciless hater of men."
" I shall destroy inch by inch, as you deserve." " You
have the power, proud underling of tyrants." "Take
hira away and load hira with irons, and keep hira
in the prison. Let none of their tribe have access
to thera, to congratulate them on what they have gone
through at ray hands for their irapiety. After the
session he shall certainly be given to the wUd beasts.
Call that ruffian Andronicus.
" Andronicus, have you at last had pity upon your
youth, and taken wise counsel with yourself to reverence

278 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
the gods, or are you still in the same mad mind,
which can do yoti no good ? If you will not listen to
me, and sacrifice to the gods, and pay due honour
to the emperors, you will get no comfort nor pity
from me ; so come near and sacrifice and be saved."
" No blessing corae to you, you enemy and alien to
all truth ! tyrant, with less remorse than any wild
beast ! I have borne aU your threats, and now do
you think to persuade me by what in your wicked
ness you illegally coraraand to be done to punish the
servants of God ? No, you shall not undo ray con
fession towards God. I stand here to defy your
savage devices in the Lord, and will show you that
the resolution of ray soul is young and strong," " I
believe that you are mad and have a devU." " If I
had a devil, I should obey you ; not having one,
I will not obey. You are a devil and nothing else,
and you do the deeds of devils." "The men who
preceded you said what they pleased, as you do, till
they were tortured. Afterwards they were persuaded
by the severity of the inflictions to reverence the
gods, and came to be loyal to the Augusti, and
poured drink-offerings to them, and are saved," " It
is all in keeping with your evil belief to lie ; for the
beings whora you are misguided enough to serve did
not abide in the truth. You are a liar, like your
father. Therefore God shall speedily judge you,
minister of Satan and of all the devUs." " Let Him
do so, if I do not treat you as the impious wretch
that you are, and bring down your stubbornness."
" I shaU fear neither you nor your thareats in the
name of my God." " Bring fire, and tie sraall wisps
of burning stuff and hold them to bis belly." "If
yoti could burn me all up and yet keep me alive.

TARACHUS, PROBUS, AND ANDRONICUS 279
you should not prevail against rae, accursed tyrant.
The God whom I serve is with me and strengthens
me." " How long will you be such a fool as to
refuse ? Do you not wish at least to die for your
self ? " " As long as I hve, I shall prevail against
your malice, I ara eager to be wholly destroyed by
you. That is ray boast in God." " Drive in the
red-hot spits between his fingers.'' " Senseless man,
the enemy of God, full of all devices of Satan, when
you see my body consuraed with your tortures, do
you StiU think that I ara afraid of your devices ? I
have within rae the God whom I serve through Jesus
Christ. I despise you." " Fool, do you not know
that He whom you are calling upon was a man
who, under the authority of a governor named Pilate,
was fastened to the cross for His crimes ? Records
of it are preserved." " Be silent, accursed raan !
You are not allowed to say such things. You are
not worthy to speak of Hira, impious creature ! If
you were so blessed as to be worthy, you would not
practise these impieties upon the servants of God.
But now, being alienated from the hope that is in
Him, you have not only lost yourself, but are en
deavouring to force those who are His, Transgressor ! "
"What good wUl you get, desperate wretch, by faith
and hope in that criminal Christ of whom you speak ? "
" I have already got good, and shall get raore ; it
is by that means that I hear all this," " I do not
mean to use instruments of torture to do away with
you quickly. You shall be given to the beasts, and
shall see your raembers devoured one after another
before you are rid of life," "Why, are you not
more savage than any beast, and raore ruthless than
any murderer, because you have punished men who

28o THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
have done no wrong, and are not even accused of
doing wrong, as if they were murderers ? I serve
my God in Christ, then ; I do not ask to be excused
your threats. Bring the raost forraidable instrument
of torture that you can think of. You shall find
that I have courage." " Open his raouth first, and
put flesh from the altars in it ; and pour wine into
it." " O Lord ray God, behold the violence done
to me ! " " What wUl you do now, miserable creature ?
You would not reverence thera nor sacrifice to them,
and now you have tasted of their altars." " O blind
and senseless fool of a tyrant, you poured it down
ray throat by raain force. God knows ; He under
stands the thoughts, and He is able also to deliver
me from the wrath of Satan and his rainisters."
" How long wiU you play the stupid fool, and utter
this nonsense which brings you no benefit ? " "I
expect to reap the benefit from God, and that is
why I endure all this ; but you do not understand
what I look for, that makes rae steadfast." " How
long wUl you be a fool ? I will crop your tongue,
and stop your nonsense that way. You show me that
I am to blarae, because ray forbearance has made
you more of a fool than you were." " I entreat you
to do it : cut away the lips and tongue on which
you flatter yourself that you laid your pollutions."
" Fool, after all your obstinacy under punishment,
see — as I said, you have tasted those meats." "Woe
be to you, execrable tyrant, and woe be to those
who have given you this power, for defiling rae with
those abominable sacrifices. But you shall see what
you have done against the servant of God." " Do
you dare to speak despitefuUy of the emperors, vUlain,
— the emperors who have given so profound a peace

TARACHUS, PROBUS, AND ANDRONICUS 281
to the world ? " "I did and I will speak despitefully
of them, plagues and bloodbibbers that they are,
who have turned the world upside down ; and may
God, with His imraortal hand, not being longsuffering
with thera, requite thera with such a chastisement
that they raay know what they are doing to His
servants." " Put an iron into his raouth and dash
out his teeth, and take out his irapudent, blaspheming
tongue, that he may learn not to blaspheme against
the Augusti ; and burn the villain's tongue and teeth
to ashes and sprinkle thera about, every fragraent,
that no foolish woraen belonging to his irapious
religion raay keep an eye upon them, and get hold
of thera, and preserve thera as precious and sacred
things. And take the man himself, and consign him
to the prison and keep hira, that in company with
his irapious associates he raay be given to the beasts
to-raorrow." The Christians of Anazarbus, or of Tarsus, paid
two hundred denarii to one of the agents of the
governor's court to raake a transcript of the official
Acta, or record, of this trial, and sent it to the
brethren at Iconium, and here it now is. As we
read it, we seem to be standing in the court, and
watching and listening to the raagistrate and the
raartyrs. It is indeed like a duel between thera, — the
judge deterrained not to kiU thera if he can help it,
but to make them obey orders ; they, even more
determined to endure. It is not to be wondered at
that, in the heat of such a conflict, words were some
times wrung frora the lips of the sufferers which
were hardly in accordance with Christian raeekness.
The voice of indignant protest was no less needed
at the tirae than that of resignation and subraission ;

282 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
and it was well that in an age of heartless tyranny
presidents and proconsuls, and eraperors theraselves,
should be told plainly what the human conscience
felt under such oppression, even if the utterance
occasionally hardened the magistrate's heart instead
of softening it, and stung him to further cruelties,'
' Ruinart, p. 375.

CHAPTER XV
THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE
Some brave confessions took place in Syria, as else
where. Cyril, the Bishop of Antioch, was sent into
exUe, to work in the raines of Pannonia. But most of
the martyrdoras at Antioch appear to have been those
of strangers to the city. There Tyrannio, the Bishop
of Tyre, was thrown into the sea. There Zenobius, a
priest and physician of Sidon, perished under torture.
The Christians of Antioch themselves were more
terrified than inspired by these examples. Christian
men, accorapanied by their wives and children, went
together in crowds to sacrifice to the idols. A deacon
and exorcist of Caesarea in Palestine, whose name was
Romanus, had left his home for Antioch at the time
when the churches were destroyed. He saw one of
these groups of unhappy apostates approaching the
heathen altars, and his spirit was grieved beyond endur
ance. With a loud voice he called upon them to desist
from their sin, and to return to their Christian allegiance.
Naturally, he was at once arrested. The local raagis
trate, who was presiding at the interrupted sacrifices,
ordered him to be burned. He was tied to the stake,
and the faggots were heaped about him. But the
eraperor Galerius was hiraself in Antioch at the
moment. The magistrate thought it necessary to
report to him what was taking place. Romanus grew
impatient at the delay, and asked repeatedly, " Where
283

284 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
is my fire ? where is my fire ? " But his end was not
to come so speedily. Galerius sent for him, and com
muted his sentence for a more cruel one. He ordered
the deacon's tongue, which had dissuaded others from
the service of the gods, to be cut out by the roots.
Roraanus willingly gave every facility for the horrible
operation. According to sorae accounts, which there
is no reason to disbelieve, the brave man could stiU
make himself understood when his tongue was gone,
and during an imprisonraent of raany raonths used his
remaining powers of speech to confirm his feUow Chris
tians in their faith. When the festival of Diocletian's
twentieth year oi sovereignty was kept, and the other
inraates of the prison at Antioch were set at Uberty,
Roraanus was alone detained, with his feet day and
night stretched in the stocks to the fifth hole. At
length they gave hira his liberty in the form which
he most desired. A noose was thrown round his
neck, and he passed by death to the presence of his
Lord.i There were some at Antioch, of whom Eusebius
speaks, who, rather than touch the heathen sacrifices,
were wilhng to hold their right hands in the fire till they
were consuraed. Sorae, less nobly, sought refuge in
suicide, and threw theraselves headlong frora the tops
of their houses. One distinguished lady, who had
two beautiful and devout daughters, contrived to send
thera out of the country, thinking that they might be
safer abroad. The authorities discovered where they
were, and fetched them back to Antioch. Attended
by an escort of soldiers, the two girls and their
raother were on their way to the court of law, where
they had reason to fear that worse things than
^ Eusebius, De Mart. Palaest. 2.

THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE 285
raartyrdora awaited thera. They had taken counsel
together, and their resolution was forraed. The road
lay along the bank of the river Orontes. They begged
their attendants to loose their hold of thera for a
raoraent, and, gathering their garraents round them,
the three plunged into the river and were drowned.
Another pair of sisters at Antioch were thrown into the
sea by their persecutors.^
The conflicts of the raartyrs of Palestine were
recorded by the hand of the historian Eusebius, hiraself
a presbyter of the chief city of Palestine, Caesarea, and
afterwards its bishop.
The first whose raartyrdora he records was a man
of the narae of Procopius. Procopius was a native of
Jerusalera, and lived at Scythopolis, the Bethshan of
the Bible, where he held the offices of reader and
exorcist. His life frora early youth had been that of
an ascetic. Bread and water were his only food, and
of these at tiraes he partook only on alternate days.
He was often known to go without food for a week
together. Day and night he was occupied in the study
of the Scriptures, and in translating Greek books of
edification into the Araraaic of his country. Along with
other Christian confessors he was brought, at the very
outset of the persecution, to Caesarea. Iraraediately
upon his arrival at the gate of that city, without having
even visited the prison, he was brought before the
governor, who required him to sacrifice to the gods.
" There is but one God, the Alraighty," Procopius
answered. The governor refused to argue the question,
and begged Procopius, if he would not acknowledge
the gods, to burn incense to the eraperors, of whora
there were four. Procopius burst out laughing, and
' Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii. 12.

2 86 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
replied with a quotation from the Iliad, where Homer
says —
" It is not good to have lords many ;
Let One be Lord, One King."
The governor did not understand, perhaps, the spiritual
meaning which the Christian put upon these verses ; in
any case he considered the language treasonable, and
condemned Procopius to be beheaded.^
Many of the leading Christians of the neighbouring
churches were soon called upon to follow the example
of Procopius. Some, Eusebius says, failed from the
first. Others passed from torture to torture, were
scourged, were racked, had their sides crimped, were
loaded with heavy irons, so that some of them lost the
use of their hands. In raany cases the officials were
satisfied with an unreal appearance of success. One
raan was dragged to the altar, both his hands held fast
by attendants on either side ; sorae of the sacrificial
meat was placed by force in his right hand, and he was
disraissed. Another never even touched the sacrifice,
but the bystanders shouted that he had sacrificed, and
he went free. Another was brought from prison in a
fainting condition, and thrown on one side for dead:
his chains were taken off, and he was reckoned as having
sacrificed. Others again, who veheraently protested
that they had neither sacrificed nor intended to do so,
were struck on the raouth, and their cries were drowned
by the shouts around thera, and they were hustled out
of court. Out of all this number two only were put to death.
Their naraes were Alphaeus and Zacchaeus. The latter,
who was a deacon at Gadara, was so called by his friends
' YxiS^wis, De Mart. Palaest. I. Cp. Texte und Untersuchungen, vo\. xiv.,
part 4, p. 3.

THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE 287
because, like the publican of Jericho, he was little of
stature, and because he was so earnestly desirous to see
the Lord. He joyfully bore his testiraony before the
raagistrate under torture, and was thrown for a night
into the stocks. Alphaeus, who was a reader and
exorcist at Caesarea itself, set himself strenuously to
persuade his feebler brethren not to comply with the
coramand to sacrifice. His unconcealed activity in this
behalf soon brought him before the magistrate. There
he delivered his beliefs with eloquence and freedom,
was tortured, and cast into the stocks like Zacchaeus.
After three days the two men were again brought into
court. The raagistrate bade thera sacrifice to the
emperors ; but they answered, " We know but one
King, the King of aU." Their offence was like that of
Procopius, and it was visited with a similar penalty.
The two raen were beheaded together, sorae five months
after the death of Procopius.^
In the following year, which was the second year
of the persecution, the difficulties of the Christians in
Palestine were increased. A raore severe governor,
named Urban, took the place of Flavian, under whom
Alphaeus and Zacchaeus had suffered, and two fresh
and raore forraidable edicts carae from headquarters, of
which the second prescribed that all the inhabitants of
every city, man, woman, and child, should be corapeUed
to join in a coraraon sacrifice.
The town of Gaza had the reputation of being a
bigotedly heathen town. One Christian inhabitant of
Gaza, who bore the name of Timothy, had long endured
Ul-treatraent frora his fellow-citizens on account of his
reUgion. When the edict was put in execution at Gaza,
' Eusebius, De Mart. Palaest. i. Cp. Texte und Unt. (as above), p. 7.

288 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
Tiraothy naturally found his way to prison. After a
brave confession before Urban, and the usual tortures,
he was conderaned to die by fire, but Urban expressly
ordered that the fire should be a slow one, — no doubt
in order to give hira the opportunity of changing his
mind. So, like gold in the furnace, as the historian
says, the faith of Timothy was proved true.
Two other Christians, a raan named Agapius and a
woraan naraed Thecla, who were Phrygians by birth,
had been seized at Gaza at the sarae time with Tiraothy,
but another fate was assigned to thera. A great festi
val was approaching, and Urban deterrained to add a
special interest to the celebration of it by announcing
that, besides horse-races in the circus at Caesarea, a
gala perforraance in the theatre, and other interesting
spectacles, these two Christians, along with some others
who came from Phrygia, would fight with wUd beasts.
The sensation throughout Palestine was iraraense, for
such exhibitions had not been coraraon in the country.
On the day appointed, six stalwart young raen tied one
another's hands fast behind their backs, and running up
at full speed, just as Urban set foot on the stairs of
the araphitheatre, loudly proclairaed that they were
Christians, and offered to show that they were not
afraid of wild beasts. One of the six, Tiraolaus, was a
native of the distant province of Pontus ; another,
Dionysius, carae from Tripoli in Phoenicia ; Romulus,
the third, was a subdeacon of Diospolis ; two were
Egyptians, naraed Paesis and Alexander ; and the sixth,
another Alexander, belonged to Gaza. As soon as the
governor and his attendants recovered frora the first
shock of surprise, the six were sent to prison. There
they were visited by the corapassionate brother of the
last-named Alexander, a second Agapius of Gaza, who

THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE 289
had already several tiraes borne gallant testimony to
his faith, and by another Christian naraed Dionysius,
who ministered to their necessities. So assiduous were
these two in their attentions to the prisoners, that
Urban ordered their arrest ; and after a few days all
the eight were brought out together, conderaned, and
beheaded.^ It seeras that Eusebius intends us to understand
that the woraan Thecla perished by the wild beasts to
which she was exposed ; but her corapanion, Agapius,
survived for raany a tedious day. For two years and a
half he laj' in his prison at Caesarea. Thrice at least
during that long tirae he was led out with raalefactors
to execution ; but on each occasion the governor, either
in pity, or in the hope of persuading hira to abjure
Christ, only threatened him and sent hira back. But
in November 306 the cruel emperor Maxirain carae to
Caesarea to keep his birthday. The place was, of course,
en fete. It was the custom for the eraperor on such
occasions to treat the populace to some fine show of
strange creatures from foreign countries, or of acrobats
and jugglers. But the only novelty which Maximin had
to offer was that of a pair of crirainals to be exposed to
the wUd beasts. Before one of thera was carried a
placard announcing that he was a Christian, Agapius ;
the other was a slave who had murdered his master.
No sooner were they presented before Maxirain than
the emperor, araidst shouts of applause for his cleraency,
bestowed a free pardon upon the raurderer, before he
had even seen the wild beasts, and gave him his raanu-
raission frora slavery. Agapius, on the other hand,
after being led round the araphitheatre araidst the
' Eusebius, De Mart. Palaest. 3. Cp. Texte und Unt. (as above), p. 15.
T

290 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
derision of the spectators, was asked by the eraperor
whether he would abandon his Christianity, in which
case he would be set at liberty. He refused, and with
a loud voice called the multitude to witness that it was
for no crirae that he was conderaned, but for his belief
in the one Alraighty God, and that for this belief he
would gladly die, in order that his endurance raight
encourage younger Christians to despise death for the
sake of eternal life. Upon this the cages were opened ;
and Agapius ran and flung hiraself into the arras of a
great she-bear, which tore him, but did not kill him.
For one more night he was taken back to prison ; but
the next day they tied stones to his feet, and dropped
him into the sea.^
A simUar death had been inflicted a little earlier in
the year upon one in whom the historian Eusebius was
more deeply interested. A young man of nineteen
years of age, named Apphian, who belonged to a
distinguished family in Lycia, had been sent by his
heathen parents to complete his education at Beyrout,
That city was as faraous at the tirae for its luxurious
vices as it was for its schools ; but Apphian was proof
against the seductions of the society into which he was
thrown, and surprised every one who observed him by
the purity and severity of his life. When his course
at Beyrout was ended, he returned to his Lycian home ;
but during his absence, as it seeras, he had erabraced
the Christian faith, and, finding the heathen atraosphere
in which his parents lived intolerable, he deterrained to
run away. Taking no means of subsistence with him,
but casting himself wholly upon the providence of God,
he found himself at Caesarea. It was the very place for
1 Eusebius, De Mart. Palaest. 6, Cp, Texte und Unt. (as above), p. 47-

THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE 291
a studious young Christian. There was the vast library
of the learned Paraphilus, who had gathered round hira
a community of students, of whora Eusebius himself
was one. Apphian was welcomed into the comraunitv',
to which a brother of his already belonged, and threw
himself with ardour into the teaching of Paraphilus,
living, like his master, a life of stern asceticism.
Apphian had been at Caesarea for nearly a year,
when an edict was received, requiring the attendance of
the whole population at sacrificial rites. Criers passed
through the streets suraraoning raen, woraen, and
children to the teraples, where railitary officers stood,
furnished with lists of the inhabitants, and calling thera
over, narae by narae. Urban, the governor, was hiraself
in the very act of pouring a libation, when the young
Apphian, who had told no one what he intended to do,
slipped through the band of soldiers and officials in
attendance upon hira, seized the governor by the right
hand and bade him desist frora the idolatrous proceeding.
With gentle earnestness he warned hira that it was not
well to turn frora the one true God and to sacrifice to
devils. Naturally the guards fell upon the audacious youth,
and with no very merciful handling carried him off into
the darkness of the prison, where they left him for the
night with his legs stretched in the torturing stocks.
Next day he appeared before Urban. The governor
bade him sacrifice, and he refused. Then began a
dreadful series of tortures. Again and again the young
man's ribs were laid open. Blows fell about his head
and neck till his face was so swollen and disfigured
that no one could have recognised him. As he still
reraained firm, Urban told them to soak sorae rags
in oil, and wrap thera about his legs, and set fire to thera.

292 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
The juices of his body exuded and dripped with the
heat ; but Apphian was undaunted. To all questions
about himself, his origin, his lodging-place, he only
replied from time to time that he was a Christian,
They took hira back once raore to the prison, and next
day he was sentenced to death by drowning, Eusebius
hiraself and all the city of Caesarea with him were
eyewitnesses of the sequel. An earthquake — no un
comraon phenomenon in those parts — shook the city,
A violent storra arose in the sea. Araidst the roaring
and raging of the eleraents, the body of the young
raartyr was thrown up by the waves at the very gate
of the city.'
His brother Aedesius was deterrained not to be
outdone by Apphian, Superior to Apphian in learning,
and well acquainted with Latin literature as well as
Greek, he was condemned, soon after his brother's
death, to servile labour in the copper mines of Pales
tine, Upon his release, he followed for some time
the austere profession of a philosopher. He found
hiraself at Alexandria when Hierocles, the governor
of Egypt, pronounced a shocking sentence upon some
Christian girls. The indignant Aedesius strode up to
the raagistrate and not only told hira what right-
rainded men thought of such sentences, but with his
right hand and his left slapped him in the face, and
threw him backwards to the ground. A deed so like
to that of Apphian was rewarded with a similar end,
and after a course of tortures Aedesius, like his brother,
was thrown into the sea and drowned.^
Five months after the raartyrdora of Agapius at
1 Eusebius, De Mart. Pal. 4; Analecta Bolland, xvi. p. 122. Cp. Texte
und Unt. (as above), p. 24.
2 Eusebius, De Mart. Pal. 5 ; Analecta Bolland. xvi. p, 126. Cp. Texte
und Unt. (as above), p. 43.

THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE 293
Caesarea, on the very day which the Church was
keeping as Easter Sunday, a batch of Christian prisoners
was sitting before the place of judgment, in the sarae
city, awaiting trial, when a raaiden named Theodosia
approached to pay them her respects. She was a
native of Tyre, and was not yet fully eighteen years old.
She iraplored the brave confessors to reraeraber her
when they carae to the Lord. The guards arrested
her, as if she had coraraitted a crirae, and presented
her before the governor. Upon her refusal to sacrifice.
Urban had her sides and her breasts ripped open, but
she bore the pain and indignity with a countenance
of joy. Once raore she was invited to sacrifice ; but
opening wide her young eyes and srailing at the
governor, she said, " What raakes you think like that ?
You are raistaken, raan. I have got the very thing I
prayed for. I am permitted to join the company of
the martyrs." At length the governor coraraanded her
to be thrown into the sea. The constancy of Theo
dosia made Urban deal less severely with the rest.
He did not wish for any more such scenes at the
moment. He said not a word to any of the prisoners.
No torture was inflicted upon them. They were all
condemned to the copper mines, and were led away
in a body.-'
In the following Noveraber — the fifth day of the
month — Urban had a pitched battle with the Chris
tians. " How much harra he did on that one day," says
Eusebius, " we raust now relate." He began by sending
to the raines of Phaeno a priest of Gaza, naraed Silvanus,
who lived to becorae a bishop and a raartyr, together
with a group of his followers, who had raade a brave
^ Eusebius De Mart. Pal. 7 ; Analecta Bolland. xvi. p. 127, Cp. Texte
und Unt. (as above), p, 52.

294 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
stand for their faith. But before sending them to
their penal servitude he gave the shocking order that
each of thera was to have the sinews of one ankle made
useless by being seared with a hot iron. A handsome
and well-inforraed young raan named Doraninus, who
had distinguished himself among the Christians of
Palestine by the frequency and boldness of his con
fessions, and had already suffered in the mines, was
burned alive. A reverend old raan, by narae Auxentius,
was killed by the wild beasts. For others, the inventive
ness of Urban was set to work to devise other punish
raents. Some were mutilated in a way too abominable
to describe. Three fine strong young raen were given
over to the captain of the gladiators, to be prepared
to fight for their lives in the deadly boxing-gloves of
the time. These three, Uke the three young men in
Daniel, refused to eat the daily portion provided for
their nourishment, or to go through the required
exercises. Their trainers, after some tirae, finding it
irapossible to do anything with such refractory subjects,
reported thera to the governor, and he in turn to the
emperor Maxirain hiraself. Maximin, seeing that neither
starvation nor flogging had any effect upon them,
ordered that the left foot of each should be disabled,
and their right eyes cut out with knives and the
bleeding sockets seared with hot irons, and that they
should then be sent to the raines. Eusebius saw
ninety-seven other Christians treated in this barbarous
manner. They were Egyptians, who were transferred
from the porphyry quarries of the Thebaid to Palestine ;
some of thera were quite little children.'
But the deed which raade that fifth of Noveraber so
1 Eusebius, De Mart. Pal. 7 and 8. Cp. Texte und Unt. (as above),
p. 58.

THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE 295
sad, yet glorious, a day to Eusebius was the arrest of
his special friend, the learned Paraphilus. Of all the
raen of his tirae, there was none, in the opinion of
Eusebius, hiraself no raean judge, who could rival
ParaphUus in his knowledge of the Bible. A native of
Beyrout, and educated in the heathen schools of that
city, he renounced wealth and secular distinction to
devote himself to sacred studies. Selling all the ances
tral property which had come down to him, and
bestowing the proceeds upon the poor, he betook hira
self first to Alexandria, where he was taught by the
faraous presbyter, Pierius, and then, like Origen, to the
capital of Palestine. There he set himself to carry on
the work of Origen, not only by the direct instruction
of scholars who repaired to hira, but also in the textual
criticisra of the Bible. He raade it his business to issue
correct and scholarly copies of the Scriptures, free frora
the interpolations and false readings which had largely
corrupted the books in coraraon use. In these labours
he found a zealous and effective helper in Eusebius.
More than one Greek Bible is still in existence which
was transcribed from copies said to have been made
by ParaphUus and Eusebius with their own hands.
Such copies were freely given away by the generous
copyist. For Paraphilus was no raere student, without
interest in his fellow-raen. His narae, as Eusebius
points out, designated him as " the friend of all," and
such he proved himself to be by open hand and open
heart. The devotion which he inspired in others is shown
by the example of Eusebius himself. Again and again
when he refers to Paraphilus, instead of raentioning him
directly, he speaks of " the name so dear to me."
Paraphilus becarae to him " my lord and raaster ; for
I cannot speak in other terras of the holy and blessed

296 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
man." From the day of ParaphUus' death the affec
tionate disciple assuraed his name, and chose to be
spoken of as Eusebius Pamphili, " Eusebius the son of
Paraphilus." It was not, however, on that fifth of November
307 that the raartyrdora of Paraphilus was attained.
Upon that occasion. Urban the governor first listened
with interest to a display of the eloquence and phUoso-
phical erudition of the faraous scholar, and then invited
hira to sacrifice. Upon his refusal, he was submitted to
excruciating tortures and thrown into the prison already
crowded with Christian confessors. Almost immedi
ately after, Urban fell into sudden disgrace with his
raaster Maxirain, and was executed at Caesarea itself,
and another governor appointed in his place. Pam-
philus lay apparently forgotten in his prison for two
whole years. His time of respite was not spent in
idleness. His friends had access to him ; and during
that period he coraposed with the help of Eusebius a
work in six books in defence of Origen, which he
addressed to the confessors who were labouring in the
raines of Palestine.
There it seeras as if he raight have reraained for
ever but for an accidental circurastance. One day, in
February 309 — or perhaps Eusebius intends us to
understand 310 — a band of Egyptian travellers arrived
at the gate of Caesarea. Their outlandish appearance
attracted attention. There were five of them. Ques
tioned by the guard at the gate, they made no secret of
the fact that they were Christians. They were on a
charitable tour. A gang of believers had lately been
conveyed frora Egypt to do penal servitude in CUicia,
and these five had accorapanied them, to cheer them
with their sympathy and attendance, and were now on

THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE 297
their way home again. They were arrested at once, and
taken to Firrailian, the successor of Urban as governor
of Palestine, who remanded them to prison for the
night ; and next day, February 1 6, not only the five
strangers were brought to trial, but Paraphilus also,
and his associates.
The one who appeared to be spokesman of the
Egyptian corapany was the first to be called upon. It
was the custora, Eusebius teUs us, for these Egyptians,
when they became Christians, to discard the naraes
which they had hitherto borne, if the naraes contained
a reference to Isis, or Osiris, or Serapis, or sorae other
heathen god, and to assume instead some narae which
was hallowed by Scriptural associations, like Jereraias,
or Sarauel, or Daniel. The governor asked the prisoner's
narae, and received in reply one of these Bible naraes.
It puzzled him, and he went on to ask the man's origin.
The Christian said that his home was Jerusalem. No
town that the governor knew of bore that narae : the
city which had once borne it had long been destroyed,
and that which was afterwards built on the site was
known, both by Roman officials and by people in
general, as Aelia. Firrailian asked where Jerusalem was ;
and to make sure that the man should tell the truth, he
had his arras twisted behind hira, and his feet crushed
in a newly invented forra of boot. The tortured raan
repeated again and again that he was only telling the
truth. He and his corarades were Israelites indeed ;
they were Jews inwardly. To all inquiries about their
home and city he answered that it was the horae of
the godly alone, and that none but they might enter it,
and that it lay in the very quarter of light, where the
sun arises. So he and his comrades who stood by
amused themselves at their judge's expense, utterly

298 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
regardless of the pains which he inflicted upon them.
FirmUian, iraagining that the Christians, driven to
desperation, were raassing in nurabers on the eastern
frontier of the empire with a view to war, plied the
Egyptian with torture after torture, but the young man
seemed to have no flesh and no body. He played his
game to the end — he was going horae to Jerusalem.
At last Firrailian gave up the atterapt to get anything
more out of him, and ordered hira to be beheaded.
His four companions, some of whora were raere boys,
were soon despatched to join him.
Then Firrailian turned his attention to Paraphilus
and his companions. One of them, Valens, was a
venerable raan, far advanced in years. He was a
deacon of the church at AeUa, the earthly Jerusalem,
and had a wonderful knowledge of the Bible. He had
coraraitted to raeraory so large a portion of it as to
stand in no need of the written book ; wherever in it
he was put on, Valens was able to continue. With
hira and Paraphilus was a third prisoner, named Paul,
He belonged to the town of Jamnia in Palestine, and
bore already upon his body the raarks of previous
suffering for his faith, where the hot irons had touched
hira. He was noted for his high spirit and his fervent
zeal. These three men, after their long confinement,
stood again before the magistrate ; but when Firmilian
heard, perhaps for the first tirae, what they had gone
through on forraer occasions, he felt that it would be
only a waste of tirae to endeavour once raore to force
thera into apostasy. He only asked them whether
they were now disposed to submit and to sacrifice.
Each of them in turn gave his final refusal, and the
governor sentenced them to be beheaded.
He had scarcely uttered the last sentence, and was

THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE 299
turning to leave the court, when a boy's voice rang
through the building, requesting the delivery of the
bodies for burial. The brave boy who thus lifted up
his voice frora araong the crowd surrounding the
judgraent-seat, was a slave in the faraily of Paraphilus.
His name was Porphyry. He was in his eighteenth
year. His master valued him highly for the great
beauty of his handwriting. All who frequented the
house knew the charm of his grave and gentle
raanners. The pitiless Firrailian, however, was neither
touched by Porphyry's youth, nor raoved by the justice
of the request. Ascertaining from the boy that he was
a Christian, he applied himself and his executioners
to break him of that profession. They handled his
body as if it had been made of wood instead of flesh
and blood. They went on with the business for a long
tirae, until the boy could not speak and could hardly
breathe. Then the brutal magistrate ordered them to
take a piece of haircloth and rub it into the gashes
which they had made in his sides. But no effect was
produced, and Firmilian, tiring of the work, sentenced
him to be burned alive in a slow fire. Clad only in
the philosopher's cloak, which left his right arm and
shoulder bare, the youth was led to the place of
execution. His body was all covered with dust and
blood, but bis face was bright and full of spiritual
exaltation. His mind was collected, and he spoke to
those who knew hira, and told them his last wishes
with regard to his few possessions. The stake to which
he was fastened was surrounded by faggots heaped up ;
but they had been purposely arranged at a considerable
distance from the stake, and the pile was lighted on the
outside, in order that the fire might be the longer in
reaching him. The first moraent that the flarae caught

300 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
hira. Porphyry gave one loud cry, calling upon Jesus,
the Son of God, to help hira. It was the only word
that passed frora his lips. Eager to be gone, he thrust
his head — for his hands were bound — first on one side
and then on the other, where the fire carae nearest, and
with his open mouth sucked in the flaraes and died.
So he preceded the raaster whora he loved.
The news of Porphyry's gaUant death was carried
to Paraphilus by a man of the narae of Seleucus.
A Cappadocian by birth, Seleucus had adopted the
raUitary profession, and rose high in the service. He
was a raan of coraraanding stature and presence, and
reraarkably handsorae. At the very outset of the per
secution he had been cashiered for his religion, and
had endured the disgraceful punishraent of scourging.
Since that tirae, Seleucus had given hiraself up to a life
of devotion and to works of raercy. The orphan and
the widow, the poor, the sick, the friendless, knew well
his tall figure and his strong arra. He had learned
that such kindnesses were the sacrifices with which
God is really pleased. Perhaps none of his charit
able errands had ever given greater joy than when he
brought word to Paraphilus and his corapanions of the
glory which young Porphyry had won. Seleucus had
bare tirae to deliver his raessage and to salute the group
of raartyrs with a brotherly kiss, when he was him
self arrested by the soldiers and led to the presence of
the governor. FirmUian raade short work with him.
He sent him back at once, to have his head cut off
with the rest.
Of the death of Paraphilus himself no detaU has
been recorded ; but he was evidently beheaded soon
after the death of Porphyry.
Firrailian was not even then at the end of his

THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE 301
bloody day's work. The great Paraphilus, Eusebius
says, had set the door of heaven so wide open that day
that it was easy for others to enter into the kingdom of
God. The next to follow came from a quarter which
gave Firmilian an unpleasant surprise. There was an
old and trusted slave of his own, named Theodulus,
who had long served the family with the utraost fidelity,
and who had great-grandchildren in the sarae service.
Theodulus was brought to his raaster, charged with the
sarae offence as Seleucus — he had given the kiss of
brotherhood to one of the raartyrs. The exasperated
Firmilian had the old man crucified at once.
-Eleven Christians had been despatched on that one
day. Another offered himself, as if to complete the
raystic nuraber of the Patriarchs and of the Apostles.
An inhabitant of Caesarea, called Julian, had been away
from home, and happened to return frora his absence
that very day. Before he entered the gate of the city
sorae one inforraed hira of what had taken place.
Instantly, without going to his house, Julian raade
his way to the spot where his fellow Christians had
been executed. As soon as he saw the headless bodies
lying outstretched upon the ground, in an ecstasy of
devotion he threw himself upon each of the sacred
corpses in turn and covered them with kisses. The
executioners interrupted him, and took him to the
governor, who gave him the raartyrdora which he
coveted, by raeans of a slow fire like Porphyry's.
Leaping and shouting with delight, Julian went to his
burning, and poured out his thanksgivings to God,
who had so wonderfully blessed his horae-coraing.
Like Seleucus, Julian was born in Cappadocia. He
was esteeraed a raan of raeek and gentle character, and
breathed the fragrance of the Holy Spirit.

302 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
By order of Firrailian the bodies of the martyrs
lay for four days and four nights exposed to the beasts
and birds of prey. But neither vulture, nor jackal,
nor dog came near thera ; and on the fifth day the
Christians took thera away and buried them reverently
in a raeraorial chapel.^
These were not the only scenes of Christian forti
tude which were witnessed at Caesarea during the
early days of Firrailian's governorship. A company
of Christians were taken into custody at Gaza, where
they were occupied in listening to the reading of the
Bible. Some of thera were treated in the way that had
now becorae usual : their left feet were disabled, and
their right eyes burned out. Others were stUl worse
handled. A raaiden naraed Ennatha, on being threat
ened with a horrible fate, could not contain her burning
indignation, but loudly expressed her detestation of the
tyrant eraperor, who entrusted the governraent of the
province to so barbarous a judge. For this outspoken
language Ennatha was first subraitted to the lash, and
then hoisted upon the torture-block to have her sides
laid open. When she had lain there for an hour or so,
bearing patiently the thrice-repeated application of the
knife or claw, a woraan's voice cried aloud to the judge
out of the crowded court, " How long do you mean
to torture my sister in that barbarous way ? " The
speaker was a woman of Caesarea, who had dedicated
herself, like Ennatha, to a life of virginity. Her name
was Valentina. She was of diminutive stature, and
unattractive in appearance ; but her feelings were strong
and her mind resolute. The sight of what they were
doing to Ennatha was more than she could endure. Of
' Eusebius, De Mart. Pal. 7, ii; Analecta Bolland. xvi. p. I2g. Cp,
Texte und Unt. (as above), p, 74.

THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE 303
course she was instantly set before Firrailian, and
declared herself a Christian. The judge atterapted to
persuade her to sacrifice, but she refused. They
dragged her up to the low altar, upon which a fire
was burning. Valentina saw her opportunity and
seized it. Her hands were held, but she deliberately
raised her foot, and kicked off the altar the preparations
for sacrifice, and the fire that lay upon it. The enraged
Firrailian had her placed forthwith upon the block,
and inflicted upon her a worse slashing of the sides
than any one present had ever seen inflicted before.
Then taking her down still alive, he tied her and
Ennatha fast to each other and burned thera together
at the stake.'
A raan named Paul was sentenced to death at the
sarae tirae as the two raaidens, though the sword, and
not the fire, was assigned to hira. He had not been
subjected to tortures, but was conderaned after a single
refusal to sacrifice. When he came to the place of
execution, Paul begged the executioner to give him a
few rainutes of respite, which he granted. Paul then
lifted up his voice and praised God for allowing hira
the honour of martyrdom. Then he prayed for those
of his own religion, that God would speedily grant
thera their liberty again ; then for the unfriendly Jews,
of whom a large nuraber were present, that they might
be brought to God through Christ. He went on to
pray in like manner for the Saraaritans, and for the
heathen who were still wandering in ignorance of God,
that they raight come to the knowledge of Hira, and
accept the true religion. He prayed especially for the
raixed corapany of bystanders, and for the executioner,
who was listening, waiting to cut off his head, for the
1 Eusebius, De Mart. Pal. 8. Cp. Texte und Unt. (as above), p. 60.

304 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
judge who had sentenced him, and the emperors by
whose authority he acted, beseeching God that his
death might not be reckoned against them for sin.
The people who stood near were moved to tears, and
spoke freely of his death as undeserved ; but Paul
calmly bared his neck, and held it in the best position
to be severed, and so passed to his joy.^
Soon after the death of Paul there was a lull in the
persecution, and raany of the unfortunate prisoners in
the mines were allowed to creep forth to such liberty
as they were still capable of enjoying. But the lull
was short. It was suddenly broken by a set of fresh
injunctions to the civil and military authorities to
enforce sacrifice raore rigorously than before. Orders
were given that every article sold in the markets should
be sprinkled with drink-offerings, and that every one
who availed himself of the public baths, which formed
so large a part of the life of the time, should first
partake of the sacrifices. The heathen theraselves were
disgusted at the length to which the governraent was
going. Great exciteraent was naturally felt among the
Christians. Three men at Caesarea agreed together,
and sprang upon the governor as he was performing
sacrifice in the middle of the city, calling upon him
loudly to desist frora his error. There was no other
God, they said, besides the Creator. On being ques
tioned, they boldly confessed theraselves Christians.
Firmilian did not take the trouble to torture them,
but ordered them to be beheaded. Their names were
Antoninus, who was a presbyter ; Zebinas, who came
from Eleutheropolis ; and Gerraanus. On the sarae
day with thera was slain a consecrated virgin from
1 Eusebius, De Mart Pal. 8. Cp. Texte und Unt. (as above), p. 65,

THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE 305
Scythopolis — another Ennatha. She had not been con
cerned in the daring act of Antoninus and the others,
and had already suffered at the hands of an unautho
rised persecutor. There was an overbearing military
officer named Maxys, who had long been a terror to
the neighbourhood where he was stationed, who, with
no comraission frora the raagistrates, laid hold upon
Ennatha, stripped off her clothes down to the waist,
and had her dragged with thongs round Caesarea from
raarket-place to raarket-place, and publicly flogged in
each. At last he brought her to the governor, where
she raade a brave confession, and was sentenced to be
burned alive.
FirraUian, as once before, gave orders that the
reraains of these sufferers were to be left unburied.
Day and night they lay exposed, with sentinels to watch
thera. The guards, who kept at a distance the friends
who would have buried thera, did nothing to drive off
the beasts and the birds which fed on carrion. All
Caesarea, pagan as well as Christian, was sickened by
the sight of pieces of human flesh, bones, and entrails,
which these creatures carried about and fought over,
and dropped even inside the gates of the city. This state
of things went on for several days, and then a strange
occurrence took place. " It was fine, clear weather,"
says Eusebius, " and the sky was brilliant and calm.
Suddenly the pillars supporting the public colonnades
which run through the city were seen to drip with
what looked like tears. The streets and squares be
carae raysteriously wet, though there was no discharge
of raoisture frora the atraosphere. The saying passed
frora mouth to mouth that the earth itself, outraged
at the horrors that had been perpetrated, wept, and
that stones and lifeless wood raourned for what had
u

3o6 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
been done, to put to shame the hiiraan beings whom
nothing could raelt or touch. I know," says Eusebius,
" that this will seem to those of a later tirae to be an
absurdity and a fable, but it was not so to contem
poraries who knew the truth." ^
A little later another band of Egyptian Christians
was arrested at the gates of Ascalon. They were bent
on a similar errand to that of a company already
raentioned. They were on their way to CiUcia, to
rainister to the wants of their fellow Christians in
captivity there. Sorae of them were subjected to the
sarae fate as those whora they were journeying to help,
and were deprived of a foot and an eye. Three of
thera suffered death at Ascalon. One of the three,
naraed Ares, was burned ; the other two, Proraus and
Elias, were beheaded. A raonth or so later, a young
ascetic, known by the narae of Peter Absalora, was
brought before the governor at Caesarea. The governor
and the bystanders alike were raoved at the thought of
his young life being thrown away for reasons which
they could not understand. They iraplored him to
spare himself, and to have compassion upon his tender
years ; but Absalom valued his hopes of heaven more
than life. He was sent to the fire. Bound to the
same stake with hira was a bishop of the once powerful
but now dwindling sect which bore the narae of the
heretic Marcion. He had, Eusebius says, a zeal of
godliness, though not according to knowledge. His
narae was Asclepius.^
While the raartyrdora of Paraphilus and his com
panions was still fresh, two Christians frora a distant part
of Palestine carae to the capital to visit the confessors.
' Eusebius, De Mart. Pal. 9. Cp. Texte und Unt. (as above), p. 66.
= Eusebius, De Mart. Pal. 10. Cp. Texte und Unt. (as above), p. 70.

THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE 307
The gate-keepers asked them their business. They
made no secret of it. Thereupon they were taken to
the governor. Firrailian put thera under torture there
and then, and sentenced thera to the wild beasts. Two
days later was the feast of the Fortune of the city, and
one of the two raen, called Hadrian, was given to the
lion. The lion, however, did not kill him, and he died
by the sword. Two more days passed, and Eubulus,
the other, was brought out. Firrailian besought hira
earnestly to sacrifice, and so to purchase his liberty.
Eubulus would not hear of it, and, like his friend, was
first exposed to the beasts, and then put to the sword.
His was the last of the long line of martyrdoras which
took place at the town of Caesarea.^
But there were stUl a few raore crowns to be
won in other parts of Palestine. The persecution
was languishing to its close. When the year 310 —
the eighth of the persecution — opened, the repressive
raeasures against the Christians had been greatly relaxed.
The raaimed confessors in the raines of Phaeno had not
been set at liberty, but, short of this, they were allowed
to please theraselves. With surprising hardihood they
had even set apart places of Christian worship within
the precincts of the raines.
One day, the successor of Firmilian in the govern
raent of the province — for FirraUian hiraself had
been disgraced and beheaded, like Urban before
hira — paid a visit to the place. He felt constrained
to report what he had seen to the emperor Maximin.
Instructions were sent without delay from head
quarters, in accordance with which the church in
the mines was broken up. Some of the confessors
were sent to Cyprus, sorae to the Lebanon, others to
1 Eusebius, De Mart. Pal. il. Cp. Texte und Unt. (as above), p. 103.

3o8 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
other parts of Palestine. Four of them were raade an
example of. They were all Egyptians. Two bishops,
called Peleus and NUus, a presbyter whose name is
not recorded, and a layraan caUed Paterrauthius, who
had distinguished hiraself by his devotion to the interests
of others, were despatched to the officer in command
of the troops in the district, who suraraoned them to
renounce their religion, and, upon their refusal, burned
thera alive.
There were others to whom had been assigned a
special location at Phaeno. They were persons who
through old age, excessive mutilation, or other bodily
infirmity, were incapable of work, and had been turned
loose in a separate compound of their own. At the
head of this group was a bishop who has been mentioned
before, Silvanus of Gaza. Again and again since the
first outbreak of the persecution Silvanus had been put
to the proof, and had never faUed. The Egyptian con
tingent was conspicuous in this group as in other circles
of confessors. Among them was a man named John,
v.'ho was gifted with a prodigious raeraory. He had
lost the sight of his eyes before the persecution touched
hira ; but when he carae into conflict with the magis
trates he was not only condemned, like the rest, to lose
a foot, but in wantonness of cruelty the scorching iron
was applied to his blind eyes. John was a " philo
sopher," or raonk ; and he coraraitted to memory, both
before and after his loss of sight, whole books of the
Bible, so that he was able at an instant to produce out
of his unseen storehouse law and prophecy and history,
gospels and epistles. Eusebius relates how on one
occasion he entered the church where John was standing
up in the midst of a great congregation of people,
reciting passages of Scripture. Judging only by the

THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE 309
voice, he supposed that it was an ordinary reader at
the lectionary ; but on advancing a Uttle further he saw,
to his astonishraent, the blind raan delivering the inspired
words to his fellow Christians who had the use of their
eyes. It was to the philosophical historian a suprerae
proof of the reality and the supreraacy of the human
soul, that one whose bodily powers had been taken
frora hira one after another should show such superiority
over raen of sound and perfect fraraes.
These Christians, unable to do anything else, spent
their days in prayer and fasting, and in rautual en
courageraents and assistance. At length a raissive carae
from Maximin to exterrainate thera. Nine and thirty
of them, including Silvanus and John, were brought out
and beheaded on the same day. So ended the tragic
history of the martyrs of Palestine.^
^ Eusebius, De Mart. Pal. 13. Cp. Texte und Unt. (as above), p. 105.

CHAPTER XVI
PHILEAS; TIMOTHY AND MAURA; DIDYMUS
The see of Alexandria was held during the greater
part of these troubled years by a holy bishop of the
narae of Peter. When the first break in the storm
took place at Eastertide in the year 306, Peter put
forth a series of canons, or regulations, for the treat
raent of Christians who had failed under the trial.
Christians who had not broken the Church's rule by
going to the raagistrates of their own accord, but had
been arrested, and after raany tortures had given way,
and had now been under penance for nearly three
years, were to be readmitted to comraunion, because
they bore in their bodies the raarks of the Lord Jesus ;
but they were to prolong their Lent after Easter for
another forty days that they raight learn to be able to
say to the terapter, like the Lord Hiraself, " Get thee
hence, Satan ; thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,
and Him only shalt thou serve." Another year's
probation is assigned to those who had not been
tortured, but whose spirits had been broken by the
hardships and foul smells of the prison in spite of the
bountiful alleviations which the brethren had supplied
to thera. This measure of extra discipline would teach
them to long for deliverance from the far worse
captivity of sin, and lead them to Him who said,
" The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me ; because He
hath anointed Me to set at liberty thera that are

PHILEAS 311
bruised." Men who had weakly surrendered at the
beginning without suffering anything at all, but who
now were penitent, were to take for their warning
the parable of the fruitless fig-tree, frora which fruit
was expected — first for three years, and then for a
year raore, while due nourishraent and culture was
graciously bestowed upon it. If at the end of the
fourth year there were not fruits worthy of repentance,
the tree must be cut down. Some there were who
had feigned subraission to the edict, like David who
feigned epilepsy when he was no epileptic. They had
deceived the authorities into thinking that they had
coraplied, and afterwards, like sorae in Cyprian's day,
had obtained indulgences frora stronger brethren who
had stood firra in their confession. Indulgence or
no indulgence, Peter insisted that they should do six
raonths' penance before he would hear of their being
restored to coraraunion. Sorae base-rainded Christians
had sent Christian slaves to represent them at the
sacrifices. The slaves who had been terrified into this
dishonesty were to continue a year under penitential
discipline, and learn that they were the servants of
Christ and not of men ; the masters were to be under
the sarae disciphne thrice as long, both for their
hypocritical corapliance with the heathen law, and
for having corapelled their " fellow-servants " to sacri
fice, in order to save their own necks at the risk of
those of their equals in Christ. Another class of
penitents consisted of raen who had been betrayed to
the persecutors and had fallen, but, after their fall,
had voluntarUy corae forward again and confessed
their faith, and had been iraprisoned for it, and
tortured. These were to be joyfully welcoraed at
once to coraraunion and all other Christian privileges;

312 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
" for a just raan," says the Scripture, " faUeth seven
tiraes, and riseth up again."
The prudent see of Alexandria had words of grave
though kindly reproof for those who volunteered for
raartyrdora, even though they carae well out of the
trial ; they were not to be refused communion,
because it was for Christ's sake that they had done
what they did : but they are reminded that Christ
has bidden us pray that we might not enter into
temptation. " Perhaps they are unaware," says the
considerate bishop, "how frequently our Master Him
self withdrew from those who designed mischief for
Hiraj and soraetimes would not walk openly because
of thera ; and when the tirae of His passion drew
near. He did not deliver Hiraself up, but waited until
they carae against Hira with swords and staves. He
wishes us to skip frora place to place when we are
persecuted for His narae's sake. It is not His will
that we should present ourselves of our own accord
to the attendants and men-at-arms of the devU, and
bring upon thera the guilt of additional deaths, com
pelling thera to be more cruel than they would other
wise have been." If any member of the clergy therefore
had been guilty of such forbidden and self-seeking
rashness, and had found himself unequal to the
contest and had fallen, he was not to be allowed on
his recovery to resume rainisterial functions. Personal
forgiveness was to be his, and the coraraunion of the
Church ; but he had forfeited the right to rainister to
the souls of others by a behaviour so contrary to the
spirit of the apostle who desired to depart and to be
with Christ, but who saw that it was raore needful for
others that he should abide in the flesh, not seeking
his own profit, but the profit of raany, that they might

PHILEAS 313
be saved. Yet the good bishop could not find it in his
heart to censure those who, at the beginning of the
persecution, standing at the judgment-seat and watch
ing the sufferings of the raartyrs, had been unable
to contain their emotion, and had declared themselves
Christians ; still less those who were present when
their fellow Christians fell away under torture, and
who felt that the defection of others was a challenge
to themselves to show the adversary what believers
think of torturing claws, and scourges, and the sharp
sword, and the burning fire, and the whelming water.
For raen who in such circurastances offered theraselves
up, Peter has nothing but warra-hearted words of
admiration. Prayers were to be offered by the faithful for
those whose flesh had proved too weak to endure
under persecution. " It does no one any harra," says
Peter, " to share the grief and pain of those who are
laraenting and groaning for their parents or brethren
or children who have been overcome. We know that
in sorae cases the goodness of God has been bestowed
in answer to the faith of others, both for reraission of
sins and for bodily health, and even for resurrection
frora the dead." Christians will therefore pray together
for the fallen, through Hira who is our Advocate with
the Father and the propitiation for our sins. No blarae
is to be attached to those who have paid raoney to be
left unmolested in their religion. They have shown
their earnestness on its behalf by the pecuniary losses
they have borne, which is more, says the good bishop,
than many others have done. Their conduct is,
according to his interpretation of the words, justified
by the conduct of Jason and others spoken of in the
Acts, who were drawn to the rulers of the city, but

314 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
were released on the payraent of a consideration. StiU
less open to question was the conduct of those who
had forsaken all their property and withdrawn into
hiding, even if others were apprehended instead of
thera. St. Paul allowed hiraself to keep in the back
ground, while Gains and Aristarchus, his corapanions
in travel, were dragged into the theatre. St. Peter was
rescued frora chains by an angel, though it cost the
lives of four quaternions of soldiers who kept the
prison. Jesus Hiraself in infancy was sent away from
Bethlehera by a divine intiraation, leaving the other
babes of the district to be slaughtered and — as Peter
of Alexandria supposed — Zacharias, the father of the
forerunner, to be slain for his connivance, between the
temple and the altar. Finally, "if any have been
subjected to violent compulsion, and the gag has
been put in their mouths and their arms have been
tied, while they have remained firm in faith and
purpose, so that their hands have been scorched by
the fire of the unhallowed sacrifice to which they
have been unwillingly brought near — as was the case
with those in Libya, as the letter of the blessed
martyrs in prison informs rae, and others likewise
who are their fellow- rainisters — such raen, especially
when they have also the testiraony of the other
brethren, raay continue in their rainistry, and be
counted araong the confessors ; and so in like
raanner raay those who swooned under repeated
tortures, and were unable to speak or utter a sound,
or raake a raovement of protest against the futile
violence done to them ; for they gave no assent to
their pollution, as I am informed once raore by fellow-
ministers. Every one shall be counted among the
confessors who lives, like Timothy, in obedience to

PHILEAS 315
him who says, ' Follow after righteousness, godliness,
faith, love, patience, meekness ; fight the good fight of
faith, lay hold on eternal life whereunto thou art called,
and hast confessed the good confession before many
witnesses.' "
It seemed in that spring, when Peter issued these
large-rainded regulations, that peril was over, and that
the Church only needed to close up her ranks, and
to repair her breaches. But not very long after they
were issued, the holy author of thera was corapelled
to put in practice the conduct which he had justified.
Like his predecessor Denys, he fled from Alexandria ;
and as Denys had been assailed as a deserter from
his post by the hot-headed Gerraanus, so Peter in
his concealment was forced to see his diocese and
his province invaded and overrun by Meletius, the
next to hira in rank of the Egyptian bishops, who
ordained priests without asking Peter's consent, over
threw Peter's arrangeraents, and left a schism in Egypt
which even the great Council of Nicaea failed to heal,
and which lingered on for at least a hundred years
after both Meletius and Peter were dead.
The death of Peter came to hira at last in the
forra that he would raost have desired. His life had
becorae one of ever-increasing severity. Penitence
for past sin, which he thought to have been enough
to exhaust the long-suffering of God, was joined to
the strictest watchfulness over the present. On one
occasion he is said to have been troubled by blas-
pheraous thoughts. In his trouble he consulted the
brave bishop Paphnutius, who sorae years later took
part in the Council of Nicaea, where he showed the
gaping socket out of which his eye had been dug
in the persecution. Paphnutius, a raan of sense as

3i6 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
well as courage, told hira that, when he too had been
terapted with such thoughts, he had replied to the
terapter, "O evil one, this blaspheray against God is
thine, and shall recoil upon thyself." When the
persecution was near its end, a sudden order came
from Maximin, giving no explanations, and Peter was
seized and beheaded.^
The most eminent of the Egyptian prelates, who
looked up to Peter as their " great bishop and father,"
was Phileas of Thmuis. A man of wealth and position . , .
before he became a bishop, he was also learned in
secular and philosophic Uterature, and enjoyed great
popularity araong the townspeople, even araong those
who did not share his faith. Phileas, along with
other bishops, was thrown into prison ; but they suc
ceeded in keeping up constant intercourse with their
dioceses, and were justly indignant with Meletius for
acting as if their sees were vacant.
Great part of one letter is preserved, in which
Phileas addressed his flock at Thrauis not long before
his death. He describes how the raartyrs with whom
he had been associated strengthened themselves by
raeditation upon the exaraples and promises contained
in Holy Scripture, and especially the example of Jesus
Christ Himself, "who was raade raan for us that
He raight extirpate all sin, and provide us with
sustenance for our entrance into eternal life." " There
fore," he continues, "bearing Christ within them,
the raartyrs coveted earnestly the best gifts, and
endured every distress and every outrage that could
be desired, sorae of thera not only once, but twice
over ; and, though the guards vied with each other
against thera to frighten thera by acts as well as by
^ Routh, Rel. Sacr. iv. 21 foil., esp. p. 80.

PHILEAS 317
words, they did not abandon their conviction, because
their perfect love cast out fear."
" Every one who pleased," says Phileas, " was at
liberty to insult them. Sorae hit thera with sticks,
sorae with rods, others with whips, or thongs, or
ropes. The spectacle of outrage was constantly
shifting ; the utmost malice was eraployed. Some
had their hands tied behind their backs, and every
meraber of their bodies racked as they hung on the
hobby-horse. Then, when they were in that condition,
the torturers went to work, by order, upon all parts
of their bodies : the rule with raurderers is to torture
thera only on the sides, but they punished the martyrs
on the belly, the shins, and the cheeks. Others were
hung up aloft on the portico by one hand, to bear
that worst of all pains which coraes frora the tension
of the joints and limbs ; others were fastened to the
pillars, facing one another, their feet not reaching
the ground, so that their weight bore upon the ropes
and tightened them. And this they endured not only
during the tirae that the governor was talking to
thera and at leisure to attend to thera, but almost the
whole day ; for when he turned to others, he left his
apparitors to keep an eye on the earlier cases, on
the chance that one or another might show signs
of giving way under the suffering. He ordered the
chains to be mercilessly tightened ; and then, when
the raen fainted, he told the officials to lay thera on
the ground and drag them away, for no heed what
soever was to be bestowed upon them ; they were
to be thought of and dealt with as dead raen. Here
was a second forra of torture invented by the enemies,
to follow upon the wounds they had inflicted. Some
there were who after the tortures were left lying

3x8 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
on the hobby, with both feet stretched to the length
of four holes, so that they were forced to lie back
upon the hobby, although they could not bear it,
because their bodies were all covered with flesh
wounds. Others, flung upon the ground, lay there,
unable to raove because of the accumulated injuries
which they had suffered, and presenting to the be
holders a sight more dreadful than the infliction itself,
because they bore upon their persons so raany different
devices of torraent. Sorae of thera actually expired
under torture, thus putting the adversary to shame
by their steadfastness ; others, already half-dead when
they were coraraitted to prison, were perfected after
not raany days by the pains which crushed them.
The rest, receiving restorative treatraent, becarae bolder
in course of tirae during their sojourn in prison. So,
when the choice was given thera either to touch the
aborainable sacrifice, and obtain an accursed liberty,
and have no raore trouble, or on the other hand to
be sentenced to death on refusing to sacrifice, without
a raoment's hesitation they went gaily to their deaths.
For they knew what is laid down for us by the
Holy Scripture, ' He that sacrificeth to other gods,
he shaU be utterly destroyed,' and 'Thou shalt have
none other gods but Me.' " ^
The turn of Phileas hiraself carae ; but he was
spared the horror of those tortures which he so
graphically describes. Culcian, a trusted friend of
Maximin, was by that time prefect of Egypt. He
shrank from treating the learned bishop like an ordi
nary criminal. Perhaps no recorded trial since those
of Cyprian and Achatius, fifty years before, has the
same kind of interest as that of Phileas.
1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii. lo.

PHILEAS 319
" Phileas was placed in the dock. Culcian, the
governor, said to him, 'Can you now be brought
to reason ? ' Phileas answered, ' I have always lived
reasonably, and am reasonable now.' ' Sacrifice to
the gods.' ' I do not sacrifice.' ' Why not ? ' ' Be
cause the sacred and divine Scriptures say. He that
sacrificeth unto any god, save unto God only, he
shall be utterly destroyed.' " Culcian was ready to
meet his prisoner on that point. " Then sacrifice to
God only," he said. If the act were perforraed, he
would not quarrel about the narae. " No," answered
Phileas ; " God does not desire such sacrifices. The
Scriptures say, 'To what purpose is the multitude of
your sacrifices unto Me ? saith the Lord. I ara full of
the burnt offerings of raras, and the fat of lambs ; and
I delight not in the blood of he-goats. Offer rae no
fine flour.'" One of the advocates in court burst in,
" Has fine flour anything to do with your case ? are
you not pleading for your life ? " " What sacrifices
does your God delight in ? " asked the governor.
" God dehghts in a clean heart," answered the bishop,
"and in pure thoughts, and in the sacrifice of true
speech." " Now offer." " I do not offer ; I have
never learned to do it." Culcian had sorae acquain
tance with Christianity. " Did not Paul offer sacrifice ? "
he said. " God forbid," was the answer. " Nor
Moses ? " " Only the Jews," PhUeas answered, " were
coraraanded to sacrifice, to none but God, and only
at Jerusalem. The Jews do wrong now, by celebrating
their rites in other places." "A truce to these idle
words ; sacrifice even now." " I wUl not defile ray
soul." " Do we endanger our souls by it ? " " Yes,
both soul and body." "This body?" "Yes, this
body." " Will this flesh of ours rise again ? " " Yes."

320 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
Culcian suddenly returned to what he had heard
about St. Paul. "Paul denied Christ, did he not?"
" No," said Phileas ; " God forbid." Another sudden
change of subject : " I have sworn the oath ; do you
swear too." " We are not bidden to swear. The Holy
Scripture says. Let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay."
" Paul was a persecutor, was he not ? " " No ; certainly
not." " Paul was no scholar. He was a Syrian, was
he not, and taught in Syriac ? " " No ; he was a
Hebrew, and he taught in Greek. He had the loftiest
wisdom that ever man had," " Perhaps you wUl tell
me," said the philosophical magistrate, " that he was
superior to Plato." " He was not only wiser than
Plato," replied Phileas, " but wiser than all the philoso
phers put together. He made converts of wise men,
and, if you please, I wiU tell you what he said." " Come
now, sacrifice." " I do not sacrifice." " Have you a
conscientious objection?" "Yes." "Then why does
not your conscience tell you to do what is right by your
wife and children ? " " Conscience towards God has
the higher claira. The Bible says. Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God, who made thee." " What God is that ? "
Phileas spread out his hands towards heaven, and
answered, " The God who made heaven and earth, the
sea, and all things that are therein ; the Creator and
Maker of aU things visible and invisible ; the God whom
words cannot express, who alone is and abides for ever.
Amen." The advocates wished to stop Phileas from further
speech. "Why," they said, "do you withstand the
governor ? " Phileas replied, " I ara only answering his
own question." Culcian said curtly, "Spare your
tongue, and sacrifice.'' " I do not sacrifice," the
bishop once raore replied ; " I wish to spare ray soul.

PHILEAS 321
Christians are not the only people who thus spare their
souls. Gentiles do the sarae. Reraeraber Socrates, for
instance. When he was led to death, though his wife
and children stood by, he would not turn back, but
drank the deadly heralock cheerfully." "Was Christ
a god ? " the governor asked abruptly. " Yes," said
Phileas, " Christ was God." " What raakes you think
that he was a god ? " " He raade the blind to see, the
deaf to hear ; He cleansed the lepers, raised the dead,
restored speech to the dumb, and healed many sicknesses.
A woman with an issue of blood touched the hem of
His garment, and was raade whole. After His own
death. He rose again ; and He did raany other signs
and wonders besides." " And God was crucified, was
He?" "He was crucified for our salvation. He
knew that He should be crucified and should suffer
sharae, and freely gave Hiraself to endure all for us.
The Holy Scriptures had foretold these things concerning
Hira, — the Scriptures which the Jews think they hold,
but do not. Let any one who wishes come and see
whether this is not the case."
" You remember," said Culcian, " that I have paid
you a compliment. I might have disgraced you in your
own city ; but I wished to pay you a corapliraent, and
forbore." " I am rauch obliged to you," answered the
bishop, " and only beg you to coraplete the obligation."
" What is your desire ? " " That you would do your
worst upon me. Do what you have been ordered to
do." " Do you wish to die for nothing ? " " Not for
nothing, but for God and for the truth." " Paul,
now," said Culcian, " was he a god ? " " No." " What
was he, then ?" "A man like us ; only the Spirit of
God was in him, and by the Spirit he did rairacles and
signs and wonders." X

322 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
The heathen brother of Phileas was present in court.
" I make a present of you to your brother," said the
judge. " Do rae a stUl greater favour," said PhUeas ;
" use all your power upon rae, and do as you are
bidden," " If I knew that you were a poor man,"
answered Culcian, " and that want had driven you into
this raadness, I would not spare you. But you have
plenty of wealth ; you could raaintain almost the whole
province, as well as yourself ; so I wish to spare you,
and to persuade you to offer." " I cannot offer," said
Phileas ; " I say it to spare rayself." The advocates
interposed again. " He has already offered," they said,
" in the school yonder." " I did nothing of the sort,"
he cried. "Your poor wife," said the governor, "is
making for you." "The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Saviour of all our spirits," said the saint, — "whom 1
serve in bonds. He who has called me to the in
heritance of His glory is able to caU her also."
" PhUeas asks for a remand," called out the advocates.
" I grant you a reraand," the governor said to him,
" that you may reflect." " I have reflected many
times," he answered, " and have elected to suffer with
Christ." Then a striking scene took place. The friendly
advocates, the officials who attended the prefect, the
curator or raayor of Thrauis, joined with the family of
Phileas, and threw themselves at the bishop's feet,
imploring him to think of his wife and children. " He,
Uke a rock washed by the waves which cannot move
it, rejected their claraorous words. His raind was set
towards heaven, and he kept God before his eyes, and
said that it was duty to think of the holy martyrs and
apostles as his kinsfolk and near friends."
Phileas was accompanied by a Christian of high

TIMOTHY AND MAURA 323
position in the civil service, whose narae was PhUoro-
mus. Seeing Phileas beset by his weeping friends and
by the machinations of the governor, Philoromus urged
them to allow Phileas to follow his own raind. Culcian
gave sentence that both Phileas and Philoromus should
be beheaded. As they were on the way to the place of
execution, the brother of Phileas, who was himself one
of the advocates practising in the prefect's court, cried
out that Phileas desired to have his sentence cancelled.
Culcian called the bishop back, and asked on what
grounds his appeal was based. " I raade no appeal,"
answered Phileas ; " God forbid that I should. Pay
no attention to this unhappy man. I have nothing but
gratitude to the emperors and the government, for I ara
made a fellow heir with Jesus Christ." Then Phileas
went forth. When they reached the spot, Phileas
stretched out his hands towards the east, and addressed
a short exhortation to the Christians within hearing ;
then, after an ascription of glory to the Spotless One,
who sitteth upon the cherubim, and who is the
Beginning and the End, the two raen received the
headsraan's stroke, and " their unconquerable spirits
were set free." ^
A powerful and touching poera of Charles Kingsley's
has raade known to many English people the names of
Tiraothy and Maura, who suffered^ — apparently in that
part of Egypt known as the Thebaid — a year or so earlier
than Phileas. Tiraothy was a reader in the town to
which he belonged. One of the first objects of this
persecution was to destroy the sacred books of
Christianity, and Tiraothy was required by the magis
trate to give up his books. He refused, saying —
though the story has not come down to us in such a
' Ruinart, p. 434 ; Knopf, p. 102.

324 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
form that we can entirely rely upon the words which
are put into the mouths of the martyrs — that the books
were as dear to hira as children. He refused hkewise
to sacrifice, and torture was used to compel him. Hot
spits were thrust into his ears. He lost the sight of
his eyes under the torraent. Arrian, the raagistrate,
ordered hira to be treated like sorae of those of whom
Phileas speaks ; he was to be fastened head downwards
to one of the pillars of the colonnade, with his raouth
in a gag and a stone round his neck.
The executioners theraselves hesitated to inflict so
horrible a punishraent, and carae to Arrian and sug
gested that railder raethods might be raore efficacious.
The raan was newly raarried, they said. It was not
quite three weeks since the wedding. Perhaps the
young wife might be able to persuade him. Arrian
sent for Maura. He told her that he was sorry to
think of her being left a widow at her age, and bade
her put on her best looks and induce her husband to
conforra. She did what she could. The gag was
taken frora Tiraothy's raouth to enable him to answer
her ; but the only use which he raade of his lips was
to iraplore his father, the priest PoecUius, to throw
soraething over his head, that he raight not see the
teraptress. The story ascribes to Maura a pathetic expostula
tion, which throws light upon the manners and customs
of the time. She did not deserve such treatraent, she
said. Tiraothy did not yet know her, nor was she yet
really at horae in his house. He could not suspect
her of being unfaithful to hira during these twenty
days of raarried life. Why should she be left a widow?
Why did be wish to die ? Was he in debt ? Had he
been arrested for not paying taxes that were due ?

TIMOTHY AND MAURA 325
She would give hira aU her wedding ornaraents ; they
would sell all they had in the house and pay it off.
Then she tried another way of arguing. When Satur
day and Sunday carae, who was to read Timothy's
books instead of him ?
Timothy answered her patiently, and entreated her
to join with him, and to go with hira to the Saviour,
who would not irapute their trespasses to them if they
went to Him freely. The poor girl (she was only
seventeen) rephed that that was what she longed to
do, but that she did not know that she raight. She
thought she was not good enough, but what her hus
band had said did her good, and for his sake she
would try to be better. Tiraothy told her to go to
the governor, and say what she thought of these pro
ceedings. " O brother Tiraothy," she cried, " I ara
afraid that when I see the governor angry, and all the
dreadful tortures, I shall not be able to bear the pain."
" Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ," he answered, " and
the tortures will be Uke oil poured over you."
She went. The raagistrate offered to find her a
fine husband, instead of Tiraothy, if she would abandon
her religion. Upon her refusal, she went through a
variety of horrors. One saying ascribed to her has
a sound of truth about it. They put her into a caldron
of hot water. The brave girl raocked at the terapera-
ture. " If you have not fuel enough to heat it," she
said, " send to my father. He is a builder. He will
give you a cartload of wood to heat this caldron."
At length the governor gave sentence that the hus
band and wife should be crucified, face to face. For
more than a week, it is said, they hung there, with the
well-known powers of endurance which belonged to
their race, still alive, conversing with one another.

326 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
They agreed together not to seek relief in sleep, lest
the Lord should corae, and be wroth at finding them
sleeping. Sleep came, however, from tirae to time.
unbidden, and with it the drearas that were natural
in their situation.
" Wake up, brother," cried Maura at one time ;
" I saw, in a kind of trance, a man standing before
me with a cup of mUk and honey in his hand, and
he said to rae, 'Take this, and drink.' And I said to
hira, ' Who art thou ? ' He answered, ' An angel of
God.' Then I said to him, 'Arise, then, and let us
pray.' But he said, ' I carae because I had compassion
on thee, because thou wast fasting till the ninth hour,
and wast hungry,' I answered, 'What makes thee to
speak like that ? Why raay I not suffer and endure ?
Knowest thou not that, when we pray, God grants us
things that are irapossible ? ' And when I began to
pray I saw hira turn away frora me, and I perceived
at once that it was a device of the enemy, who desired
to overcorae us upon the cross ; and forthwith he
departed frora rae,"
Another tirae : " One carae and led me to a river
that flowed with milk and honey, saying to me, •' Drink.'
And I said, ' I have already said that I will not drink
water, nor taste any other kind of drink, until I drink
Christ's cup, which is mingled for rae by death unto
salvation and everlasting life.' The raan himself drank ;
and as he did so the river was changed, and the man
departed from us."
In a third dreara : " One stood by rae in comely
rairaent, with his face shining like the sun ; and he
grasped rae by the hand, and took rae into heaven,
and showed rae a throne raade ready, with a white
robe and a crown upon it. I was astonished, and said,

TIMOTHY AND MAURA 327
' Whose are these, ray lord ? ' And he answered rae,
' These are the rewards of thy victory ; the throne and
crown are prepared for thee.' Then he took rae
somewhat higher, and showed me another throne,
which likewise had a white robe and a crown ; and
when I asked whose they were, he said, 'These are
thy husband Timothy's.' Then I prayed hira to tell
me why there was a distance between the thrones, and
he said to rae, ' There is a great difference between thee
and thy husband. Knowest thou not that it is through
hira and his exhortation that thou wilt receive the
crown ? Go thy way, therefore, and return to thy
body until the sixth hour. To-raorrow the angels wUl
corae to receive your souls, and to carry them to
heaven. But watch ye, that the eneray raay not again
assaU you.' " ¦'
No raartyrs of the tirae showed greater fortitude
than those of the Thebaid. Soraetiraes, Eusebius tells
us, they were scraped to death with potsherds. Woraen
were hung up by one foot, head downwards, without
a shred of clothing. Sorae were tied up to the trunks
of trees, and there left to die. There were cases in
which the branches of neighbouring trees were brought
together by mechanical appUances, the legs of the
martyr secured to the two branches, and then the
branches released, so as to rend the unhappy crea
ture asunder. This kind of thing lasted, not for a
few days, but for years together. The number of
the sufferers was great. Ten, twenty, thirty, even
sixty, and as many as a hundred were put to death
in one day — men, woraen, and quite young children.
Nothing could daunt the enthusiasm of the believers.
" As soon as sentence was pronounced upon one batch,
1 Acta Sanctorum, May 3.

328 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
another batch made their appearance from somewhere
else, and sprang upon the dais where the raagistrate
sat, confessing theraselves Christians, offering them
selves without concern to torture in all its various
horrible shapes, without a raoraent of fear, giving open
expression to their confident devotion to Alraighty God,
and receiving the sentence of death with joy and
laughter and raerriraent, singing psalras and hymns,
and offering thanksgivings to God with their last
breath." ^
The great French tragedian who dramatised the
friendship of Polyeuctus and Nearchus atterapted also
to draraatise the story of two Egyptian raartyrs, be
longing to this period, whose naraes were Didymus
and Theodora. Perhaps the story, as it has come
down from antiquity, is as affecting as in the form
given to it by Corneille.
The judge called for Theodora. The officers of
the court presented her. " What is your rank ? " he
asked. " I am a Christian." " Free-woman or slave ? "
" I have told you, I ara a Christian. Christ's coming
set me free. So far as this world goes, I was free
born." "Call the curator of the city." He came.
"TeU rae," said the judge, "what you know of this
girl, Theodora." The curator said that she was of a
respectable faraily. Theodora had taken the vows of a
virgin, " Why," asked the judge, " if you are of good
faraily, did you not wish to be raarried ? " " For
Christ's sake," she answered ; " His coraing in the
flesh delivered us frora corruption, and brought to us
eternal life, I will not abandon ray faith in Hira, and
I ara determined to live a life of virginity." The judge
replied by telling her of the monstrous order by which
* Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii. 9.

DIDYMUS AND THEODORA 329
Christian woraen of her views were to be reduced
to compliance by physical outrages. Probably Theo
dora was already acquainted with the order. " I think
that you must know," she is said calraly to have replied,
"that the Lord has regard to raen's wills. God sees
the chastity of the intention. If you corapel rae to
this, it is no sin of raine, but a thing violently inflicted
upon rae." " Do not bring shame upon your faraily,"
said the judge ; " it is a disgrace which wUl never be
forgotten." " Christ," she answered, " wUl know how
to preserve His own turtle-dove." " Why are you so
raisguided," he said, " as to trust a raan who was
crucified ? Do not flatter yourself that you will be
kept from stain in the place that I shall send you to."
Theodora's answer showed that her spirit was not
shaken. " I have borne with your speeches," said the judge,
" and have not yet applied torture to you ; but if you
persist in your opposition, you must be treated like
any slave girl. I raust see that the comraands of our
lords, the eraperors, are perforraed in your case, as an
exaraple to other woraen." Theodora answered that
her body was in the judge's power, but that God alone
had power over her soul. " Slap her pretty sharply
with the palms of your hands," said the judge, " and
say to her, ' Do not be a fool, but go near and sacrifice
to the gods.' " " By the Lord," she answered, " I wUl
not sacrifice, nor worship devils, when I have the Lord
for ray helper." " Foolish woraan," said the judge,
" you corapel rae to do what is an insult to a lady like
yourself, to throw you into the hands of such a rabble
as is waiting for your sentence to be pronounced."
Theodora replied that it was no folly to confess the
Lord, and that what the judge called sharae would turn

330 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
to her everlasting glory. He answered that he could
wait no longer ; he had waited in the hope of persuad
ing her, but if he spared her any longer he would be
disobeying the imperial orders. "As you are afraid,"
the girl answered, " and make haste to do as you are
bidden, so I raake haste not to deny ray Lord. I am
afraid to despise the true King."
The judge said that he would give her three days'
grace. If at the end of that time she was not more
compliant, he swore that he would send her to a bad
place. She only begged him to guarantee that no harm
should be done to her before the three days expired.
At the end of the tirae her raind was unchanged ; the
revolting sentence was pronounced, and Theodora was
taken away to a den of sin and infaray.
But the Lord in whom she had trusted did not
desert her. The first person who entered the chamber
where Theodora was confined was the Christian Didy
mus. Wrapping himself in a soldier's cloak and crush
ing a large hat over his head, he pushed his way
through the crowd of people who were amusing them
selves by watching the house ; and giving the hat and
cloak to Theodora, he insisted upon her escaping in
thera and leaving hira in her stead. He told her to
hang her head low, and to speak to nobody.
When Didyraus was discovered, he was of course
taken to the magistrate. The magistrate asked, who
put it into his head to do what he had done. "God
sent me to do it," was the simple answer. " Confess
before you are tortured," said the raagistrate, "where
Theodora is." "By Jesus Christ, the Son of God,"
replied Didyraus, " I do not know where she is. I only
know and ara sure that she is the handraaid of God,
and that having confessed Christ she was preserved

DIDYMUS AND THEODORA 331
from stain. It is not my doing, but the Lord's. God
has dealt with her according to her faith, as you very
well know if you would confess it." Didymus was
sent to execution, and died thanking God for having
favoured and blessed his device for the preservation of
Theodora.-' ^ Ruinart, p. 351.

CHAPTER XVII
PHILIP AND HERMES ; IRENE AND HER SISTERS
Across the narrow seas from Nicomedia, where the
last of the persecutions began, lay the great province
of Thrace. That part of it of which the capital was
Heraclea was governed at the time by a magistrate
of the narae of Bassus. The wife of Bassus was
herself a Christian, and this circurastance raade the
governor disinclined to proceed against the Christians
more severely than he was compelled to do. For
nearly a year after the persecuting edict the Christian
assemblies were not interfered with, and the church
buildings remained standing.
The Bishop of Heraclea was a venerable man,
named PhUip. When the feast of the Epiphany was
approaching — the feast which at that tirae and in that
country coraraemorated the Nativity of Christ — the
Christian people of the city urged hira to escape, as
there were signs that Bassus could no longer resist the
pressure brought to bear upon him. He refused to
leave his post. " Let the heavenly comraandraent be
fulfilled," he said. He told them that Christ would
give to His soldiers power to endure and good reward
for their endurance, and that he was convinced that
the purpose of the eneray would be defeated.
While he was speaking, a police officer appeared
upon the scene, charged by Bassus to close the church
door against the Christians, and to set a seal upon it.

PHILIP AND HERMES 333
The bishop's only reply was that it was " a foolish and
dreary persuasion " which thought that God dwelt
within the walls of a building, and not in the hearts of
raen. Next day, the officer made an inventory of all
the furniture and utensils of the church, and sealed the
place up, and departed. The sorrow of the brethren
was great. Philip could not be torn from the spot.
He " leaned against the doors of the Lord's house," and
concerted raeasures with his clergy for the discipline
and safeguarding of his flock.
It was not very long after that Bassus visited
Heraclea, and found Philip with the rest outside the
church, where they had boldly asserabled for divine
service at the closed doors. The governor took his
official seat, and the law-breakers were brought before
hira. " Which of you," he asked, " is the raaster of the
Christians, or teacher of the church ? " PhUip said
that it was he. " You have heard," said the governor,
" the law of the eraperor, who forbids the Christians to
asserable anywhere, and coraraands that the adherents
of that body throughout the world should return to the
sacrifices, or pay the penalty with their lives. There
fore you raust subrait to our exaraination whatever
vessels you have of gold or silver or of any other metal
or ornamental work ; the Scriptures also, which you
use in reading or teaching. If you demur to do this,
you will be tortured till you do so." Philip answered,
" If, as you say, you are pleased to torture us, our
courage is prepared to endure it. You have this weak
body in your power ; tear it in pieces with such cruelty
as you will. Only do not suppose that you have any
power over m.y soul. As for the vessels that you ask
for, you shall have presently whatever we possess ; for
when you corapel us to it, we easily despise such things.

334 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
We do not worship God with precious metals, but with
fear ; nor is it the adornment of the church which
pleases Christ, but the adornment of the heart. But
the Scriptures it would neither be right for you to
receive nor for rae to give."
Upon this answer, the governor ordered the tor
turers to corae. They tried their inhuman hands upon
Philip for a long while in vain. At last his faithful
deacon, Hermes, who was standing by, burst out,
" Even if we were to surrender to you all our Scrip
tures, harsh exarainer, so that there should be no traces
left anywhere in the world of this true tradition of
ours, yet our descendants, in raeraory of their fore
fathers, and for their own souls' good, will compose
greater Scriptures, and will teach yet more earnestly
the fear that we owe to Christ."
It was a daring thing on the part of the bishop to
raake light of the vessels of the sanctuary, and to be
prepared to surrender them under compulsion ; but it'
was a raore daring thing still for the deacon to picture
to himself a yet more araple coUection of sacred writ
ings when the heathen should succeed in abolishing
the Bible frora off the face of the earth. After this
sublirae answer, the deacon entered, but not untU he
had been scourged for a long whUe, into the hidden
chamber where the vessels and the sacred books were
stored. He was followed by one of the governor's
assessors, whom Herraes detected in the act of secret
ing for his own purposes sorae of the valuable articles
on the list. Herraes expostulated with hira, and the
dishonest official struck hira in the face, and drew
blood. When Bassus heard what had happened he
was very angry with his assessor, and huraanely gave
orders that the deacon's hurt should be attended to.

PHILIP AND HERMES 335
The vessels and the Scriptures were delivered to the
police. Philip and the rest, guarded on either side,
were led to the forum, to gratify the people by the
spectacle, and to strike fear into any possible iraitators.
The governor returned to his official residence.
He had set his hand to the work, though late, and was
deterrained to see it through. Men were sent up to
the roof of the church to strip the tiles off. They
were beaten with the lash to make thera work faster.
Soldiers laden with copies of the Scriptures raade
their way to the forura, where a bonfire had been
lighted, into which they flung the books, araidst a
throng of the townspeople and of visitors to the place.
Philip and the rest were under custody in the
raarket place, when Herraes saw a heathen priest,
attended by his subordinates, carrying the raaterials
for an idolatrous sacrifice and feast. He drew the
attention of his fellow Christians to the sight. "They
wiU certainly endeavour to pollute us," he said. " Let
the good pleasure of the Lord be done," answered the
bishop. At this point Bassus reappeared, accorapanied
by a great crowd of people, araong whora it was soon
apparent that syrapathies were divided. Some were
sorry for the Christians ; others, especiaUy the Jews,
of whora there were large numbers in the province, as
there had been in the time of St. Paul, clamoured for
violent measures to be taken against thera.
Then ensued this dialogue between the governor
and the bishop. " Offer victiras to the deity." " How
can I who ara a Christian worship a piece of stone ? "
"Sacrifices raust be paid to our sovereign lords."
" We have been taught to obey our betters, and to pay
horaage to the eraperors, but not worship." " WeU,
then, at any rate sacrifice to the Fortune of the city.

336 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
See how beautiful, how smUing she is, and how graci
ously she welcomes the devotion of all the people."
" You who worship her raay take pleasure in her ; but
huraan art cannot detach me from ray duty to God."
" Let this iraage of Hercules " — whose name the city
bore — "appeal to you, so colossal, and yet so hand
some." The bishop indignantly refused.
Bassus could not help admiring the constancy of
Philip. He turned to the deacon, Hermes, and told
him to sacrifice. " I do not sacrifice," he answered ;
" I ara a Christian." "Tell rae what your rank is," said
the judge. " I ara a decurion," he said, — that is a
raeraber of the local senate, — " and I follow my teacher
in everything." Bassus caught at the suggestion. " If
Philip can be induced to sacrifice," he said, " will you
follow his example ? " " No," said Herraes ; " neither
should I follow him, nor will he be overcome. He
and I are of the same force and of the sarae courage."
"You shall be burned," said the raagistrate, "if you
persist in this raadness." "The fire with which you
threaten me," he replied, " has but little heat, and is
quenched almost before it is kindled. You do not
know the violence of the everlasting flames, which burn
without ceasing, and consurae the disciples of the devil
in slow destruction." " Sacrifice, then, to our lords the
emperors, and say, ' All hail, our sovereign lords.' "
"We are hastening to life," was the answer of Hermes.
" Sacrifice, I say," rejoined Bassus, " if you seek for
life, and so escape the horrors of imprisonraent and
cruel tortures." " You will never persuade us to that,
ungodly judge," said Herraes ; " your threats will
strengthen our faith and courage, and wUl strike no
faithless terror into us."
Bassus sent them away to gaol. As they went

PHILIP AND HERMES 337
along, some rough hand pushed the aged bishop with
such violence that he fell upon the ground. When he
rose to his feet the act was repeated, and repeated
more than once. But the countenance of the saint
betrayed no sign either of resentraent or of pain. The
confessors raised their voices in a psalra, thanking God
who had given thera a strength beyond their own, and
so delivered theraselves over into prison. There for a
few days they reraained ; but the lenient Bassus soon
allowed thera to be transferred to a private house
adjoining the prison, where they abode, like St. Paul
at Rorae, with a soldier or two to keep thera. Disciples
and inquirers flocked to them, and many converts
were made. The numbers were so great that offence
was taken, and Bassus was corapelled to send thera
again into the prison. It so happened that the prison
adjoined the theatre, with a secret entrance into the
corridor which ran round it ; and by the connivance
of the gaolers, as it must be supposed, the spacious
hall of entertainraent becarae a Christian school, to
which people resorted both by day and by night, to
learn frora the prisoners, and to cover the feet of Philip
with kisses.
But Bassus' tenure of office carae to an end. He
was succeeded by one Justin, who had no believing
relatives to soften him towards the Christians. PhUip
was set before his tribunal by the chief magistrate of
the town of Heraclea, and was asked whether he was
a Christian bishop. He said that he was, and that
he could not deny it. " Our lords have thought
good," the new governor, began, "to coramand
that all Christians who wUl not do it of their own
accord shall be corapelled to sacrifice, and punished
in case they refuse. Spare your advanced age there-

338 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
fore, that I raay not have to submit you to hardships
which would be too great even for the young." Philip
answered, " You have received comraandraents from
raen like yourselves, and you obey them for fear of a
brief penalty : how much raore ought we to comply
with the coraraandments of God, who awards to those
who deserve it a punishment that never ends ?" " It is our
duty to obey the eraperors," said Justin. Philip replied,
" I ara a Christian, therefore I cannot do as you say.
Your orders are to punish, not to corapel." " You do
not know," the other answered, " what tortures surround
you." PhUip answered, " You may torture me, but
you cannot subdue rae. No one will ever induce me
to sacrifice," " You shall be dragged by the feet," said
the cruel governor, " through the middle of the city,
and, if then you are still alive, you shall be taken back
to prison to be tortured afresh." " You are welcome,"
the bishop answered, " to confirm what you say, and to
wreak your ungodly will." So Justin gave sentence
that he should be dragged by the feet through the
city. Some Christian brethren at length took the
bruised and bleeding body from the ground, and carried
it to the prison,
A priest called Severus had been for sorae time in
close hiding, and could not be found ; but he now
came forward of his own accord. The judge bade
him take warning by the fate of his teacher Philip, and
to love life and accept its pleasures. Severus answered,
" I cannot but hold fast what I have learned, and be
faithful to ray religion." " Think what the penalty is,"
said Justin, " and what it is to be spared it, and you
will see that it is desirable to sacrifice.'' The raention
of sacrifice fired the raind of Severus with indignation
and horror ; and the judge sent hira away to prison.

PHILIP AND HERMES 339
Hermes was then called. Justin warned him not
to incur the punishments of the other two. Herraes
was a father ; the judge bade hira think of the interests
of his children, and to sacrifice. Herraes replied,
" You will never induce rae to do what you deraand.
In this faith I grew up. My holy master impressed
this truth upon me from ray cradle. I cannot falter
in it now, nor in any way turn aside from it. Rend
me therefore as you like ; I deny nothing." " You do
not know," cried the judge, " the evil that is before you.
It is ignorance which raakes you confident. When
you have been put under torture, it will be too late to
be sorry." Hermes answered, " However severe may
be the pains that you lay upon us, Christ, for whom we
suffer, will assuage them for us by His angels."
After a couple of days in which they were tempted
by gentler treatraent, and lodged in the coraforts of an
inn, the Christian confessors endured a rigorous con
fineraent of seven months at a stretch. Then orders
came that they were to be taken to Adrianople, where
they were entertained in a suburban house untU
the arrival of the governor. The weary round of argu
raent and answer, of torture and outrage, began again,
but without effect. Herraes, in particular, was
assailed by the kindly intended efforts of the officials
of the court. He had hiraself at one tirae been the
chief raagistrate of Heraclea, and in that capacity
had won all hearts among his subordinates by his
thoughtful kindness. Now they atterapted to repay him
by their anxiety to save his life. Herraes found it a
relief to get back into his prison, and so to escape frora
their raistaken affection. After three days raore in
prison, they were questioned once again, and then the
governor, after consulting with his council, pronounced

340 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
sentence upon them, that as, by their disobedience to
the emperors, they had forfeited the name of Romans,
they were to be burned alive.
The bishop had been so much injured by his tortures
that he could not walk, and was carried to the place of
execution. Hermes was not rauch firmer on his feet,
but he made his way as best he could, cheerfully re
marking to Philip as they went that they would not
need that mode of progression much longer. He told
some of those who accorapanied hira that he had received
beforehand an assurance of his coraing raartyrdora.
He had fallen into a pleasant sleep, and drearaed that a
white dove had flown into the charaber, and lighted
upon his head ; then it raoved and settled upon his
breast, and offered sorae pleasant food to his hps. By
this he knew that the Lord was pleased to call him, and
had bestowed upon hira the gift of raartyrdora.
When they carae to the appointed spot, Philip was
buried in the ground as far as to the knees ; his hands
were tied behind hira, and nailed to a stake. A similar
pit was made for Hermes, and he was told to get into it.
His poor raaimed ankles were so unsteady that he could
only obey by leaning heavily upon the stake. The
humour of the situation struck him, and, laughing
merrily, he cried, " Even here the devil cannot bear ray
weight." When the earth had been filled in about him,
he called a Christian bystander, and adjured him to carry
a last raessage to his son Philip, bidding hira see that
all raoneys deposited with hira were safely returned to
their owners. " And say," he added, " You are young ;
you raust work diligently for your living, as you re
member that your father did. You know that he lived
an honest life with all men." Fire was then set to the
faggots around the raartyrs. As long as life lasted they

IRENE AND HER SISTERS 341
were heard to be giving thanks, and the word " Araen "
was the last that could be distinguished. The bodies of
Philip and Herraes were found scarcely raarked by the
fire which had suffocated them : by the orders of Justin
they were thrown into the river Hebrus ; but the
Christians netted the river and recovered thera, and
buried the precious relics in a safe and beautiful place. ^
The sacred books carae into prominence in the
persecution in the neighbouring province of Macedonia.
The deacon Agathopodius of Thessalonica, and the
reader Theodulus, acting in the same spirit as Philip of
Heraclea and his corapany, stayed at the church after
the suppression of the Christian assemblies, and con
tinued to preach and to read the Bible. It was the
business of Theodulus to keep the church books, and
the governor deraanded their surrender. Theodulus
replied that he would deliver thera to hira as soon as
the governor renounced idolatry and was ready to
learn the truth frora the sacred authors, but not before.
After a second and a third appearance before the judge,
the two raen were taken out to sea and drowned.^
In the sarae city a little later a band of seven Chris
tians, of whora six were women, were brought before
Dulcitius the governor, charged with refusing to eat
what had been offered in sacrifice to the gods. " Why,"
said Dulcitius to the raan, Agatho, " why did you go
to the sacrifice after the raanner of those who are de
voted, and then refuse to partake ? " He answered,
" Because I am a Christian." " Do you still remain in
the same raind to-day ? " " Certainly." The woraen
were asked a like question in turn. " I believe in the
living God," said Agape, " and I will not part with ray
good conscience." " Why did I not obey the eraperors
1 Ruinart, p. 364. '' Acta Sanctorum, April, vol, i. p. 42.

342 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
and Caesars ? " said Irene ; " for fear of God." " 1
believe in the living God," said Chione, " and therefore
I never do such a thing." " I wish to save my soul
alive," said Cassia. " Will you partake of the sacrifices ? "
asked Dulcitius. " Certainly not," she answered. " I say
the same," was the answer of Philippa. " What do you
mean by ' the same ' ? " the judge asked. " I would
rather die than eat of your sacrifices," PhUippa replied.
" I also say the same," answered Eutychia ; " I too
would rather die." Eutychia was far advanced in preg
nancy. " Have you a husband ? " Dulcitius inquired.
" He is dead," the woraan answered. " How long has
he been dead ? " " Nearly seven raonths." " How
came you to be in that condition ? " " By the husband
whom God gave rae," rephed the widow. " Eutychia,"
said the governor, " I earnestly advise you to withdraw
frora that madness, and to come back to ordinary human
ways of thinking. Tell rae, will you obey the imperial
edict ? " "I will do no such thing," she answered ;
" I am a Christian, a servant of Alraighty God." " As
Eutychia is with child," the governor said, " let her be
kept in prison for the tirae being."
He then singled out Agape and Chione for interro
gation. He asked thera if they were prepared to comply
with the imperial requireraents, Uke loyal subjects. " 1
cannot sacrifice to Satan," said Agape ; " my mind
is not under his government ; it is quite made up."
" No one," said Chione, " can influence our minds
in that direction." The governor turned suddedly
to a dangerous subject. " Have you got in your
possession," he asked, " any of those wicked Chris
tian records, or parchments, or books ? " " No, none,
sir," answered Chione : " the present eraperors have
taken them all away." " Who was it," asked Dulcitius,

IRENE AND HER SISTERS 343
" that put these ideas in your heads ? " " Alraighty
God," she answered siraply. " What people were
those," he persisted, " who prevailed upon you to take up
with this folly ? " " Almighty God," she replied, " and
His only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ." " It is
plain to every one," said the governor, " that aU ought
to be loyally obedient to our emperors and Caesars.
But forasrauch as, after this length of time, and so
many warnings, and the publication of so many edicts,
and all the threats that have been launched at you, you
are so rash and headstrong as to despise the command
of our lords the emperors and Caesars, and to abide by
that wicked name of Christians ; and whereas, in spite
of being pressed by the heads of the police, and by the
civU authorities, to raake a written denial of Christ, and
to do what has been ordered, you refuse even to this
day to do so ; for these reasons you raust receive the
punishment that you deserve." He wrote the sentence,
and then read it aloud. Agape and Chione, for dis
loyally defying the divine edict of the eraperors and
Caesars, and for stUl clinging to the irrational and vain
reUgion of the Christians, which is execrable in the
eyes of all devoted raen, were to be given over to the
flaraes. The governor added that Agatho, and Cassia,
and Philippa, and Irene, were to be detained in prison
during his good pleasure, by reason of their youth.
After the raartyrdora of Agape and Chione, Irene,
who was sister to thera both, was again exarained.
This time the Scriptures were the chief article in the
exaraination. It had corae to the governor's knowledge
that Irene, at least, had kept Christian writings by her
instead of surrendering thera. "Your conduct," he
said, " shows your obstinate madness. You have
wilfully kept to the present tirae a whole quantity of

344 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
parchments, books, writing tablets, notes, and pages of
the writings of the wicked Christians of all ages. When
they were produced, you acknowledged them, although
day after day you denied that they were yours. The
punishment of your own sisters was not enough for you,
nor had you the fear of death before your eyes. There
fore you raust be punished. I think, however, that I
raay still without irapropriety show you sorae raercy. If
even now you will acknowledge the gods, you shaU be free
frora punishraent and frora peril. WUl you then do as
the eraperors and Caesars have coraraanded ? Are you
prepared to eat of the sacrifices to-day, and to offer to
the gods ? " " No," answered Irene ; " I am not pre
pared to do so, because of God Almighty, who created
heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are therein.
The suprerae condemnation of everlasting torment is
appointed for those who transgress the word of God,"
" Who was it," asked Dulcitius, on the watch for accom
plices, " that suggested to you to keep those parchments
and writings until now ? " " It was that Almighty God,"
she answered, " who coraraanded us to love Him to the
death. For that reason we did not dare to give them
up, and chose rather to be burned alive, or to bear what
ever else might happen to us, than to give them up."
" Who was aware," urged Dulcitius, " that they were in
the house where you lived ? " Irene answered, " Al
raighty God, who knows all things, saw thera, but no
one besides ; I call God to witness. No one, for a
very good reason. We thought our own people more
dangerous than eneraies, and feared that they might
accuse us ; so we showed the books to no one."
" Last year," the governor continued, " when first
this edict of our lords the emperors and Caesars
was pubhshed, where were you concealed ? " Irene

IRENE AND HER SISTERS 345
hesitated to tell. " Where it pleased God," she said,
and then added, " God knows, we were in the raoun
tains, in the open air." " With whom were you living ? "
" We were in the open air," she repeated, " wandering
from mountain to mountain." " Who supplied you
with bread ? " " God," she answered, " who giveth
food to all." Then the governor asked her, " Was your
father privy to all this ? " " No," said Irene ; " by God
Alraighty, he was not privy to it ; he knew nothing
whatsoever about it." " Which of your neighbours,
then," he pursued, " knew about it ? " " Ask the
neighbours," rephed the spirited girl, "and the
places, if any one knew where we were." " When
you came back from the mountains, as you say,"
Dulcitius continued, "did you read these writings
in the presence of anybody else ? " " They were in
our own home," she answered, " and we did not dare to
take them out. It was a great grief to us that we could
not study them day and night, as we used to do from
the beginning until this day last year, when we hid
them." Dulcitius pronounced sentence upon Irene. No
rack or claw was used upon her, but she was sub
mitted to a raoral torture which was far worse. Her
sisters, the judge said, had been quickly despatched.
Irene, first for fleeing frora justice, and then for hiding
the Scriptures, was liable to the penalty of death ; but
before she died, she was to be stripped of her clothing,
and exposed to the outrages of the ill-disposed, with
the provision of one loaf frora the governor's palace.
The aediles of the city and their police officer were
caUed in, and the governor gave them to understand
that if he should receive information frora his agents
that Irene had been allowed to leave the place for

346 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
an instant, the severest punishraent would fall upon
them. The books which had been produced in court
out of Irene's boxes and coffers were to be publicly
burned. The horrible sentence was carried out, but Irene
came through the trial untouched and even unac-
costed. Once more she was brought to the tribunal.
Dulcitius asked if she persisted in her foolhardi-
ness. She replied that it was no foolhardiness, but
her duty towards God, and that she persisted in it.
Dulcitius called for paper and wrote her final sentence.
Like her sisters, and on the sarae spot as they, she
was burned alive. What becarae of her four surviving
corapanions is not known.^
' Franchi de' Cavalieri in Studi e Testi, vol. ix. p. 15 ; Ruinart, p, 348;
Knopf, p. 91.

CHAPTER XVIII
IRENAEUS AND QUIRINUS
The provinces along the Danube were rich in mar
tyrdoras. Either at Dorostorura, or at Axiopolis not
far frora it, by the lower reaches of that river, a soldier
naraed Dasius attained his crown during the reign of
Diocletian, though the strange circurastances of his
death give reason to think that it raay have occurred
earlier in the reign, and not as a part of the general
persecution of the Church.
The feast called the Saturnalia was one of the raost
popular of heathen feasts, especially in the array. It
was a tirae of chartered excess and debauch, and
was eagerly looked forward to. Among the troops in
Moesia a custora had crept in which seeras to us in
credible, and yet serious scholars have argued for the
truth of it. The soldiers, a raonth before the festival,
chose one of their nuraber by lot to be the king of the
revels. He was clothed with the insignia of an eraperor
and attended by a bodyguard, and for thirty days had
liberty to do anything he pleased ; but at the end of
the tirae he was expected to corarait suicide, as a kind
of expiatory offering to Saturn. The lot one year fell
upon Dasius, who was a Christian. He refused the
position assigned to hira. If he was to die, he said,
he preferred to make a freewill offering of himself to
Christ, instead of being sacrificed to an idol.
Some time before persecution touched the civilian

348 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
world, Diocletian attempted to weed Christianity out of
the army; but it was difficult, no doubt, to do it ex
haustively. Here and there a Christian would stiU be
found in the ranks, and each case would be dealt with
as it arose. The soldiers at Dorostorum, angry with
Dasius for his refusal, put hira under arrest, and next
day denounced hira to the legate, who bore the name
of Bassus. Bassus, of course, was not concerned with
the arrangeraents for the Saturnalia, but a charge of
Christianity was a different raatter, especially if it was
accorapanied by anything like insubordinate language.
He ordered Dasius to raake supplication to the effigies
of " our lords the eraperors, who give us peace and
provide us with sustenance, and take thought for our
welfare every day." Dasius, if we may trust the Acts,
replied that he was a Christian, and as such was no
soldier of an earthly sovereign, but a soldier of the
heavenly King, " whose gift," he said, " I enjoy " —
raeaning, no doubt, the gift of the Holy Ghost — "by
whose grace I live, and in whose unspeakable loving-
kindness I am rich." The legate urged him again.
" Pray," he said, " to the sacred iraages of our era
perors. Even the barbarous nations revere and serve
thera." Again Dasius declined. " You are aware,
Dasius," said Bassus, "that everyone is bound to obey
the commands of the emperors and the sacred laws.
I wish to be lenient with you. Answer me without
anxiety or fear." " Do," he replied, " as you are com
manded by those ungodly and abominable emperors,
I will maintain the faith which I once for aU pledged
myself to my God to maintain. No threats of yours
can change ray purpose." Bassus offered to give him
two hours to think it over. "What is the good of
giving me two hours ? " cried Dasius ; " I have already

IRENAEUS AND QUIRINUS 349
told you what I think. Do what you please. I ara a
Christian. I despise and abhor your eraperors and
their glory." There was only one answer to such
language. Bassus ordered hira at once to be be
headed.' Sirmium, on the Save, a little above its confluence
with the Danube, was one of the raain seats of erapire
in the tirae of Diocletian. The Bishop of Sirmium, at
the height of the persecution, was a young raan for his
station. His narae was Irenaeus. Probus, the governor
of Pannonia, summoned hira, and bade hira obey " the
divine ordinances," and sacrifice. Irenaeus replied with
the words of Exodus, so often quoted in those days of
strife with paganism, " He that sacrificeth unto the gods
and not to God, he shaU be utterly destroyed." " Our
raost gracious princes," said the governor, " have ordered
sacrifice to be done, or torture to be applied." " My
orders are to subrait to torture rather than to deny
God and sacrifice to devUs." " Sacrifice, or I raust
have you tortured.'' " I shall rejoice if you do, that I
may be found a partaker of the suffering of my Lord."
The torture was severely inflicted. While it was going
on, Probus said, "What do you say, Irenaeus — wiU
you sacrifice ? " The bishop answered, " I ara sacri
ficing to ray God by a good confession, as I have
always done."
Then took place one of those scenes in court which
must have been hard to witness unmoved. His kins
folk drew near to the tortured man, and besieged hira
with entreaties. His chUdren kissed his feet and ira
plored him to pity thera. His own wife, and those of
his relatives, joined in the supplication. His father and
raother wept and wailed over him. His faithful ser-
' Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xvi. p. 1 1 ; Knopf, p. 86.

350 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
vants, his neighbours, his friends, raised their voices in
lamentation, and told him that he was too young to
die. But Irenaeus made no answer to any of them,
good or ill. At last the governor addressed hira again.
" Let their tears," he said, " draw you away frora your
raadness. Think of your youth, and sacrifice." " I
think of ray eternal welfare," replied Irenaeus, "when
I decline to sacrifice."
Probus coraraanded him to be thrown into prison,
where for many days great hardships were inflicted
upon hira. One day, in the middle of the night,
Probus sent for hira, and bade hira sacrifice, and so
save hiraself further troubles. " Do as you have been
bidden," the young bishop answered ; " you must not
expect that of me." Probus was so annoyed that he
ordered him to be beaten with sticks. " I have a
God," Irenaeus rejoined, "whora I have learned from
early years to worship. I adore Hira. He comforts
me in everything, and to Him I offer sacrifice ; but I
cannot adore gods made with hands." " Save yourself
death," said the governor ; " be content with the
tortures which you have endured." " I save myself
death in a moraent," he answered, " when by means
of the punishments which you inflict, and which I do
not feel, for God's sake I gain eternal life." " Have
you a wife?" the governor inquired. "No." "Have
you any children ? " " No." " Have you a father and
raother?" "No." "Then who were those people
weeping at the last session of the court ? " Irenaeus
answered, "There is a coraraandraent of Jesus Christ,
ray Lord, who said, ' He that loveth father or raother,
or wife or children or kinsfolk, more than Me, is
not worthy of Me.' " " Sacrifice," said the governor,
" if it were only for their sakes." " My children,"

IRENAEUS AND QUIRINUS 351
answered Irenaeus, "have the sarae God as I have,
and He can save them. You do as you are bidden."
Once more the governor urged the young man to
sacrifice and avoid suffering. " Do what you will," he
answered ; " you shall see what power of resistance to
your insidious attacks the Lord Jesus Christ will give
me." " I must pronounce sentence upon you," said
Probus. " I shall be much obhged to you, if you
will," replied the bishop. The sentence was given.
" I command that Irenaeus, who refuses to obey the
imperial orders, should be thrown into the river."
The young bishop was a little disappointed. " I
thought that I should have all those tortures that
you threatened rae with, and then, at the end of
thera, be put to the sword ; but you have treated
rae with none of these things. Do it, I beseech you,
that you raay learn how Christians, through their faith
in God, are schooled to despise death."
Probus gratified the bishop's wish so far as to
add to his sentence the death of the sword. With
thanksgiving to Christ for extending the range of his
sufferings, Irenaeus was led out to one of the bridges
over the Save, where he took off his garraents, stretched
out his hands towards heaven, and prayed, " O Lord
Jesus Christ, who didst vouchsafe to suffer for the
salvation of the world, let Thy heavens open that the
angels raay receive the spirit of Thy servant Irenaeus,
who suffers thus for Thy narae and for Thy people
brought forth by Thy Cathohc Church of Sirraiura. I
beseech Thee, and I entreat Thy mercy, that Thou
wouldest vouchsafe both to receive me and to confirm
thera in Thy faith." Then the sword fell, and his
body was thrown into the Save.^
1 Ruinart, p. 356 ; Von Gebhardt, p. 162.

352 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
This was not the first martyrdom with which
Probus was concerned ; nor was it the last. Ap
parently not long before, a priest, naraed Montanus,
from Singidunum, the raodern Belgrade, had fled for
refuge to Sirraiura and fallen into the hands of Probus,
who put hira to death. Not long after, his official
duties took hira to the town of Cibalae, some fifty
railes frora Sirraiura, afterwards the birthplace of the
Christian eraperor Valentinian. A Bishop of Cibalae,
naraed Eusebius, had suffered raartyrdora in the persecu
tion of Valerian ; and on the anniversary of his glorious
death, the head reader of that church was brought
before Probus. The examination was as follows : —
" What is your name ? " " PoUio." " Are you a
Christian?" "Yes." "What office do you hold?"
" I am the head of the readers." " What do you mean
by readers ? " " Those whose duty it is to read the
word of God to the congregation." "Those who
impose upon silly woraen, and tell them not to marry,
and persuade them to adopt a fanciful chastity."
"You will be able to test our siUiness and fancifulness
to-day." "How?" "The silly and fanciful people
are those who forsake their Creator and consent to
your superstitions. Those who have read the com
raandraents of the eternal King, and strive to fulfil
thera in despite of tortures, prove theraselves to be
loyal and steadfast." "What king do you raean, and
what coraraandments ? " " The good and holy com
raandraents of our King, Christ." " What are they ? "
PoUio gave an excellent suraraary of Christian raorality.
" Now what is the good of all that," Probus answered,
" if a raan is killed, and sees the light no raore, and
loses all his corporal possessions ? " " This brief light
is not so good as the light eternal, and possessions

IRENAEUS AND QUIRINUS 353
which endure are more precious than those which
perish ; and it is not prudence which prefers things
temporal to things eternal." " Enough of that ; do
what the emperors have commanded." " What is
that ? " " To sacrifice." " Do what they have com
manded you ; for I shall do nothing of the kind, because
it is written, ' He that sacrificeth to devils and not
to God shall be utterly destroyed.' " " You shaU be
smitten with the sword if you do not sacrifice." " Do
as you have been bidden. My duty is to follow in all
sincerity the footsteps of the bishops, and presbyters,
and all the fathers, whose teaching I have imbibed.
Anything that you may like to inflict upon me I shall
gladly welcome."
The governor sentenced him to be burned. He
was executed a mile frora the city, blessing and
glorifying God.^
The carefulness of Christians with regard to chastity,
to which Probus raade reference, was displayed in
connexion with another raartyrdora, at Sirraiura, about
the same time — though whether Probus was then
governor of Pannonia or not is not known. There
was a Greek Christian, called Syneros — or, as the name
is sometiraes written, Serenus — who had taken up his
residence at Sirmium, where he followed the occupation
of a gardener. His garden seems to have become a
favourite resort of the citizens. When the persecution
first reached Sirraiura, Syneros thought fit to retire ;
but after a tirae he carae back and resuraed his
position. One day a lady, accorapanied by two raaids,
raade her appearance in his garden at an unconven
tional hour, and walked up and down in a raanner
which seemed to Syneros suspicious. He was an
' Ruinart, p. 359.

354 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
elderly man, and ventured to remonstrate with her.
He told her that she had no business there, and advised
her to go back to her husband's house and behave like
an honest woraan.
The lady's husband was an officer of the household
of Galerius, and was in attendance upon the eraperor
at a distance. In her raortification, she wrote him an
angry letter, saying how she had been insulted. Her
husband obtained leave of absence from Galerius, and
returned to Sirmium, where he soon brought Syneros
before the governor. Upon inquiry, however, the
charges brought against hira by the lady feU to the
ground, and the husband was convinced that his wife
had been reaUy to blarae, and that Syneros had acted
very properly in finding fault with her behaviour.
But the conduct of Syneros struck the governor
as so unusual, that he guessed hira to belong to the
proscribed religion. He asked hira what his nationality
was. Without a raoraent's hesitation, Syneros, seeing
what was coraing, answered, " I ara a Christian." The
governor asked hira how he had hitherto escaped the
sacrificial test which had been iraposed. He answered
raodestly, " As it seeraed good to God to keep me
hitherto in the body. I was Uke a stone rejected from
the building ; but now the Lord has need of me for it.
Now, because He would have me discovered, I ara
ready to suffer for His name's sake, that I may have
part in His kingdom with all the saints." The
governor subjected hira to no tortures or indignities,
but gave sentence that, for withdrawing and concealing
hiraself in conterapt of the iraperial command to
sacrifice, he was to be beheaded.^
A special interest attaches to the martyrdom of a
^ Ruinart, p. 433.

IRENAEUS AND QUIRINUS 355
group of sculptors in the sarae province, because it
took place under the direction of the great eraperor
Diocletian himself, though probably after his abdication
of sovereignty. Diocletian was a great builder, and
deeply interested in everything connected with archi
tecture and its attendant arts. He made a journey one
day into the province of Pannonia, probably frora
the wonderful palace of Spalato, on the Adriatic coast,
which he built for his old age. His object was to
inspect certain newly-opened raarble quarries in the
raountains. There was an encarapraent of no fewer
than 622 raasons and carvers at one of these quarries,
with a number of " philosophers," or more scientific
workraen, over thera. Araongst the raen were four
Christians, whose naraes were Claudius, Syraphorian,
Nicostratus, and Castorius, who were particularly suc
cessful in their work.
Diocletian expressed his wish to have an iraage of
the Sun, in his chariot with four horses, carved out of
a single block of " Thasos " stone. When one atterapt
had failed, and the " philosophers " were rauch per
plexed to find another block of sufficient size, and all
were busy in trying to find how the veins of the
raarble lay, Syraphorian begged that his gang raight
be allowed to try. They got out a block from which
they succeeded in carving a group of not less than five
and twenty feet in length. Diocletian was exceedingly
delighted. He rewarded the men handsomely, and
proceeded to order frora them a nuraber of colurans
and capitals of porphyry. When they arrived at the
porphyry quarry, one of the gang, called Siraplicius,
found that his tools broke raore frequently than those
of the others. They told hira the reason. He was
a heathen, whUe everything that his companions did

356 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
was done in the narae of the Lord Jesus Christ. At
his desire they blessed his tools for him, and the result
so impressed him that he asked for instruction in their
religion. When they began to look about for a priest to
teach hira, they found no less a personage than Cyril,
the bishop of the great see of Antioch in Syria, who
had now for three years worked in chains at some
quarry in this distant province for his confession of
the narae of Christ. The four raasons brought Sim-
plicius to hira one night, as he lay in irons, surrounded
by other confessors, and, falling at his feet, they be
sought hira to baptize their friend. " My son," said
the bishop, " you have seen a deed of power at your
work ; only believe faithfully." Siraplicius asked what
he was to believe. " Believe," said Cyril, " on Jesus
Christ our Lord, the Son of God, who created all
things ; and renounce all idols raade with hands."
Siraplicius professed his faith, and Cyril made him a
catechumen, according to the custora of the Church,
and then baptized him in his place of confinement.
Emboldened by what had happened, the five men
returned to their work, and began so openly to make
the sign of the cross over everything that they did, that
the " philosopher " under whom they worked observed
it, and accused thera of practising raagic. Their suc
cess, and the rewards which Diocletian bestowed upon
thera, roused the jealousy of the philosophers, and they
watched for an opportunity of getting them into trouble.
Before long the opportunity came. Diocletian
ordered the five to carve him a nuraber of Cupids
and Victories out of the porphyry quarry, and, above
all, an iraage of Asclepius, the god of health, to whom
the ailing emperor had a great devotion. The men

IRENAEUS AND QUIRINUS 357
readily obeyed his orders with regard to the Victories
and Cupids, as they had forraerly done with regard to
the Sun in his chariot. These were but ornaraental
symbols. But the Asclepius was to be used for idola
trous purposes, and they intentionaUy left it alone. At
a fixed time an exhibition of the artistic output of the
last few raonths was held in a field, and the emperor
came to inspect it. The emperor was deeply dis
appointed to find no Asclepius. He asked the reason.
The philosophers told hira that the reason was that the
raen were Christians, and did everything in Christ's
narae. They thought that Diocletian would at once
punish his favoured workraen, but he only answered,
" If all that they do in their Christ's narae proves so
fine, I see no harra in it. It does thera great credit."
When the phUosophers insisted, however, upon the
disobedience of the five men, he sent for thera. He
rerainded thera of his past favours, and asked why they
had not executed the Asclepius. Claudius replied re
spectfully, but said that they would never raake an
iraage of a poor huraan being — for it was the fashion
of Christians at the tirae to consider the heathen gods
to have been deified men — for purposes of worship.
"There, sir," said the philosophers, "you hear their
treason, and how haughtily they speak to you." But
Diocletian reproved them for their officious interfer
ence. " I will not have my skilled workraen reviled,"
he said, " but encouraged."
The work was put into other hands, but when it
was presented to the emperor it proved to be so in
ferior that he asked whether it was done by the men
who had forraerly given hira such satisfaction. "No,"
the philosophers replied, and repeated their former
accusations of Christianity and of magic. At last

358 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
Diocletian felt himself bound to take action, though
he did it as unwillingly as he had formerly done
against his Christian chamberlains at Nicomedia. He
ordered a tribune to give thera a fair trial, and to visit
any one who bore false witness against thera with the
sarae penalty that would be due if the accusation were
well founded. When called upon to worship the sun-
god, the five raen at once confessed themselves Christians,
and were sent to prison for nine days. The next tirae
that they appeared before the tribune, he warned them
not to trifle with the favour which Diocletian had so
markedly shown them. " Our gracious prince," he
said, " is so kind-hearted that he treats men like
brothers or sons, but especially those who worship
the gods." " If he cares so rauch for raen," Sym
phorian answered, "he ought to see that they do not
offend God, their Creator. Our care is to avoid
perishing in the world to come, where the fire is not
quenched." The tribune reported the case to Diocletian, who
ordered that if they still refused, they should be beaten
with scorpions. Acting on these instructions, the
tribune once more offered them their choice between
the friendship of the eraperor and the torture. The
choice was soon raade. They were stripped and
beaten with scorpions, while an officer of the court
cried aloud, " Despise not the bidding of the princes."
FinaUy, by Diocletian's orders, they were enclosed in
lead and thrown into the river. The good bishop
Cyril was so affected by the news that "he afflicted
himself and passed to the Lord '' in the prison.^
The Bishop of Siscia, in the sarae province of Pan
nonia, was a man naraed Quirinus. When he knew
^ Untersuchungen zur Romischen Kaisergeschichte, vol. iii. pp. 3, 324-

IRENAEUS AND QUIRINUS 359
that raeasures were to be taken against the Christians,
he left the city to seek refuge elsewhere, but was caught
and brought before the local justice, Maxiraus. We
cannot be sure that the report of the exaraination is in
every respect exact, as later hands have tarapered with
it ; but, no doubt, it reproduces in the raain what
passed between the two men. Maxiraus asked the
prisoner where he was fleeing to. Quirinus replied
that he was only obeying the precept, " When they
persecute you in one city, flee ye into another."
" Whose comraandment is that ? " said Maximus.
"The comraandraent of Christ, who is true God," the
bishop replied. " And do you not know," said Maxi
mus, " that the comraandraents of the eraperors could
find you wherever you were ; and He whora you call
true God can give you no help when you are caught,
as you have just found when you ran away and were
brought back ? " Quirinus answered, " The Lord whora
we serve is always with us, and wherever we are. He is
able to help us. He was with me when I was caught,
•and He is with me here to comfort me, and it is
He who answers you by my raouth." " You talk a
great deal," said the raagistrate, " and while you do so
you put off obeying the eraperors. Read their divine
orders, and do as you are bidden." " I will not listen
to the bidding of your eraperors," the bishop answered,
" because it is sacrilegious, and coraraands Christ's ser
vants to sacrifice to your gods. I cannot serve thera,
for they are nothing. My God, whora I serve, is- in
heaven and earth, and in the sea and everywhere, but
is higher than aU, because He contains aU things within
Himself ; for all things were raade through Hira, and
in Hira all things consist." " You have lived too long,"
said Maximus, " and have picked up old wives' fables.

36o THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
See, they are offering you the incense. Learn that
there are gods, though you do not know them. You
shall be well rewarded for your good sense if you
coraply ; but if you will not show yourself loyal, you
will have to undergo a variety of pains, and end with a
horrible death;" " The pains with Which you threaten
me I consider to be glory," said Quirinus ; " and the
promised death, if it is vouchsafed to me, will give
eternal life. Therefore I will be loyal to my God, not
to your eraperors. I do not believe these gods to be
gods, when they are not ; and I will not put incense
upon the altars of devils, because I know that my God
has an altar upon which I offer sacrifices of a sweet
smeU, such as are suitable to Hira." " I see that mad*
ness is driving you to death," said Maximus ; "sacrifice
to the gods." " I will not sacrifice to devils," the bishop
replied ; " for it is written, ' All the gods of the heathen
are but devils,' and, ' Whosoever feacrificeth to gods
shall be utterly destroyed.' "
Then Maximus ordered them to thrash him with
sticks. While this was done, he said, " Come back
to reason, and acknowledge that the gods whom the
Roman empire serves are mighty gods. If you coniply;
you shall be made a priest of the great god Jupiter ; if
not, you shall be sent on to be tried by Amantius, the
governor of Pannonia Prima. He will award you the
death you deserve. Now, corae back frora your foUy.
Agree to do it." The bishop answered, " I am now
discharging the ofiice of priesthood. I am raade a
priest indeed, if I ara allowed to offer ray own body
to the true God. As for the beating of ray body,
I like it ; it does not hurt rae. I put rayself At yoiir
disposal for worse inflictions, that those whora I have
governed in this life may follow me to that eternal life

IRENAEUS AND QUIRINUS 361
which is easily reached by a road like this." Maxiraus
ordered him to be put in heavy chains in the prison
tUl he becarae sober. Quirinus replied that he had no
horror of the prison : God would be with hira there.
Three days after, he was conveyed in heavy chains
frora town to town along the Danube tiU he reached
the governor, Araantius, at the town of Sabaria, the
raodern Stein-ara-Anger, and faraous as the birthplace
of the great St. Martin, who was born alraost the sarae
year. Araantius asked hira whether the report which
he had received of his trial before Maximus was correct.
He said that it was ; he had confessed the true God at
Siscia, and that nothing could separate him frora Hira.
Araantius courteously expressed his reluctance to lay
stripes upon a raan of Quirinus' age, and besought him
to perform the required acts, that he might spend the
rest of his days in peace. Quirinus replied that, old as
he was, faith could give him a strength superior to all
punishments, that he had no great desire to live, and
no fear at all to die. Amantius told him that it was
inhuman to court death in that fashion. Other criminals,
he said, pleaded Not Guilty in order to escape death :
why would not Quirinus do the same ? The bishop
explained that there was no likeness between the cases ;
the criminals in seeking life denied God, and died ; the
Christian gains eternal life by obeying the laws of
Christ. The sentence pronounced upon him was that he
should have a stone fastened round his neck and be
thrown — like Irenaeus at Sirraiura, and like the five
stone-workers in the sarae province — into the river.
The road to Scarabantia crossed the river Sibaris on
a lofty bridge, and frora this the bishop was thrown.
It was widely believed in Christendora a little later that

362 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
in spite of the stone hung round his neck the body of
Quirinus would not sink, and that he was heard praying
on the waters.-^
A similar death put an end to the sufferings of
the deacon Hermylus, and of his compassionate
gaoler Stratonicus, who were thrown into the Danube,
and after three days were washed up not far from
Singidunum.^ ¦" Ruinart, p. 437. ^ Acta Sanctorum, January 13.

CHAPTER XIX
SEBASTIAN; ALBAN; VINCENT; EULALIA
Unhappily it is almost irapossible to find anything
historical to relate about the raartyrdoras which took
place at Rorae and in Italy during the last and greatest
persecution. That the church of the capital of the
erapire was not behind other cities in the nuraber and
courage of its raartyrs is certain, and the famous naraes
which they bore only raake it the raore sad that their
deeds are lost in the fictions which were invented in
their honour.
Diocletian hiraself visited Rorae " iraraediately after
the loss of his happiness," as Lactantius expresses it ;
that is to say, directly after proraulgating the edict of
persecution in February 303. The raain object of the
visit was to celebrate his Vicennalia, the twentieth anni
versary of his accession. That festival took place in
Noveraber, but the eraperor's stay perhaps began earlier
in the year than has been thought by sorae recent
authorities. He was not at all pleased with the state
of things which he found there ; in particular, the way
in which the public games were conducted at Rorae
appeared to him indecent. " I am censor," he is
reported to have said; "when I ara looking on, the
garaes ought to be of a better character."
It may be that an incident with which a Christian
was concerned contributed to his displeasure. It is
said that one day Diocletian was present at a panto-
363

364 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
miraic perforraance in Rome, where the player made
it his business to take off the ways of the obnoxious
religion. Lying on the stage as if he were very iU,
he called loudly for baptism. " I feel so heavy," he
said ; " I want to be made light." " How is that to
be done ? " asked the other performers ; " do you
think that we are carpenters, and are going to plane
you ? " " Fools," cried Genesius, for that was the
chief player's name, " I wish to die a Christian."
• " What for ? " they asked. " That I raay find refuge
in God in that day," was the answer.
Great laughter, of course, followed this presentment
of the unfamiliar Christian phrases. A presbyter and
an exorcist were introduced upon the stage, and sat
down by the sick man's bedside. " Why have you
sent for us, ray son ? " the mock-priest inquired. But
Genesius had Christian friends and relations, perhaps
even Christian parents. His use of Christian language
was based upon sorae real acquaintance with the faith
and its soleranities. According to the story, at the
raoraent when he was to undergo the sacred rite in
raockery, his heart misgave hira. Grace, which had
been spurned before, appealed again to his better self ;
and he answered with a raore serious raeaning than
he had intended, " I desire to receive the grace of
Christ, that I may be born again, and set free from
the iniquities which have been my ruin." The actors
clothed hira in white garments. The fun of the piece,
however, was that directly the sick man was baptized,
he was called upon, in the play, to pay the penalty
of his new faith in a way that he had not expected.
Soldiers followed the priest, and he was carried off
to answer for his religion before the judge. Genesius
seized the dramatic moraent, and turned it into a

SEBASTIAN 365
reality. Addressing the great emperor hiraself, he
declared how he had always hated and insulted the
Christian name, but that his mind was changed, and
he now exhorted Diocletian and all who heard hira
to follow hira in the change.
The affront was too great to be borne quietly.
Diocletian coraraanded him to be beaten and delivered
over to Plautian, the prefect, to see that he did
sacrifice. He was hung on the hobby horse, and
had his sides torn ; lighted torches were applied to
hira ; but he would not go back frora the confession
which he had made. At last he was beheaded, ex
pressing the liveliest penitence for having held up
the holy name of Christ to ridicule, and for having
turned too late to the service of the true King.^
Not inconceivably, this may also have been the
tirae at which a raore celebrated martyrdom took
place. If it is true that Sebastian was condemned
by Diocletian in person, the choice lies between this
time and the year before, when Diocletian and Maxi
raian celebrated a triuraph at Rorae ; for on no
other occasion is Diocletian known to have visited
the city. Sebastian was a native of southern Gaul,
and brought up at Milan. He entered the army,
and rose to coraraand one of the cohorts of the
Praetorian Guard. In that position he is said to
have endeared hiraself greatly to his iraperial raasters.
But when the Christian troubles began, Sebastian was
unwearied in his endeavours to fortify those who
were in danger of comproraising their Christian
faith. He took part in burying the bodies of other
Christian .soldiers who died for their religion. He
carae to be regarded as the protector of the Church,
^ Ruinart, p, 236.

366 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
For such actions as these he was denounced to
Diocletian. The story goes that Diocletian upbraided
him for secretly practising a religion derogatory to
the gods and injurious to the emperor in the very
household of the emperor, who had been so kind
to him. Sebastian answered that he had always
prayed to Christ for the eraperor, and had interceded
for the welfare of the Roman world with the God
who is in heaven, thinking that it was a foolish thing
to seek help from images of stone. Diocletian there
upon coraraanded hira to be taken out into the
Campagna, and tied up, and shot with arrows. A
company of archers raade hira their target, " until,"
as the story says, "his body bristled with the arrows
like a hedgehog." The injuries, nevertheless, were
not fatal. A woraan, who carae to do the last offices
for the body, found hira still breathing. She nursed
hira, and he recovered enough to present himself
one day to Diocletian " on the steps of Elagabalus."
Diocletian, in surprise, asked if it was indeed Sebastian.
" Yes," he rephed ; " the Lord Jesus Christ has brought
rae back to Ufe that I might meet you and testify that
this persecution of yours against His servants is whoUy
undeserved." He was then taken to the basement
of the palace, and beaten till he died, and his body
was thrown into the great sewer.^
A whole series of Roman martyrdoms are woven
into the legend of St. Sebastian. Probably they have
no historical connexion with ¦ that saint, and took
place at a later point than his ; but there is no reason
to doubt the reality of the martyrdoras, or of some
parts of the story concerning thera. A woraan named
Zoe was arrested for praying at the tomb of St. ,
1 Acta Sanctorum, January 20.

SEBASTIAN 367
Peter on the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul, and
taken before an officer called the patron of the district
of the Nauraachia, in which St. Peter's stood. Upon
her refusal to offer incense to a httle statue of Mars
with which his office was furnished, he coraraitted
her for five days to a dark dungeon, where she was
nearly starved to death. Her spirit, however, was
unbroken, and she was heard solacing herself by
singing hyrans to God. At the end of the five days,
the prefect of the city had her hung up to a tree
and a filthy sraoke sent up in her face. Zoe died
at the first breath of it, and her body was thrown
into the Tiber. A raan called Tiburtius was be
trayed by an apostate Christian. He was of good
faraily. " Restore yourself to your proper rank,"
said the prefect, " and be what nature raeant you
for." Tiburtius refused to coraply. Fire was applied
to hira, but he professed not to feel it. The prefect
reraarked that it was well known that Christ had
taught His followers raagic. " Be silent, wretch ! "
cried the indignant raartyr ; " do not let rae hear
you narae that sweet and holy name." The prefect
gave sentence upon him. " Let the blaspheraer of
the gods be punished with the sword." The sentence
was executed three railes out of the city on the
Labican road, where a Christian relative contrived
to bury him. Castulus perished a little further out
along the sarae road. He was a diaetarius (as it was
called) of the imperial house ; that is, he had the
charge of certain apartments in it. He is said to
have been active in protecting his fellow Christians,
araong them Gains the Bishop of Rorae, at the time
when Diocletian first came to the purple. It had
been a moraent of great distress for thera. In the

368 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
confusion of the civil war which placed Diocletian
in power, the Roman authorities would allow nothing
to be bought or sold in the markets without buyer
and seller offering incense before the Uttle images which
were everywhere set up. Officers were stationed in
the street, and by the fountains, whose business it
was to see that no one even drew water without
pouring some of it out in honour of the idols.
Castulus in those days found shelter for some of his
brethren within the imperial palace itself, yet he
survived to exhibit his faith again in the great per
secution twenty years later. Thrice he was tortured
and stood firra. At length, whether by judicial sentence
or by the caprice of underlings is uncertain, he was
pushed into a ditch by the roadside, and buried
under a raass of sand. Two brothers, Marcus and
Marcellian, were nailed to one stake. It is said that
the prefect offered to unfasten them if they would
do the idolatrous act, and that they answered that
they were very well-off where they were ; for the
first tirae, they said, they were sure of abiding in the
love of Christ ; the nails held thera fast to it.^
Two raartyrs, Marcellinus and Peter, whose names
have found a place in the canon of the Roman Mass,
were respectively priest and exorcist. It appears that
they were arrested as they came out of a catacomb
on the Aurelian road, where Marcellinus had celebrated
the Eucharist. The soldiers who arrested thera were,
at the very raoraent, conveying out to execution a
man called Artemius, with his wife and daughter.
They beheaded Arteraius on the spot, and threw the
wife and daughter down the shaft of the catacomb,
and hurled stones upon thera as they lay at the
' Acta Satictorum, January 20.

SEBASTIAN ; ALBAN 369
bottom, Marcellinus and Peter were taken to a place
known as the Black Wood, though the Christians
of Rome called it the White Wood in their honour,
and there beheaded, Damasus, the celebrated Bishop
of Rome, put an inscription upon their grave, in which
he says that, when he was a boy, the executioner who
had beheaded thera told him sorae circurastances of
their death. He received orders to behead and bury
them in a deep thicket, that the Christians might not
discover where they were laid ; and when they reached
the spot, the two saints cheerfully busied themselves
in plearing away the bushes, that they raight have
roora to die.^
The story of St. Agnes has corae down to us
by the hands of several ancient writers, besides the
late and worthless " Acts ; " but when the accounts
of St, Arabrose, of Daraasus, and of Prudentius are
corapaped, there is Uttle that can be considered
historical in any of thera. St. Ambrose in his prose
works tells the story differently from the way he does it
in his hyran for St. Agnes' day. It is not even certain
that Agnes suffered in the last great persecution, or
whether it was not fifty years earlier, under Decius
or Valerian. So far as the facts can be ascertained,
they are 3s follows :
Agnes, at the time of her death, was only about
twelve or thirteen years of age. It seems that, like a
famous young Spanish maiden of whom we raust speak
by and by, she was confined to the house by her anxious
parents, who feared that she would offer herself for the
honours of raartyrdora. She contrived notwithstanding
to escape,, and carae before the judge. According to
the imaginary account of the scene given by St. Arabrose,
' Acta Sanctorum, June 2,

2 A

370 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
the judge endeavoured by turns to frighten and to cajole
her into sacrificing. He reminded her — it is a common
feature in the narratives of virgin martyrs — how many
young raen would think her a desirable raatch. She
answered that it would be doing a wrong to her Spouse
to look for some other whom she might like, and that
none should have her but He who had first chosen her.
Prudentius, probably through misunderstanding an ex
pression of St. Arabrose, says that Agnes was exposed
to sharae and outrage, like many of the female martyrs
of the time, but protected by a divine rairacle ; and
later writers have followed his story, and enlarged upon
it. The earlier writers knew nothing of this part of the
story. St. Airibrose in his hyran relates that when the
judge called upon her to put the torch to the incense
upon the idol altar, she said that these were not the
torches for the virgins of Christ, thinking, no doubt, of
the torches that were used at a wedding. Both St.
Arabrose and Damasus relate that when she was to die
she took pains at the last moraent, like St. Perpetua in
older days, to cover herself well with her garment, or
with her flowing hair, " that no mortal eye raight look
upon the teraple of the Lord." St. Ambrose pictures her
as dying by the sword, Damasus as being burnt alive,^
A lady of St. Arabrose's own faraily left behind her
a reputation which he uses raore than once to enforce
the lesson of chaste unworldliness. Her name was
Soteris, The family was one of great distinction, and
Soteris was a maiden of reraarkable beauty. She was
called upon to sacrifice, and refused. Then the judge
bade his attendants to slap her in the face. He thought
that if he treated her like a saucy slave-girl she might
be brought to a sense of what became her position.
^ Franchi de' Cavalieri, S. Agnese nella tradizione e nella leggenda.

SEBASTIAN; ALBAN 371
When Soteris heard the order, she removed the veil
which hung over her head, and offered her cheek to the
rude hands of the executioners. Other maidens raight
have shrunk not only from the pain and from the shame,
but also from the loss of their good looks ; Soteris
welcoraed the loss of what was, after aU, a perilous gift.
The beating was unraercifuUy adrainistered, but without
changing the girl's raind, and finally, as St. Arabrose
says, " she found the sword that she was seeking." ^
There was a Christian lady at Rorae, whose narae,
according to Rufinus, was Sophronia. She was the wife
of no less a person, Eusebius tells us, than the prefect of
Rorae. Maxentius, the son of the eraperor Maxiraian,
set his unhallowed desire upon her, and, instead of
threatening her with the sharaeful exposure so often
eraployed upon Christian woraen, sent agents to convey
her to his palace. The cowardly husband was afraid
to resist. But Sophronia, if that was her narae, asked
to be allowed to retire for a few minutes to her own
apartment, as if to put on suitable apparel. When she
found herself alone, like the Lucretia of ancient Roman
history, she drove a sword into her body and died.
Eusebius, in his enthusiasm, declares her to have been
the noblest of aU the female sufferers of the tirae ; but
such suicide was not approved by the Western Church
in general, and probably that is the reason why the
woraan does not appear in the lists of the acknowledged
martyrs of Christendom.^
If the Acts of the Roman martyrs are in general
untrustworthy, there are a few from other parts of Italy
which bear every mark of truth. Of such a character
are the Acts of St. Euplus.
1 Ambrose, de Exhort. Virg. 12; de Virg. iii. 6.
^ Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii. 14.

372 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
The governor of Sicily, Calvisjanjjs, was sitting in
his private office at Catania, on the 12 th of August in
the year 304, or perhaps more probably 303, when a
voice was heard outside the curtain which screened the
office from the court, crying " I ara a Christian, and for
the name of Christ I desire to die." The governor
ordered the speaker to be brought in. It was a deacon
of the name of Euplus, or Euplius. He was carrying a
manuscript of the Gospels. A friend of Calvisianus,
perhaps a raeraber of his council, exclairaed that the
raan ought not to keep papers of that kind, contrary to
the iraperial coramand. " Where did these come from ? "
asked the governor ; <' out of your own home ? " '•' I
have no home," Euplus replied, " as my Lord Jesus
Christ knows." Doubtless, like Agape and her sisters
at Thessalonica, he had taken to the hills in order to be
able to read the Gospels in peace. " Was it you who
brought them hither ? " Calvisianus asked. " Yes, 1
brought thera with my own hands, as you see," was the
answer ; " they found rae with thera." A curious
impulse came over the judge. " Read thera," he said.
Euplus opened the book and read, " Blessed are they
which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs
is the kingdora of heaven." Then he turned over the
pages, and read again, " Whosoever will come after Me,
let hira take up his cross and follow Me." He was
proceeding to read other texts, when Calvisianus said,
" What does this raean ? " " It is the law of ray Lord,"
said Euplus, " which was delivered to rae." Calvisianus
thought that accoraplices raight be within reach, and
asked who it was that had delivered the laws to Euplus.
He answered, " It was Jesus Christ, the Son of the living
God." Calvisianus saw no advantage in prosecuting the
inforraal inquiry any further. "Since he has openly

SESfeASTlAN ; ALBAN 373
confessed," he said, " let him be examined by torture ;
let him be giverl over to the torturers."
The formal trial began the same day. Euplus lay
ready for torture. Calvisianus said to him, "With
regard to the confession which you raade to-day, what
have you to say now ? " Euplus had one hand free,
and, raakirlg the sign of the cross with it upon his fore
head, he answered, "What I said then, I confess stiU.
naraely, that I ara a Christian, and that I read the
divine Scriptures." "Why," said Calvisianus, "did
you keep these writings beside you, and not give thera
up, when the eraperors forbade them ? " Euplus
answered, " Because I ara a Christian, and it was not
right for rae to give thera up. It is better for rae to
die than to give thera up. In these is eternal life. The
raan who gives thera up, loses eternal life. I give ray
life that I raay not lose it."
Upon Calvisianus' order, the torturers went to
work. While they were at it, the deacon cried,
"Thanks be to Thee, O Christ. Keep rae, for it is
for Thee that I suffer these things." The judge said to
hira, " Desist frora this madness, Euplus ; worship
the gods and you shall be set free." " I worship
Christ," he answered; "I detest the devUs. Do
what you please ; I am a Christian. I have long
wished for this. Do what you please. Add fresh
tortures ; I am a Christian." After a considerable
tirae, the torturers were bidden to pause for a while.
"Wretched man," said the judge, "worship the gods.
Do reverence to Mars, Apollo, Aesculapius." " I
worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," the
raan answered : " I worship the Holy Trinity, beside
whora there is no God. ' The gods that have not raade
the heavens and the earth, let thera perish.' " Calvisianus

374 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
said, " Sacrifice, if you wish to be set at liberty." Euplus
answered, " I am now sacrificing, and sacrificing myself,
to Christ, my God. There is nothing else that I can do.
Your endeavours are in vain. I am a Christian." The
governor gave orders to torture him again, and worse
than before. Euplus, under the torture, cried out
again, " Thanks be to Thee, O Christ. O Christ, help !
It is for Thee that I suffer these things, O Christ." The
cry was repeated over and over again, so long as the
sufferer had strength to speak ; and when the strength
failed him, his lips were seen to move, forraing noise
lessly the sarae or sirailar words.
Calvisianus then withdrew into his office behind
the curtain, dictated his sentence, and carae out again,
carrying the tablet in his hand. He read it aloud.
" I order the Christian Euplus, who despises the edicts
of the princes, blaspheraes the gods, and refuses to
return to a better raind, to be executed with the sword.
Take hira away." Then the Gospel, which he had
when he was arrested, was hung about his neck, and
he was led out, the crier proclaiming, "The Christian
Euplus, the enemy of the gods and of the eraperors,"
Euplus was very happy, and kept repeating, " Thanks
be to Christ, ray God." When the place of execution
was reached, he knelt down and prayed at sorae length ;
then, with renewed thanksgivings, he offered his neck
to the sword and was beheaded.-^
At Bologna took place — probably at this time —
two martyrdoras, of which St. Arabrose speaks, though
evidently he knew but little of the circurastances. Vitalis
was the slave of Agricola, and seems to have owed to
hira his Christian faith. Agricola was a raan of gentle
and kindly ways, and had acquired great popularity,
^ Ruinart, p, 361 ; Knopf, p, 97.

SEBASTIAN ; ALBAN 375
even among the enemies of his religion. They were
loth to enforce the edicts against hira, but hoped that
he might be alarmed and abjure his Christianity, if the
hand of the law were laid upon his household. Vitalis
was seized, tortured, and put to death. But his raartyr
dora only served to prepare his master for a like end,
which followed, not long after, by crucifixion. The
Christian cemetery at Bologna was closed, but the
bodies of the martyrs found a resting-place in the
ceraetery of the Jews, who, if St. Ambrose was rightly
inforraed, eagerly offered this hospitality to the dead
bodies of men whose courage they adraired, without
sharing their belief. St. Ambrose was hiraself present
when the bodies were taken frora their first graves,
araidst the respectful sympathy of the Jews of Bologna,
and carried to a more distinguished place of burial.
The Christians of the place made him a present of the
cross on which Agricola died, and of the nails — a great
nuraber of thera, he says — with which he was fastened
to it ; and St. Arabrose in turn raade a present of thera
to the church at Florence, built to receive thera by a
lady naraed JuUana, at the dedication of which he
preached the serraon in which he gives his account of
the raartyrdora.^
A series of pictures in the church at Chalcedon
recorded the history of St. Euphemia ; a picture in
the church at Imola told how St. Cassian died.
Prudentius, the Spanish poet of the fifth century, re
lates that on his pUgriraage to Rorae he was lying
prostrate at the torab of Cassian, when, raising his
head, he saw on the wall facing hira the representa
tion of a horrible scene. A raan was in course of
being pricked to death by a mob of chUdren. The
1 Ambrose, de Exhort. Virg. I, 2 ; Ruinart, p. 409.

376 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
guardian of the church drew near and explained the
picture to him. His tale is not one of the most likely,
but things as strange have happened in the history
of the world. Cassian was a schoolmaster and a
Christian. When the persecution broke out, Cassian
refused to comply with the order to sacrifice, and
opened his school as usual. The magistrate sent and
arrested hira in the raidst of his pupils. It was a
tirae when atrocious forras of execution were sought
for ; and the raagistrate conceived the idea of giving
him over to the boys to do their worst upon him.
Prudentius thought that boys raust always hate the
schoolmaster : Cassian, at any rate, seems not to have
endeared himself to those whora he taught. School
exercises were written in those days upon waxen
tablets, with a sharp-pointed stiletto. It was a formid^
able weapon, and this was neither the first nor the last
tirae in history that it was used for raurderous pur
poses. The boys of Iraola plied their stilettos with aU
their raight, and at last the unfortunate Cassian died,
exhausted by innumerable little wounds.^
Gaul and Britain were under the direct government
of Constantius, the father of the future emperor,
Constantine. He was a humane prince^ and had no
sympathy with the persecution of the Christians.
Though not a Christian himself, he gave as much
protection as he could to the oppressed religion. He
allowed the churches in his dominions to be destroyed,
but, as Lactantius says, he preserved frora outrage the
true teraples of God, which are human beings. Yet
sorae martyrdoms appear to have taken place- in Gaul,
in spite of Constantius ; and the first martyrdom in
Britain of which we have any detailed account is
^ Prudentius, irepl Sreip. ix.

ALBAN ; VINCENT 377
generally attributed to this persecution, though it raight
be placed earlier.
Alban is usually supposed to have been a soldier,
but the fact is not stated by our only authorities. He
was still a heathen when the edicts of persecution wete
published ; but one day a Christian priest, or clerk,
flying from the law, came to his cottage, and Alban
kindly gave hira shelter. He saw his guest engaged
day and night in prayer. The sight drew hira to
inquire, and, under the instruction which was given
hira, Alban deterrained to give up idolatry and ac
cepted the Christian faith. After some days it came to
the ears of the governor that the man whora his agents
were seeking was hidden in Alban's house. Soldiers
were sent to the place. On the threshold Alban met
thera, dressed in the long garraent of his clerical friend,
and was led away to the judge, under the supposition
that he was the priest hiraself.
At the raoraent when Alban was brought in, the
judge was at the altar offering sacrifice. It was soon
discovered that they had got the wrong man, and the
judge told Alban that because he had harboured a
traitor, instead of delivering him up to justice, he must
suffer the sarae punishraent as the other would have
suffered, unless he would conforra to the established
religion. Alban, who had deliberately put hiraself in
the hands of the persecutors of Christianity, was not
likely to be terrified by those threats. He refused to
obey the coraraand to sacrifice. The judge asked hira
of his origin and his faraily. " What does it raatter to
you," answered the prisoner, " what family I belong to ?
I ara a Christian, and will do a Christian's duty."
When asked his name, he replied, " My relations call
me Alban, and I worship and adore the true and living

378 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
God, who created all things." " If you wish to live and
be happy," said the judge, " raake haste and sacrifice
to the great gods." "These sacrifices," he answered,
" which you offer to devils, do no good to their devotees,
and can never fulfil their desires and their prayers :
those who offer thera only get the eternal pains of heU
for their reward."
The judge ordered hira to be beaten. He bore it
with fortitude and cheerfulness, and, as he was no raore
rainded to obey at the end of the beating than at the
beginning, the judge pronounced sentence that he should
be beheaded. So far the story runs plainly and soberly
along ; but here it breaks into a series of rairacles.
The streara that ran below Verulam stops whUe the
martyr goes over ; the executioner seeing it, embraces
the martyr's faith, and is put to death with him ; the
raartyr, arriving at the top of the hill where he is to
die, prays for water, and a spring starts up at his feet.
Bede relates it all without hesitation. He is at any
rate justified in praising the beautiful situation of St,
Albans, and there is no reason to doubt his stateraent
that the raartyrdora occurred on June 22. Our raodern
observance of June 17 is derived from an accidental
error,^ The bloodthirsty Maxiraian hiraself, in all probability,
had Spain as well as Africa under his jurisdiction, and
a large contingent of Spanish martyrs was the result.
Among all the towns of Spain none held its head more
proudly in the following century than Caesaraugusta,
or Saragossa. The poet Prudentius was a native or
inhabitant of the place, and dwells with fervour upon
the fact that while Cordova, Tarragona, Calahorra,
Barcelona, Alcala, could only boast of two or three
^ Bede, Hist. Gent. Angl. i. 7.

ALBAN; VINCENT 379
raartyrs each, and none of thera of raore than five,
Saragossa had no fewer than eighteen. Scarcely
Carthage or iraperial Rorae, he says, could beat that
nuraber. Of their trials and exploits, however, Pru
dentius knew, or has recorded, no detaUs. About one
virgin confessor of Saragossa he was better inforraed.
Her narae was Encratis. Frora the poet's description
of her as a violenta virgo, it raay be understood that
Encratis, like a still more celebrated Spanish martyr,
showed her abhorrence of idolatry by sorae bold and
forcible action. She endured tortures alraost too
horrible to be related. Besides the gashings and
scrapings which were usual at the time, her left
breast was cut off, and the claws entered so deeply
into her body that even a part of her liver was torn
away. Prudentius mentions that he had seen the
dreadful relic preserved by the church of Sara
gossa. The persecuting raagistrate refused to have her
put out of pain. She was thrust with her festering
wounds into prison ; and such was her vitality that
she seeras to have survived the persecution, and, as
Prudentius says, to have gained for her dwelling-place
the unusual distinction of providing a home and shrine
for a stUl living raartyr. Two other Christians of the
place. Gains and Creraentius, likewise " had a taste of
raartyrdora " without being put to death .^
Frora the language of Prudentius, it is uncertain
whether Encratis suffered in the persecution of Diocle
tian or at sorae earlier date. The eighteen raust have
suffered earlier, because Prudentius seeras to say that the
knowledge of their history influenced in boyhood a feUow-
citizen of theirs, who rose in the last persecution to be one
of the raost celebrated raartyrs of any age or country.
' Prudentius, irtfl 2x60. iv.

380 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
Vincent was born of a distinguished family. His
grandfather, Agressus, had been decorated with the
rank of consul. In his boyhood he was a diligent
student, and under the care of the Bishop of Saragossa
he attained a great reputation for learning, both secular
and religious. The bishop's narae was Valerius. He
belonged, as Prudentius says, to " a raitred house "
which gave raore than one early bishop to the see of
Saragossa. Valerius advanced the young Vincent to
be the head of the deacons of his diocese ; and, as he
hiraself laboured under an irapediraent in his speech,
he delegated the duty of teaching to Vincent, as another
Valerius did later on, at Hippo, to St. Augustine.
The persecution in Spain was entrusted by Maxiraian
to an officer named Datian, who left behind him a
terrible reraerabrance araong the Christians of the
peninsula. To hira Valerius and his deacon were
brought. They confessed what they were, and Datian,
hoping to break their spirits by delay and weariness,
dragged them off in chains to Valencia, and there threw
thera into prison. They saw no one ; they were barely
kept frora starvation ; the irons with which their necks
and arms were loaded nearly crushed thera. Yet when
they were called again to the bar, the judge was
astonished and disappointed to see how well -liking
they were. He addressed them, nevertheless, in kindly-
sounding words, and urged them to coraply with the
law. The raeek Valerius placed his defence in the
hands of his deacon, who expressed to Datian, in elo
quent terras, the Christian view of idolatry. Datian
did nothing worse to the bishop than to sentence him
to exile. He gave orders to subrait Vincent to torture.
Vincent was put on the horse, and those tortures
were applied which were coraraonly used to extract a

VINCENT; EULALIA 381
confession frora crirainals. The raartyr only answered
his judge's questions by saying that he had got what
he wanted. His wishes were more than satisfied.
God's servant was prepared for all. It is said that
Datian became so excited that he laid about him with
a rod upon the rainisters of punishraent, to hasten
thera in their work. " You are yourself avenging me,"
cried the deacon, "with your own hands." Datian
deraanded of hira, according to Prudentius, the sur
render of the sacred books upon which so much of
this persecution turned ; but Vincent only warned him
that the word of God, which they contain, is guarded
by a fiery sword which will consurae its enemies. The
torture went on with renewed energy. It became a
direct personal conflict between will and will — the will
of the judge to make Vincent yield, the will of the
Christian to show what Christian fortitude could endure.
At last Datian said that, as lesser punishraents had
failed, he should proceed to real tortures. The sarae
kind of instrument was prepared for Vincent which had
served his brother deacon, Lawrence, at Rome. An
iron bed was produced, and hot coals put under it,
and the raartyr was stretched upon the hot bars, or
rather laid himself down upon them. Hot plates of
iron, besides, were pressed into his flesh. Salt was
sprinkled upon the burnt parts ; and when his body
presented no fresh surface for a wound or burn, they
began again upon the old places.
Even this appalling treatment could neither bring
Vincent to subraission, nor kill him. By Datian's
orders he was taken to a dreadful dungeon, which
was reached by no ray of daylight. There he was
placed in the stocks, with, his feet as far apart as they
would go ; and to make matters worse the ground was

382 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
strewn with broken potsherds, so that whichever way
the poor torn body turned for relief, it raight find
another wound reopened. Datian gave orders that no
one was to be left near the sufferer, so that he might
not have the solace of even a gaoler's companionship.
The belief of the following century was that the dungeon
was Uluminated by heavenly light, and its solitude filled
with coraforting angels, whUe flowers covered the cruel
ground. This legend probably takes a spiritual truth
and makes it raaterial, and in so doing it robs the
martyr of the glory of his fortitude. Whatever inward
consolations were vouchsafed to him, it is raost likely
that his outward sufferings went unrelieved.
After a time, however, Datian, learning that Vincent's
mind was unchanged, thought to change it by a gentler
method of treatment. The deacon was brought out
of the dungeon. He was placed in the comforts of
the libera custodia — surveillance without constraint. His
feUow Christians visited hira without being molested.
It is probable that his liberation took place before the
edict of 304, which made the persecution general.
They vied with one another both to heal the mangled
body and to carry away frora it handkerchiefs moist
ened with his blood, to keep as precious treasures. But
the cruel kindness of Datian was defeated. "While
he was vainly thinking over future punishraents," says
the ancient writer, " Christ raade His own disposals
for the reward." Vincent scarcely felt the ease of his
altered circurastances. Too great a strain had been
placed upon his bodily frarae, and he died peacefully
in the bed where they had laid him.
The judge, baulked of his conquest, determined that
the Christians should at least not make religious use
of the martyr's body, and ordered it to be cast to the

VINCENT; EULALIA 383
birds and beasts. No beast, no bird, attacked it. It
was believed that a great raven raounted guard over
the corpse, and would not allow any other creature to
touch it. Datian next tried throwing it into the sea
in a sack, the way in which parricides were treated by
Roraan justice. But, as in raany other cases, the body
was found by Christians on the beach, and buried in
a little church which had escaped destruction. After
the great peace it was translated to a more sumptuous
resting-place outside the walls of Valencia ; and Pru
dentius describes the impassioned scenes which in his
tirae took place around the torab. A raore subtle and
a raore effective revenge upon the martyr was taken
by Datian, when he ordered that no official record of
his trial should be kept. The existing " Passion " of
St. Vincent was composed within the century after
his death, from the traditions of those who had wit
nessed the events, and was read aloud in the churches
of Africa in the tirae of St. Augustine on St. Vincent's
Day.^ A French scholar has well reraarked that if Spain
had a Lawrence in Vincent, she had also an Agnes
in Eulalia. Our knowledge of her history is derived
frora Prudentius, who devoted a long poera to the
subject. According to hira, Eulalia was of a good faraily at
Eraerita, now Merida, on the Guadiana. Like Agnes,
she had reached the age of twelve years ; like Agnes,
she had forraed her resolution to be the bride of none
other but her Saviour. When the persecution swept
over Lusitania, her parents, like those of Agnes, fearing
the possible effects upon her enthusiastic teraper, put
her in safe keeping in the country. Like Agnes, she
' Ruinart, 323 ; Prudentius, wepl Xreip. v.

384 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
unbolted the door one night while the household was
asleep, and ran away to the town.
When the morning came, she took her stand at the
tribunal where Datian, if it was he, sat surrounded by
his lictors with their forraidable fasces. She boldly
declared herself a Christian, and took the judge and
his superiors to task for declaring war upon the faith.
As usual, the judge began by atterapting to raake the
girl think how young she was, and how life with all its
attractive prospects was just opening before her. Then
he sought to frighten her with threats of torture, sword,
wild beasts, and fire. If he did not actually use the
words which the poet puts in his mouth, they no doubt
represent the argument which he would use : " What
trouble wUl it cost you to escape all this ? If you wiU
be so good as to touch a grain of salt, a pinch of incense,
with the tips of your fingers, away goes the punish
raent." Unless the bad taste of the poet belies the
behaviour of the young saint, the only answer which
Eulalia gave was to spit in the judge's face, and, with a
cry of detestation, to dash to the ground the images
that stood on the little altar of the court, and to trample
upon the incense.
The executioners began to ply their tools upon her.
Eulalia read the meaning of the raarks which they raade
upon her sides — " Lord, they are writing that Thou art
raine 1 " They went on to put tfie torch to her sides,
to her veil of flowing hair, to her face. She had doubt
less heard how other raartyrs had drawn death to them
at the stake, for when the flame came near her lips, she
opened her raouth and sucked it in and died. Pruden
tius describes how her soul took its flight in the shape
of a snow-white dove. It was the loth of Deceraber
when she died ; and as her body lay under the open

VINCENT; EULALIA 385
sky, a heavy faU of snow covered the town and the
market place, and covered the girl with a soft clean
pall, so that she needed no shroud from huraan
hands. A noble church in the time of Prudentius stood
over the burying-place of Eulalia, rich with Spanish
and foreign raarbles, with gUding and with raosaics.
He calls upon those of Eulalia's time of life to join him
in doing her honour on her festival. " Gather purple
violets and blood-red crocus : they are to be had, for
winter here is raild, and the thawing ice unbinds the
fields to fill your baskets with flowers. Girls and boys,
bring presents of thera, and foliage around thera, whUe
I in the raiddle weave ray garland of verses.^ — poor,
fading garland, but stiU holiday-like." ^
^ Prudentius, Tepl "Lretp. iii.

2 B

CHAPTER XX
THE AFRICAN MARTYRS
The enthusiastic teraperament of the people of North
Africa was the very stuff of which martyrs are made.
The nuraber of deaths in that region for the name of
Christ was greater than in any other, considering that
the persecution of Diocletian in the western world
lasted a shorter tirae than in the eastern ; and the
records of the people's faith and courage are hardly
less stirring than in the days of Perpetua or of Cyprian.
When the eraperor Maxiraian went into that part
of the empire, in the year 297, to subdue an insurrec
tion of those who were known as the Five Tribes, there
was a Christian named Typasius living near the town
of Sitifi. He had served honourably in the army, and
when his time of active service was over, lived a life of
retireraent, but liable to be called upon to serve again
in an eraergency as a " veteran," or a kind of reservist.
The eraergency had now arisen, and Typasius was
summoned once more to the standard. Before the
fighting began, Maxiraian wished to encourage his
troops by giving them a present all round. Typasius,
when his turn came, respectfully refused to take the
gold piece from the emperor's hand, and begged to be
discharged for the service of Christ. This was six years
before the penal enactraents against Christianity were
issued, and Maxiraian for sorae reason gave him his
discharge. It was afterwards believed that the reason
386

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 387
was that he had prophesied victories for the emperors,
and that the prophecy came true.
Typasius went home rejoicing to think that he had
done with railitary life, and built himself a hermit's cell
upon his own property, and lived in it. After five or
six years the edict of persecution came to Africa, and at
the sarae time the reserve was again called out. The
agents whose business it was to find them out carae to
Typasius in his cell, and raade hira corae with thera, in
spite of his protests, to the officer coraraanding the dis
trict, carrying with them also the belt, the shield, and
the lances, which Typasius kept hung on the wall.
When Claudius, the dux, or general in command,
saw him, he asked why they had brought hira " in that
raourning garb." They told hira the man's history, and
added that he had refused to take service again, saying
that he was a Christian and that he could not perforra
the required sacrifice. Claudius began to exaraine hira.
" What is your narae and occupation ? " " Typasius ;
I ara a veteran. Once I served the world, but now
I serve Christ only." " Why do you wear black ? "
" This is not black ; it is white. Christians put on
sackcloth in order to gain forgiveness of sins ; for it is
written, ' Blessed are they that raourn, for they shall be
coraforted.' " " Have done with that nonsense ; obey
the coraraands of the emperors, and come back to the
victorious standards." " No one returns to battle after
victory. I have overcome the world, and have enlisted
araong the servants of Christ. I ara Christ's soldier and
Christ's servant, and if you choose to be hard on rae,
for Christ's sake I can bear it." " You know that de
serters are hable to be made to fight the wild beasts ? "
" I am not a deserter. All my fellow-citizens know
that I served without ever being reproved. I received

388 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
my honourable discharge from the eraperor Maximian,
with his good wishes." " You are not set free from the
emperor's laws. He can alter them as he pleases. He
gave you your honourable discharge, you tell rae ; now,
with the sanction of the oracle, he orders you, like the
rest of the veterans, to return to the service." " I am
Christ's soldier ; I cannot be yours." " Sacrifice to the
gods." " I offer to Christ the sacrifice of praise ; His
praise shall ever be in ray raouth. I do not worship
iraages of stone and wood." " You must be desperate
to despise the orders of both our emperors. Do as they
have bidden, and corae back to the service, or your
death will serve as a warning to other deserters." " I
have already told you, I am Christ's soldier ; I cannot
return to the life of the world." " Not another word.
Put the belt on him, and the weapons in his hand."
The raan was put under arrest, and for sorae time
was compelled to follow Claudius about frora station to
station. The general was evidently inclined to take
little notice of his religious scruples, and to lay stress
only upon his raiUtary misconduct. But Typasius'
fellow-soldiers, instigated by the two subordinate officers
who had dragged him out of his cell, were not so com
plaisant. One day when Claudius came on parade he
found quite an uproar araong the raen. They were aU
offering incense, and Typasius had refused. Claudius
could not resist the pressure brought to bear upon him.
He sent for Typasius, and coraraanded him to sacrifice
on pain of losing his life. He refused. He said that
Christ was his life, and to die was his gain. Claudius
at length gave sentence upon him, reading it as usual
from what he had written. The word Christian did
not occur in the sentence. " I have long borne with
Typasius the veteran, in hopes that he would return to

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 389
the service and offer sacrifice to the gods of Rorae.
When he persistently refused, I laid aside the strictness
of a judge and exhorted him not to destroy himself.
But forasmuch as he has stuck to that superstitious
perversity, and has despised the coraraands of our
Augusti, it is my pleasure that he should be punished
with the sword, that by his death all may learn to obey
the decrees of the eraperors." Typasius lifted his eyes
to heaven and said, " I thank Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ,
who hast vouchsafed to deliver rae. Thy servant, frora
this world."
The soldiers led hira out of the city — apparently it
was Tigava in Mauretania — and beheaded hira. He
was buried where he fell. His corarades paid hira the
honour of placing his shield upon the torab ; and the
document which relates the story — a document only
lately recovered from oblivion — says how Christian
visitors used to break little fragments from the shield,
and take them away to work cures upon the sick.''
Another soldier suffered a like death at Caesarea,
the capital of the same province. His name was
Fabius. He was the standard-bearer of the cohort
which formed the governor's guard. On the arrival
of the great persecuting edict — probably that of 304 —
the governor went in solemn procession to sacrifice.
His lictors went before him, and he was attended by
the whole council of the province. Criers suraraoned
the people to the function. When Fabius was bidden
to carry the standard in the procession, he refused.
He said he was a Christian. The refusal was reported
to the governor. The governor pretended that it was
an unpremeditated act, which he would not punish at
once, and put the young man under arrest for sorae
^ Analecta Boll. ix. 1 16.

390 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
days. On his next appearance before the governor,
Fabius was questioned once again, and gave the same
constant reply. The governor made short work with
hira. He was beheaded. But the governor was
anxious not " to provide the Christians with a raartyr,"
and, after the reraains had been guarded night and day
for sorae tirae, he had thera sewn up in two separate
bags and thrown into the sea. The relics carae ashore
at Cartenna, forty or fifty railes to the west of Caesarea,
and there were bitter contentions afterwards between
the Christians of the two places, whether the raartyr's
head and body belonged by rights to the city where he
was killed or to the city to which Providence had
allowed his relics to be wafted.^
The Christian woraen and girls of North Africa
were not behind the raen in constancy and courage.
Anulinus, the proconsul of Africa, carae one day to
the city of Thuburbo and despatched two officers to
suraraon to his presence all the Christians of the place
to do sacrifice on an imperial estate which lay near at
hand. It was nine o'clock in the morning when he
took his seat, with a large crowd asserabled before him.
"Are you Christians?" he asked them. They replied
that they were. " Maxiraian and Galerius," he said,
" the religious and august eraperors, have done rae the
honour of writing to rae to say that all Christians are
to corae and sacrifice, and that those who dechne and
disobey the order are to be punished with various
pains and tortures." A panic seized the unhappy
crowd. Husbands who raight have been willing to
endure soraething theraselves could not bear the
thought of what might be done to their wives.
Priests, deacons, persons in lesser orders, gave way.
' Analecta- Boll. ix. 123.

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 391
Even the young men and the virgins had no heart to
stand out. All bowed down and worshipped the
idols. One unfortunate woman, who had committed the
unchristian act, added to it an even baser sin of
treachery. "We have all come to adore the gods,"
she cried, " but there are two girls here who have not
obeyed the imperial order, and refuse to sacrifice."
" Tell me their naraes," said the proconsul. The
woraan answered, "They are called Maxiraa and
DonatiUa." The two girls were found, and brought before
Anulinus. The dialogue which passed between thera
and their judge can hardly have been altogether as
it is represented in the newly discovered Acts of
these saints ; but sorae of the questions and answers
are well given. " What authority do you possess,"
he inquired, "that you should despise the religious
and august eraperors ? " " The authority of the Christian
faith," Maxiraa answered, " to which I belong." It
carae out on inquiry that Maxiraa was fourteen years
of age. " You will reach the end of your years to-day,"
he answered, " if you do not sacrifice to the gods."
" Sacrifice to thera yourself," answered the fiery young
African, " for you are like thera." " The sentence is
ready to faU," he said. "That is exactly what I wish
and desire," she rephed. "Then prepare your raind
for it," he said. " It is better for rae to receive sentence
from you," the girl said, " than to despise the one true
God." " Why are you so desperate ? " said the pro
consul ; " wiU you sacrifice or not ? " "I persevere in
my God," she answered ; " I will not worship the gods
of others." "I shaU bear with you," answered the
patient Anulinus, "untU you find your reason." "My

392 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
reason is with me," retorted the girl, " for the Lord also
strengthens me against you, so that you will prove
weak and I the stronger."
Perhaps the judge did not quite understand what
Maxiraa raeant by saying that the Lord was strengthen
ing her. He asked her whora she had with her. She
replied that she had her sister DonatiUa. It is not
certain whether she was only a sister in the faith, or
whether she was a still younger girl of the sarae family.
It was now DonatiUa's turn to be questioned. Her
answers were of the same character as those of
Maxiraa ; and indeed it raust be acknowledged that
if they were as related in the Acts the judge might
have been excused if he had lost his temper with the
girls. But he did not. He delayed judgment, and
ordered thera to be conducted to the town, only
forbidding food or water to be given thera.
They were on their way into Thuburbo, when a
young friend of theirs, naraed Secunda, joined them.
She was but twelve years old. Like Agnes and Eulalia,
she had already received raany proposals of raarriage,
but had set her heart upon remaining a virgin all her
days. Secunda was in a balcony of the house of her
wealthy parents when she saw Maxiraa and DonatiUa
being led along the road. She sprang down to them
from the balcony, and entreated thera not to go without
her. They urged her to go back. " You are your
father's only daughter," they said ; " who is there for
you to leave him to ? " " God will requite you for it,"
answered the eager girl, " if you go without rae.'' " I
must tell you," Maxima said, " that our sentence is
raade out. What can you suffer ? The flesh is
weak." Secunda answered that she was not afraid
of an earthly sentence ; she desired to find her

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 393
spiritual Bridegroora, "who consoles and strengthens
even the least." " Come, then, giri," said DonatUla :
" the day of our passion is close at hand, and the angel
of blessing comes to raeet us." So they went on, and
the sun set.
On the 28th of August, Anulinus had thera up
again, and asked if they would sacrifice. " We
. sacrifice our lives,'' they answered, "to Hira to whora
we have proraised thera." Once raore Anuhnus
deferred sentence. On the 29th, at six in the
morning, he delivered them over to be whipped.
Maxima told him that it was no great punishment to
have the flesh beaten, when the spirit is saved and
the soul is redeeraed and coraforted. Then the poor
girls, with their bruised backs, were put to lie on broken
potsherds and glass. They told Anulinus that they had
a great Physician who healed their wounds, and that
while he, their judge, was being brought low, they
were exalted in glory. They were placed on the hobby
horse. " It is the judgraent of God," they said, " that
men should suffer for their Lord." When it seemed
as if they raust be exhausted with their torture, and
their throats parched, Anulinus ordered a cordial to be
given them to revive them. " You are foolish," they
said to him ; " have we not our God, the Most High,
for our refreshment ? " The proconsul ordered hot
coals to be strewn over their hair and their heads. " It
is true," they said, " which is written in the law, ' We
went through fire and water, and came through into a
place of refreshment.' "
At last he ordered them to the amphitheatre. It
was a joyful sound to thera. "Now our hour is
coraing," they said ; " give what sentence you will."
The proconsul confessed that he was tired, and would

394 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
be glad to be rid of thera. " Tired," cried; the
undaunted girls, " with one hour of it ! You have only
just corae, and are you tired ? " The procouisul gave
word for a hungry bear to be let loose upon them.
" Do as you are bidden," said DonatiUa to the keeper ;
" do not fear." " In the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ we shall conquer you to-day," they cried to
Anulinus. The bear, as so often happened, only
growled and licked Maxima's feet. Then Anulinus
read the final judgraent off his tablet : " We order
Maxima, DonatiUa, and Secunda to be punished with
the sword." They answered, " Thanks be to God," and
suffered without further delay. Their bodies were
buried within the precincts of the araphitheatre itself.^
Sorae four raonths after, the proconsul Anuhnus took
his seat at Theveste. " Crispina of Thagara, who has
despised the law of our sovereign lords," was announced
by the official of the court. She was, so St. Augustine
says, a woraan of wealth and position. Anulinus asked
her if she was acquainted with "the sacred order."
" I do not know," she answered, " what that order is."
He told her that she must sacrifice to all the state gods
on behalf of the emperors. " I have never sacrificed,"
Crispina replied, " nor do I sacrifice, except to the one
God and to our Lord Jesus Christ His Son, who was
born, and suffered." " Cut short your superstition," said
the proconsul, " and bow your head to the sacred rites
of the gods of Rorae." " I pay reverence every day to
ray own God," was the answer; "beside Hira I know
no other," "You are stubborn and conturaacious.
You will not like it when you begin to feel the force of
the laws." " I will gladly suffer whatever befalls me
for the faith which I hold." "It is your foohshness
^ Analecta Bell. ix. no.

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 395
that you will not part with superstition and worship the
sacred divinities." " I worship every day, but I wor
ship the living and true God, who is my own Lord,
beside whom I know no other." " I will show you the
sacred comraandraent which you are to obey." " I
will obey the coraraandment, but the coraraandraent
of ray Lord Jesus Christ." " I shall direct your head
to be cut off, if you do not comply with the orders of
our lords the emperors. You will be obliged to submit
and to obey thera ; all Africa has sacrificed, and you
do not question it." "No good come to them for
trying to raake rae sacrifice to devils instead of the one
God who raade heaven and earth, and all things that
are in thera." "Then do you not accept these gods?
You will be corapeUed to pay horaage to thera, that you
raay live and prove yourself loyal." " It is no loyalty
when people are oppressed and corapelled against their
wUl." " Nay, I wish that you would show your loyalty
now by bending your head and offering incense in the
sacred teraples to the gods of Rorae." " I have never
done it since I was born, and know nothing about it ;
nor wUl I do it as long as I live." " Nay, do it, if you
would not feel the severity of the laws." " I ara not
afraid of what you say. That is nothing. But if I
should consent to be sacrilegious, the God who is in
heaven will destroy rae then and there, that I shall not
be found in that day that is to come." "There will
be no sacrilege in your obeying the sacred decrees."
" Let the gods that have not made heaven and earth
perish ! I sacrifice to the eternal God, which endureth
for ever and ever, who is the true God and to be feared ;
who raade the sea, and the green herbs, and the dry
land. What can raen, who are His creatures, do to
me ? " " Follow the religion of Rome. Our lords, the

396 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
invincible Caesars, observe it, and so do I." " I
have told you again and again, that I ara prepared to
endure any tortures that you like to inflict upon me,
rather than have ray soul polluted with idols, which are
but stones, and the work of men's hands." " You are
uttering blasphemy. You are taking a line which is
not for your good."
Anulinus ceased to argue. He spoke to the official
whose business it was, and bade hira disfigure her by
shaving her head all over with a razor. It was what
Lysias in Cilicia did to the raartyr Theonilla. But the
affront had no effect upon the brave woraan. " Let
the gods theraselves speak," she cried, " and I wUl be
heve in thera." When asked if she had no thought of
her own salvation, she answered that if she did not
care to be saved, she would never have stood at the
proconsul's bar. " Do you wish for long life," said
Anulinus, " or do you wish to expire in torraents, like
your fellows ? " " If I wished to die," she retorted, " and
to deliver my soul to destruction and eternal fire, I
would give up my will to your devils." " I must have
your head cut off," said Anulinus, "if you contemp
tuously refuse to worship the venerable gods." " I
thank my God," she answered, " if I may attain that.
I desire earnestly to lose ray head for the sake of
my God ; for I do not sacrifice to vain idols, that are
dumb and deaf." " And you really mean to persist in
that fooUsh resolution," said the proconsul. Crispina
answered, " My God, which is and which endureth for
ever, ordained that I should be born. He gave me
salvation by the saving water of baptisra. He is with
rae, to help me, and to strengthen His handraaid not to
corarait sacrilege."
Then Anulinus the proconsul said, " Why should

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 397
we put up with the impious Crispina any longer ?
Read over the report of the examination from the
rainute-book." The report was read over. Then
the proconsul delivered the judgraent which he had
written in his note-book : " Crispina, who persists in an
unworthy superstition, has refused to sacrifice to our
gods. In accordance with the heavenly commands
of the imperial law, I order her to be punished with
the sword." Crispina's answer was, " I bless God, who
has thus vouchsafed to deliver me from your hands."
It was the fifth of December. She raade the sign of
the cross upon her forehead, stretched out her neck to
the sword, and died.^
A batch of twenty raartyrs perished together at
Hippo, of which the great Augustine was afterwards
bishop. The bishop of the see, Fidentius, was hiraself
one of thera. Two others were woraen called Valeriana
and Victoria. The naraes of the rest are no longer
known on earth. Over sorae of thera there was the
scene, as touching as it was coraraon, of unbelieving
parents endeavouring to restrain their Christian children.
" Do not mourn," said the young martyrs ; " do not
raourn for our joys. If you do not wish those whora
you have nourished and brought up to go to hell, you
should iraitate us and not hinder us." The usual per
suasions were resorted to by "the persecutor," — pro
bably the proconsul Anulinus. " Sacrifice to the gods,"
he said. " We will not do it," was the answer, " because
we have an eternal God in heaven, to whora we always
sacrifice. To devils we will not offer." " Why," urged
the judge, " do you go against the sacred coraraand
raent ? " " Because," they replied, " our heavenly Master
says to us in the Gospel, ' Whosoever shall forsake father
1 Franchi de' Cavalieri in Studi e Testi, vol. ix. p. 32; Ruinart, p. 395.

398 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
and raother and wife and children, and all that he hath,
for My narae's sake, shaU receive an hundredfold, and
shall inherit eternal life.' " " Then you will not obey
the coraraands of the eraperors ? " said the magistrate.
They answered " No." He asked them the same curious
question which was put to Maxima at the beginning
of her examination : " What authority can you have
for it ? You see that you are liable to punishment."
The martyrs answered, " We bear the authority of the
eternal King ; therefore we pay no regard to the
authority of mortal man." ^
The raost interesting docuraents relating to the
persecution in North Africa belong to a soraewhat
earlier phase of the struggle, and are connected with
the prohibition of Christian asserablies, and with the
deraand for the surrender of the Scriptures. Out of
this last point arose one of the fiercest contentions
that has ever been waged between one Christian faction
and another. The fanatical party who are known to
history as the Donatists raaintained that on no account
whatever was it lawful to hold coraraunion with persons
who had been guilty of surrendering, or even of seeming
to surrender, any portion of the sacred writings. Others
took a more raoderate view. Mensurius, the Bishop of
Carthage, thought hiraself justified in leaving a number
of heretical books in his church and in the library
attached to it. The officials asked no questions. They
burned the heretical books and gave no further trouble.
It was in vain that sorae persons, who were better
inforraed, waited upon Anulinus and told hira that the
books which had been destroyed were not the books
which were wanted. Anulinus sent thera away to mind
their own business. ' Augustine, Sermon cccxxvi. ; Ruinart, p. 495.

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 399
A letter of Mensurius to Secundus of Tigisis, the
chief bishop of Nuraidia, shows how entirely he shared
the feelings of his great predecessor, Cyprian, with
regard to those who went out of their way to defy the
persecutors. He forbade the church to pay honour to
men who offered theraselves unsought to the govern
raent agents, and who volunteered the information that
they possessed Scriptures and would never surrender
them. He said that some of those who acted in this
raanner were persons of crirainal lives ; sorae were in
debt to the public funds, " who took occasion by the
persecution to rid theraselves of a life so burdened
with debt ; or who thought that they could thus redeem
their character, and cleanse theraselves of their mis
deeds ; or who even looked to get money, and to enjoy
luxuries in prison, frora the reverential kindness of
Christians." This kindness of Christians for the con
fessors became a source of irritation to the official world,
and therefore of danger to the Church. Caecilian,
the head deacon of Carthage, undertook, under his
bishop's sanction, to regulate the performance of these
charitable acts, to the grea;t displeasure of the fanatics.
They affirmed that he posted at the prison gates men
armed with whips and thongs of leather, to drive away
people who brought food and drink for the martyrs.
Within lay the famishing Christians, while outside, the
food that was intended for them was scattered to the
dogs, and the fathers and raothers of the sufferers filled
the air with their laraentations.^ Secundus wrote to
reraonstrate with Mensurius for his policy. He de
scribed the sufferings which the Nuraidian Christians
chose rather to bear than to betray the Scriptures. He
boasted that when the chief raagistrate and senate of
' Dupin's Optatus, p. 156.

400 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
his own city sent a centurion and a constable to his
house to ask for the word of God, to burn it, he
answered thera, " I ara a Christian and a bishop, not a
traditor" — that was the narae given to those who de
livered up the sacred things, — and that when they begged
hira to give thera any useless and tattered scraps of
writing, he had refused, after the example of Eleazar in
the Book of Maccabees, who would not even pretend
to eat the swine's flesh, lest his example should raislead
others. Both raen of his own party and Catholics also
wondered how after such a bold answer Secundus
escaped without hurt.^
We owe to the Donatist controversy the preserva
tion of two official documents which show vividly the
way in which the agents of the government went to
work to find Bibles, and the way in which the Christians
raet thera.
At Cirta, now Constantine, Felix, the curator or
chief raagistrate of the city, who was at the sarae time
flamen, or priest of the emperor-worship, " came to the
house where the Christians used to meet," and said to
Paul, the bishop, " Bring out the Scriptures of the law,
and anything else that you have here, in obedience to
the coraraand." The poor-spirited bishop answered,
" The Scriptures are in the hands of the readers ; but
we will give you what we have here." " Show rae the
readers," said the curator, " or else send to them."
" You know thera all," was the answer. The curator
denied it. "The public officium knows thera," said the
bishop, "that is to say Edusius and Junius, the short
hand writers." Felix said, " Let the raatter of the
readers stand over, as the officium will point them out.
Produce what you have on the spot." The order was
1 Augustine, Brev, Collationis c. Donat. d. Ill, c, xiii, n, 25.

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 401
obeyed. The bishop sat in his throne, with three
presbyters beside him ; two deacons, four subdeacons,
eight or more fossores or diggers, stood by ; a secretary
made an inventory, whUe the contents of the treasury
were brought out. There were two golden and six
silver chalices, six silver cruets or pitchers, a silver
pipkin, seven silver lamps, two taper-stands, seven short
lamp-stands of brass, with their lamps, eleven other
larap-holders of brass with their chains, eighty-two
woraen's tunics, thirty-eight veils, sixteen men's tunics,
thirteen pairs of raen's shoes and forty-seven pairs of
woraen's, nineteen country sraocks. When these had
been counted out, the curator again told the diggers
to produce what they had. They rephed that they had
produced everything. " Your answer is entered on the
minutes," said Felix.
When they came to the library, the book-shelves,
or cupboards, were erapty ; but Silvanus, the traditor,
who, strangely enough, becarae afterwards the Donatist
bishop of the place, produced a sUver coffer and a
silver larap, which he said that he had found behind
a great jar. The secretary reraarked to him, " You
would have been a dead man if you had not found
those." " Look carefuUy," said the curator, " to see
that there is nothing else left." "There is nothing,"
said the traditor ; " we have fetched everything out."
They opened the triclinium, or hall for social gather
ings, attached to the church. There they found four
casks and six great jars. Then Felix repeated his de
mand for the Scriptures. A man called CatuUinus
thereupon produced one iraraense codex. " Why have
you only given rae one ? " the curator asked hira and
his fellows ; " produce the Scriptures in your posses
sion." They replied that they were subdeacons.; it was
2 c

402 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
not their place to keep the books ; that office belonged
to the readers. Felix bade them show him the readers.
They answered, " We do not know where they are."
" If you do not know where they are," said Felix, " teU
me their naraes," But the poor creatures were not so
far gone as that, " We are not traitors," they replied ;
" here we are ; put us to death." Felix ordered them
to be apprehended.
A move was then raade to the house of one of the
readers, called Eugenius. Eugenius produced four
books. Felix bade Silvanus and Carosus show him
the rest of the readers ; but they referred him once
more to his own officials, who had a list of them. The
house of Felix, a worker in mosaic, was next visited.
He produced five books. Victorinus produced eight ;
Projectus produced five big and two little ones. Victor,
a schoolmaster, offered two books and four quiniones —
whatever that raay raean. " You have raore," said Felix ;
" fetch thera out." " If I had had more," answered
the obsequious reader, " I would have given them to
you." When they reached the house of Eutychius,
Eutychius said that he had no books. The curator
made no search, but only said, " Your statement is
entered in the rainutes." Coddeo's house was the last
on the Ust. Coddeo did not appear, but his wife pto-
duced six books. " Look and see if you have no raore,"
said Felix ; " fetch thera out." The woman said that
there were no raore. The curator turned to a public
servant and said, " Go in and see whether she has no
raore." He went in, and after searching said that he
could find no raore. Telling three of the men that he
should hold them accountable if anything had been left
undone, the raagistrate went his way.-'
^ Gesta apud Zenophilum, in Von Gebhardt's Ausgewahlte MdrtyreractiH,
p. 189, or in Dupin's Optatus.

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 403
The other docuraent gives us sorae notion of the
difficulties which hindered the execution of the edicts,
especially in the smaller towns, where every one was
intimately known to all his neighbours.
Felix, the bishop of a place called Auturani, who
consecrated Caecilian of Carthage to be bishop after
the death of Mensurius, was accused by the Donatists
of being a traditor. He was away frora horae when
the search for the books took place, and they said
that he had left instructions with a raan called Galatius
to deliver up the books. The raagistrates of Auturani
at the raoraent were a certain Alfius Caecilianus and
his colleague Augentius. Alfius was related to the
bishop, whora he addresses as his pdrens, a word of
wide raeaning, like the French parent. Eleven years
later, when Alfius was an old raan, he was called upon
to give an account, in a court of law, of what took
place under his raagistracy. This is what he said : —
" I had gone to Zama with Saturninus to get some
linen under-garments, and when we carae back the
Christians theraselves sent to me in ray official resi
dence, to ask, ' Has the sacred decree yet reached
you ? ' I said, ' No ; but I have already seen copies
of it, and at Zama and at Furni I saw basilicas (or
churches) destroyed and Scriptures burnt. So produce
any Scriptures that you have, that the sacred order
may be obeyed.' Then they sent to the house of the
bishop, Felix, to take away the Scriptures out of it,
that they might be burnt in accordance with the
sacred decree. So Galatius went with us to the place
where they had been accustomed to have their prayers.
We took out of it the bishop's chair and some letters of
greeting, and burnt them all outside the doors, accord
ing to the sacred decree. And when we sent to the

404 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
house of Felix, the bishop, the public officials brought
back word that he was away."
It may illustrate the manners of the time, that the
Donatists, somewhat later, persuaded Augentius, the
colleague of Alfius, by means of his Donatist clerk, to
endeavour to extract a raore daraaging adraission from
Alfius. " My colleague said to me, ' Felix, our bishop,
has sent this man to ask you to raake him out a paper,
Sorae valuable books were lent to hira, and he does
not wish to return them, WUl you kindly write to him
that they were burnt in the year of your raagistracy ? '
And I said, ' Is that the Christian faith ? '" ^
Another African bishop of the narae of Felix
showed a bolder front, and so did his subordinate
clergy. His see was probably a town called Tibiuca,
not far frora Carthage, though the narae is variously
given. The edict was posted there on the 5th of June,
The curator suraraoned "the elders of the people"
to his quarters. It so happened that Felix had gone
into Carthage that day. A priest called Aper, and
two readers, Cyrus and Vitalis, were presented. The
curator asked them if they had any sacred books.
They said that they had. " Give them to be burnt with
fire," said the raagistrate. "Our bishop has them
with hira," was the reply, " Where is he ? " asked the
curator, Aper said that he did not know. They were
accordingly put under surveUlance till they could be
sent to the proconsul Anulinus,
Next day the bishop carae horae. The curator
sent an official to fetch hira, " Bishop Felix," he said
respectfully, "give me any books or parchments that
you possess," " I have some," he answered firmly,
' Acta Purgationis Felicis, in Von Gebhardt's Ausgewahlte Mdrtyreracten,
p. 205, or in Dupin's Optatus.

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 405
"but I wiU not give them." "What the emperors
have coraraanded," the curator said, "raust corae be
fore what you say. Give me the books, to be burnt
with fire." The bishop answered, " I would rather be
burnt with fire myself than have the sacred Scriptures
burnt. It is good to obey God rather than men."
The curator could only repeat his saying, that the
emperor's coraraand raust corae before what the bishop
chose to say. "The coraraandraent of the Lord,"
answered Felix, " comes before the commandments of
men." The raagistrate gave him three days to reflect.
On the third day he asked hira the upshot of his
reflexions. "What I said before," Felix answered,
" I say again now, and I shall say the sarae before the
proconsul." "You shall go to the proconsul, then,"
said the curator, " and shall there give your account."
The bishop was placed under the charge of a
member of the local senate. On June 24 he was taken
in chains to Carthage, and there thrown into prison.
Next morning, very early, he was brought to the bar
of the proconsul. Anulinus asked him why he had not
given up his " useless books." Perhaps he intended to
give the bishop a hint how to escape from the situa
tion. But Felix was too straightforward to resort to
any subterfuge. He replied to Anulinus, as he had
done to the local magistrate at Tibiuca, " I have books ;
but I will not give thera." Anulinus put hira into the
lowest part of the prison for another sixteen days, and
then had him out at ten o'clock at night to ask him the
same question. The bishop's " pious obstinacy," as
Gibbon calls it, only returned the same answer, " I do
not intend to give them." There was only one end to
such determination. " Slay Felix with the sword," said
Anulinus. Felix cried aloud, "Thanks be to Thee,

4o6 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
O Lord, who hast vouchsafed to deliver me." At the
place of execution, he lifted his eyes to heaven, and
said, " Thanks be to Thee, O God. I have lived fifty-
six years in this world. I have kept ray virginity. I
have preserved the Gospels. I have preached faith and
truth. O Lord God of heaven and earth, O Jesus
Christ, I bow ray neck as an offering to Thee, who
abidest for ever, to whom be glory and majesty, for
ever and ever. Araen." ^
If there is a note of straightforward obstinacy in
the Acts of Felix, there is a ring of battle in those of
the nine and forty raartyrs of Abitina. Edited by a
Donatist hand, they lose nothing of the warrior spirit
which filled the raartyrs theraselves.
" When the trurapet of war was sounded," we are
told, " the glorious martyrs in the city of Abitina set up
the standard of the Lord in the house of Octavius Felix.
There they were duly celebrating the Dominicum " —
that is, the Lord's service, the Eucharist — "when they
were seized by the raagistrates of the city and by the
coraraandant of the district in person." The leader of
the party was unhappily not the Bishop of Abitina, for
that prelate had betrayed his trust at the beginning
of the persecution, and had forfeited the allegiance of
his flock. The heavens, so it was said, had on that
occasion fought for the Scriptures ; for when the
bishop gave thera up to be burnt, a furious storm of
rain and haU carae down and put out the fire. The
faithful were chiefly kept together by the earnestness
of a layman called Dativus, who was a decurion, or
member of the important senate of Carthage, and by
the priest Saturninus and his famUy.
The forty-nine were first examined in the forum; of
' Ruinart, p. 313 ; cp. Analecta Boll. xvi. p. 28.

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 407
Abitina by the curator, and joyfully confessed their
faith ; but the curator was not corapetent to go further
with them, and despatched them to Carthage, to the
proconsul. Rejoicing to feel the chains upon their
wrists, which were to them the earnest of better things
to corae, they sang all the way to the capital. There,
on the 12th of February 304, they were presented to
Anulinus, and the clerks of the court reported that
they were charged with having held an asserably and
celebrated the Dominicum, contrary to the iraperial
edict. Anulinus began with Dativus. Dativus had answered
the usual questions about his position and the like, and
had confessed that he was a Christian and had taken
part in the service, and was already stretched upon the
hobby-horse to raake hira say who it was that had got
up the gathering, when another of the party, called
Thelica, stood out and cried, " We are Christians ; it
was we who carae together." Thehca succeeded in
turning the severity of the law to hiraself. He was
placed on the instrument, and the torture began. Out
of the midst of his tortures Thelica kept crying,
" Thanks be to God ! for Thy narae's sake, O Christ
the Son of God, deliver Thy servants." The purpose of
Anulinus with hira, as with Dativus, was to extract from
him the name of the ringleader. At last, when the
pain became intolerable, the raan shouted, " It was the
priest Saturninus," and then added, " and all of us." He
would not admit that any one of the number, not even
the priest, had been more zealous and brave than the
rest. But he had given a name ; and when the pro
consul asked which Saturninus was, Thelica pointed
him out. Every utterance of the tortured man was
entered in the official acts. '<You are doing wrong.

4o8 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
unhappy men," he cried ; " you are fighting against God.
O God raost high, consent not to their sin. You are
sinning, unhappy raen ; you are striving against God."
Then, perhaps addressing the Christians, he cried,
" Keep the commandraents of the raost high God ; "
then again, " You are doing wrong, unhappy raen ;
you are tearing in pieces the innocent. We are not
raurderers ; we have done no crirae. O God, have
mercy. I thank Thee, O Lord. Grant me to bear
suffering for Thy name. Deliver Thy servants out of
the captivity of this world. I thank Thee. I cannot
thank Thee enough." When his sides were streaming
with blood, he heard the voice of Anulinus saying
to him, " You shall begin to feel what you have to
undergo." " To glory ! " shouted the martyr ; " I thank
the God of kingdoms. The eternal kingdom appeareth !
the incorruptible kingdora ! O Lord Jesus Christ, we
are Christians ; we serve Thee. Thou art our hope ;
Thou art the Christian's hope. O God raost holy,
O God raost high, O God alraighty. We give Thee
thanks for Thy narae, O Lord God Alraighty."
Thelica's bodily strength was exhausted ; but when the
proconsul said to hira, " You would have done better
to keep the coramandraents of the emperors and
Caesars," he replied with unabated spirit, " I care for
nothing but the law of God which I have learned.
That is what I keep ; for that I will die ; in that I shaU
be perfected, and there is none beside it." At last
Anulinus gave the word to stop, and Thelica was taken
back to prison,
Dativus all this while was suspended on his hobby
horse. Attention returned to him after the removal of
Thelica. Again and again he repeated that he was a
Christian, and had joined in the gathering. Then the

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 409
brother of one of the female prisoners stepped forth
with a grave accusation. He was a barrister; and,
though he afterwards adopted his sister's religion, he
was at that tirae a heathen. Dativus, he said, though
not a friend of the family, had come to the house whUe
the girl's father was away from Carthage, and whUe he
himself was engaged in his studies, and had prevaUed
upon his sister Victoria and two other girls to run away
with him to Abitina. But Victoria would not listen to
her brother's insinuations. " With a Christian's freedom
of speech," she burst forth and told the proconsul that
no one had persuaded her to go to Abitina ; that she
had not gone there with Dativus ; she could prove it by
witnesses in the town. " I did all this of my own free
will and choice," she said ; " and I was at the gathering,
and celebrated the Dominicum with the brethren, because
1 am a Christian." Dativus, amidst his tortures,
answered the charge with the dignity of a senator. His
one cry was, "O Lord Christ, let rae not be con
founded.'' The proconsul bade the executioners to stop
examining him on that point. Another accuser who
attempted to take away his character was. soon sUenced.
But after a while they began to ply Dativus again with
the question, who had brought about the gathering for
divine service. He answered that there was raore than
one person. When the torture began again, he repeated
his former prayer, that he might not be confounded, and
then he said, " What have I done ? Saturninus is our
priest." It was the second time that the priest had
been mentioned, and the proconsul now turned to
Saturninus, and said, " You acted against the coramand
of the emperors and Caesars in bringing aU these people
together." The priest replied, " We had no hesitation

41 o THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
about celebrating the Dorninicum." " Why so ? " asked
Anulinus. " Because the Dominicum cannot possibly
be dropped," was the reply. Directly it was uttered,
Saturninus was hoisted to the horse which Thehca had
left, opposite to that of Dativus. The torturers were
still at work upon Dativus ; but he seemed to be
'•'rather a spectator of his own tortures than a sufferer."
At intervals he ejaculated, " Help rae, O Christ, I
beseech Thee. Have pity. Save ray soul. Keep my
spirit, that I raay not be confounded. I beseech Thee,
O Christ, grant me the power to endure." The pro
consul observed to him, " Belonging to this faraous city,
you ought rather to have drawn other people to a good
raind instead of transgressing the coraraandraent of the
emperors and Caesars." But Dativus only exclaimed
raore loudly than before, " I ara a Christian ; " and at
length Anulinus cried " Hold," and Dativus was taken
to the prison.
The horse upon which Saturninus was slung was
still wet with the blood of Thelica. The proconsul
asked hira whether it was he who had gathered his
fellow Christians together. " Yes," he said at first ; and
then raodestly disclairaed the special honour, by adding,
" I was present at the service." A reader named
Emeritus sprang forward and took up the challenge.
"I am responsible," he cried; "the services have been
held at my house." But Anulinus refused to follow up
the confession at once. He went on with the priest.
" Why did you transgress the comraandraent, Satur
ninus ? " he said. Saturninus replied as before, " The
Dominicum cannot be dropped. So the law orders."
Anulinus expostulated ; " Still, you ought not to have
disregarded the prohibition ; you ought to observe it,
and not engage in things that are contrary to the

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 411
emperors' coraraand." The words were gentle enough,
but they were the prelude to a fearful raangling of the
elderly man's body. Saturninus cried out, " I beseech
Thee, O Christ, hear me; I thank Thee, O God;"
then, whether in prayer to God or in defiance to raan,
" Cause me to be beheaded ; " and again, " I beseech
Thee, O Christ, have raercy. O Son of God, succour
rae." Once raore the proconsul asked him, " Why did
you transgress the coraraandraent ? " The priest's only
answer was, " So the law orders. So the law teaches."
"Hold," said Anulinus, and sent hira to prison, under
the sentence which he had desired.
Anulinus was now able to attend to Emeritus.
When he was fastened up, Anulinus said to him, " Were
the meetings held in your house, in contravention of
the emperors' commands?" "Yes," he answered, "we
have had the Dominicum in ray house." " Why did you
let thera corae in ? " asked the proconsul. " Because
they are ray brothers," was the reply, "and I could
not forbid thera." " But you ought to have forbidden
thera," Anulinus said. " It was impossible," answered
Emeritus ; " for we cannot do without the Dominicum."
Then the torture began. A fresh executioner took the
place of the former, who was tired, and dealt vigorous
strokes. Emeritus cried, " I beseech Thee, O Christ,
help rae. You are transgressing the coraraandment of
God, you unhappy people." " You ought not to have
received them," persisted Anulinus. " I could not help
receiving my brothers," again replied the martyr. " The
order of the emperors and Caesars comes first," Anuhnus
said. "God," rephed Emeritus, "is greater than the
emperors. I beseech Thee, O Christ : I offer Thee
praise, O Christ. O Lord, grant rae endurance." The
proconsul suddenly asked hira, " Have you any Scrip-

412 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
tures in your house ? " "I have some," Emeritus
replied, " but I have them in my heart." " Have you
any in your house, or not ? " said Anulinus. " I have
thera in my heart," the reader replied ; " Christ, I
beseech Thee. Praise to Thee. Deliver me, O Christ.
I suffer in Thy name. It is a short suffering, a wUling
suffering, O Christ. Lord, let me not be confounded."
" Hold," said Anulinus to the executioner ; then raaking
a note of the confession of Emeritus in his note-book,
along with the rest, he said, "You shall all pay the
penalty you have deserved, according to your own
admission." The proconsul was heartily tired of his business,
though he had not half finished it. The reader Felix,
son of the priest Saturninus, was next put forward.
Anulinus, addressing all the prisoners together, said, " I
trust that you will take the line of obedience to the
coraraandraent, that you raay hve." A shout went up
frora the whole band, " We are Christians. We cannot
but keep the holy law of the Lord, even to the shedding
of our blood." To the question whether he had
attended the service, or whether he had any Scriptures,
Felix only answered that he was a Christian. " I did
not ask whether you are a Christian," said Anulinus,
"but whether you took part in the gathering, and
whether you have any Scriptures." "O foolish
question," cries the ancient editor of the Acts ; " as if a
raan could be a Christian without the Dominicum ! As
there can be no Dominicum without Christians, so there
can be no Christian without the Dominicum." The
reply of Felix embraced both parts of the proconsul's
question. "We had a glorious gathering; we have
always come together for the Dominicum, to read the
Scriptures of the Lord." The brave reader was so

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 413
severely thrashed with sticks that he died of it ; and so
did another of the number who bore the same common
name. Another reader, Arapelius, answered in the words
of Emeritus ; " I took part in the service with the
brethren, and celebrated the Dominicum ; and I have the
Scriptures of the Lord with me, but written in my
heart. Christ, I offer Thee praise. Hear me, O
Christ." With nothing worse than a few blows about
the neck, he went back to prison " as if to the tabernacle
of the Lord." Rogatian confessed his faith, and was
sent to prison unhurt ; Quintus and Maxiraian, after
being belaboured with sticks. A third and more
youthful Felix was beaten in like manner, crying
loudly that the Dominicum is the hope and salvation
of Christians. To the proconsul's question he answered,
" Yes, I celebrated the Dominicum devoutly ; I took part
in the service with the brethren, for I am a Christian."
" And were you also present, Saturninus ? " said
the proconsul to the next man, who was a son of the
priest, and, like his brother Felix, a reader. " I ara a
Christian," was his answer. " I do not ask you that,"
said Anulinus, " but whether you did the Dominicum."
" I did," said Saturninus, " because Christ is our
Saviour." Thereupon the young raan was fastened
upon the sarae hobby-horse frora which his father had
been taken down. When he was stretched ready for
the torture, Anulinus said to hira, "What do you
propose, Saturninus ? You see where you are ? Have
you any Scriptures?" He answered, "I ara a
Christian." " I ask you," said Anulinus, " whether
you were at the meeting, and whether you have the
Scriptures." "I am a Christian," he replied ; " there
is no name besides Christ's that we ought to keep holy."

414 THE HISTORIC MARTYRS
" Since you persist in your obstinacy," said the pro
consul, "you must be tortured. Tell rae whether you
have any Scriptures." Then turning to the officers, he
said, " Torture hira." The claw, frora which his father's
blood had not been wiped, tore open the young man's
sides, and at last he cried out, Uke others before him,
that he had the Scriptures of the Lord, but in a place
from which no violence could tear thera, — in his heart.
" I beseech Thee, O Christ, grant rae power to endure,"
he prayed ; " ray hope is in Thee." " Why did
you transgress the coraraandraent ? " asked Anulinus.
"Because I am a Christian," the young man answered.
He was soon sent to rejoin his father in prison.
It was growing late in the day, and Anulinus was
anxious to get on. Addressing the large band of
Christians who were still to be dealt with, he said,
" You have seen what those who persisted have borne,
and what those who still persist will have to bear.
Therefore let any one of you who wishes to obtain
pardon, and to be saved, speak out." "We are
Christians," was the unaniraous answer ; and they
were all sent back to prison under sentence of death.
To two of thera, however, was granted the honour
of being separately questioned. One was the maiden
Victoria, who had consecrated her virginity to Christ.
The proconsul asked what her intentions were. She
answered firmly, " I ara a Christian." Her brother
Fortunatian, who acted as her advocate, affirraed that
she had been driven out of her raind with subtle argu
ments, but Victoria answered, " This is my mind ; I
have never changed it." The proconsul was anxious
to spare her. " Will you go with your brother For
tunatian ? " he inquired. " No," the maiden answered ;
" I am a Christian, and ray brethren are those who

THE AFRICAN MARTYRS 415
keep the coraraandments of God." Anuhnus en
deavoured to persuade her. "Think what is for your
good," he said ; " you see your brother is desirous to
provide for your safety." " I have told you my raind,"
Victoria said ; " I have never changed it, and I was
at the service and celebrated the Dominicum with the
brethren, for I ara a Christian."
The last of the nine and forty was a little boy
called Hilarian. He was the youngest child of the
brave priest Saturninus. He had seen his father and
one brother tortured, another brother beaten alraost
to death, and a raaiden sister, whose narae was Mary,
sent to prison to await raartyrdora. The huraane
Anulinus thought to relieve the boy of responsibility
for his action. " Did you follow your father or your
brothers ? " he asked. But the boy saw through the
artifice, and would neither incrirainate thera nor lose
his own glory. He answered, " I ara a Christian. It
was of ray own freewill and choice that I took part in
the service with my father and with the brethren."
Anulinus atterapted to frighten hira with ugly threats
of injury without raartyrdora. " I shall cut off your
hair," he said, "and your nose, and your ears, and
then let you go." Hilarian answered boldly, " Do
whatever you please, for I am a Christian." The
proconsul contended no further, but ordered him to
prison along with the rest, under conderanation of
death. The court rang with the boy's answer,
"Thanks be to God."^ 1 Ruinart, p. 338,

INDEX OF NAMES

• Abitina, martyrs of, 406
Achatius, 146
.iEdesius, 292
,/Emilian, 187
Agape, 341
Agapius, martyr in Numidia, 184,
190
Agapius (2), martyrs of Palestine,
288 foil.
• Agathonice, 63
• Agnes, 369
Agricola, 374
Alban, 377
Alcibiades, 57
Alexander, Bishop of Jerusalem,
83, 119
Alexander (2), martyrs at Lyons,
Alphaeus, 286
Ammonarium, 112
Andrew, martyr at Troas, 138
Andronicus, 259
Anthimus, 232
Apollonia, 109
Apollonius, 70
Apphian, 290
Asclepiades, 124, 127, 128, 131
Asterius, 252
Attalus, 44, 50, 52
Babylas, 119
Basilides, 86
Besas, 112
Biblias, 46
•Blandina, 44i 5o> 53
•Caecilia, 64
Callistus, m

Carpus, 60
Cassian, martyr at Imola, 375
Cassian, martyr at Tangier, 210
Castulus, 367
Celerinus, 153
Chaeremon, 114
Chione, 342
Claudius, martyr at Aegae, 252
Claudius, martyr in Pannonia,
355
Clement of Alexandria, 83
Clement of Rome, 8
Commodus, Emperor, 77
Conon, 144
Constantius, Emperor, 376
. Crispina, 394
Cyprian, 152 foil., 179, 182, 187
Cyriac (Cyric), child martyr, 256
Cyril, Bishop of Antioch, 283,
356, 358
Cyril, boy martyr, 198
Dasius, 347
Dativus, 406, 407, 408 foil.
Decius, Emperor, 108, 150, 151,
153. 154, 160
Denys (Dionysius) of Alexandria,
108, 114
Didymus, 330
Diocletian, Emperor, 205, 220,
223, 355. 363. 366
Diognetus, epistle to, 31
Dionysia, martyr at Alexandria,
112
Dionysia, martyr at Troas, 137,
138
Dioscorus, boy confessor, 112
Domitian, Emperor, 5, 1 1
2 D

4i8Domnina, 254
Domninus, 294
DonatiUa, 391
Donatus, 224

Emeritus, 410 foil.
Encratis, 379
Ennatha (2), martyrs in Pales
tine, 302
Epipodius, 57
Eugenius, 245
•Eulalia, 383
•Euphemia, 228
Euplus (Euplius), 372
Eusebius, the historian, 285, 291,
292, 295, 296, 305, 308
Eustratius, 244
•Eutychia, 342
Fabian, 151, 152
Fabius, 389
Felicity, 88, 92, 99, loi, 103
Felix (3) of Abitina, 412, 413
Felix of Autumni, 403
Felix of Tibiuca, 404
Flavian, 178
Flavins, Clemens, 11
Fructuosus, 195
Galerius, Emperor, 220, 221,
223, 224, 283
Genesius, 364
Gregory the Wonderworker, 119
Guddene, 105
Hadrian, Emperor, 41, 67
Hadrian, martyr at Nicomedia,
224
Hermes, 334
Hiero, 243
Hilarian, boy martyr, 415
Ignatius, 17 foil., 20
Irenseus of Lyons, 29
Irenseus of Sirmium, 349
• Irene, 342

INDEX OF NAMES

Jacob, sign of, 176
James, the Lord's brother, 3 foil,
James, the son of Zebedee, 3
James, martyr in Numidia, 184
John, the Apostle, 12, 20, 39
John, martyr in Palestine, 308
Judas, grandsons of, 5
Julian, martyr at Aegae, 257
Julian, martyr at Alexandria, in
Julian, martyr at Caesarea, 301
Julitta, martyr in Cappadocia,
241
Julitta, martyr in Cilicia, 256
Julius, 216
Justin, 33 foil,
Lawrence, 193
Leo, 200
Leonides, father of Origen, 83
Lucian, 230
Lucius, martyr at Carthage, 179
Lucius, martyr at Rome, 30
Lyons and Vienne, martyrs of, 39
foil.
Malchus, 198
Mappahcus, 159
Marcellinus and Peter, 368
Marcellus, 209
Marcian, 211
Marcus and Marcellian, 368
Marcus Aurelius, Emperor, 33, 51
Mardarius, 245
¦ Marian, 184
Marinus, 203
Maturus, 44, 49
¦ Maura, 323
Maxima, 391
Maximilian, 206
Maximin II., Emperor, 230, 289,
294
Maximus, martyr at Ephesus,
135
Mensurius, 398, 399
Montanus, 177 foil.
Moses, martyr at Rome, 153

INDEX OF NAMES

419

Natalia, 225
Nearchus, 120
Neon, 252
Nero, persecution of, 7
Nestor, 141
Nicander, 211
Nicephorus, 201
Nicomachus, apostate, 137
Orestes, 246
Origen, 84, 107, 1 18
Pamphilus, 291, 295, 296, 297,
298, 300
Paphnutius, 315
Papylus, 60
Paul, the Apostle, 8, 1 1
Paul (2), martyrs at Caesarea, 298,
303
Paul, martyr at Troas, 138
Perpetua, 88 foil.
Peter, the Apostle, 8, 10 ; his
. wife, 9
Peter Absalom, 306
Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, 310
Peter, martyr at Lampsacus, 136
Peter, martyr at Nicomedia, 221
Phileas, 316
Philip of Heraclea, 332
Philoromus, 323
Pilate, Acts of, 231, 238, 279
Pionius, 123
Plato referred to, 73, 320
Pliny, 1 3 foil.
Plutarch, martyr at Alexandria,
85
PoUio, 352
Polycarp, 20, 124
Polyeuctus, 120
Ponticus, boy martyr, 53
Porphyry, martyr at Caesarea,
299
• Potamiaena, 85
Pothinus, 39, 47
Priscus, 198
Probus, 259

Procopius, 285
Ptolemy, martyr at Rome, 30
Quartillosia, 176
Quinta, 109
Quirinus, 358
Respicius, 139
Revocatus, 88, 92, 102
Romanus, 283
• Sabina, 124, 126, 127, 131
Sanctus, 44, 45, 49
Saturninus (2) of Abitina, 406
foil., 409 foil., 413
Saturninus of Carthage, 88, 102
Saturninus of Toulouse, 155
Saturus, 90, 92, 97, 101, 102 foil.
Scillitan Martyrs, the, 68
Sebastia, the martyrs of, 247
Sebastian, 365
Secunda, 392
Seleucus, 300
Serenus. {See Syneros)
Severus, Emperor, 78, 82
Severus, martyr at Heraclea, 338
Silvanus of Gaza, 293, 308
Silvanus, traditor, 401
Sirmium, the stonemasons of,
355
Socrates, referred to, 72, 74, 130,
321
•Sophronia, 371
Soteris, 370
Speratus, 68
Successus, 165, 183
Symeon, 6
Symphorian, martyr at Autun,
Symphorian, martyr in Pannonia,
355
Syneros (Serenus), 353
Tarachus, 259
Tarsicius, 195
TertuUian, 79, 87, 105

420

INDEX OF NAMES

Thecla, martyr at Caesarea, 288
Thelica, 407
'Theodora, 328
Theodore, the Tiro, 233
. Theodosia, 293
Theodotus, 235
Theodulus, martyr at Cassarea,
301
Theodulus, martyr at Thessa
lonica, 341
.TheoniUa, 255
Tiburtius (2), martyrs at Rome,
64, 367
Timothy, martyr at Cassarea,
287
Timothy, martyr in Egypt, 323
Trajan, Emperor, 6, 13 foil.

Trypho, 139
Typasius, 386
Valens, 298
¦ Valentina, 302
Valerian, Emperor, l6i, 166, 204
Valerian, martyr at Rome, 64
Vettius Epagathus, 41
Victor, martyr at Carthage, 176
•Victoria, 409, 414
Vincent, 380
Vitalis, 374
Xystus (Sixtus), 166, 192
Zacchaeus, 286
Zoe, 366

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

Agape (love-feast), i6, i8, loi,
190
Allegorical answers of the
martyrs, 38, 145, 297
Amen, significant use of, 27, 91,
134. 341
Amusement, martyrdoms turned
into an, 7, 9
Apologists, the, 34,65, 71 foU,, 79
Apostasies, 14, 22, 42, 83, no,
129, 132, 137, 152, 155, 169,
202, 23s, 251, 283, 390; re
covery of apostates, 46, 48, 51,
159; treatment of them, 56, 152,
177, 180, 310
Asceticism, 57, 285, 291
Asiarchs, 26
Baptism, equivalents for, 85, 121,
173 ; parodied on the stage, 364
Beasts, wild, refuse to attack, 19,
22, 50, 102, 394
Beauty an element in idolatry,
231. 336
Birthdays of martyrs, 29, 124,
160, 352, 367, 383
Buildings, destruction of church,
220, 283, 332. 335. 376, 403
Calumnies against the Chris
tians, II, 13. 16, 41. 43 foil-,
68, 69, 72, 80
Certificates of sacrifice, 117, 155.
156
Child martyrs and confessors, 53,
112, 198, 252, 256, 294, 327, 415

Christ, parallels of His passion
sought after, 23, 102, 134, 184,
276, 349
Christian, the name itself punish
able, II, 13, 30,31,80
" Christian, I am a," 25, 37,
44, 45. 60, 62, 69, 80, 89, 92,
93, 126, 127, 130, 131, 135, 137,
138, 161, 196, 203, 206, 207,
211, 213, 216, 246, 256, 259,
261, 262, 292, 328, 354, 372,
373. 377. 407, 409, 4IO, 412,
413.414,415
Christian life, 15, 31, 73, 81
Citizenship, Roman, 14, 50, 51,
66
Confiscation of the goods of
Christians, 66, 84, i66, 314
Conscience, liberty of, loi, 105,
181
Courage, effect of Christian, 33,
35. 224
Cursing Christ, 14, 15, 25, 130,
214
Custodia libera, 88, 168, 173, 337,
339. 382, 404. 405
Deaconesses, 16
Deaths by popular violence, 5,
109 foil., 138, 155, 195.376
Dreams. {See Visions)
Eucharist, the, 15, 18, 21, 35,
157, 160, 165, 188, 19s, 235,
247, 368, 406, 407 foil., 412
foil.

422Fasts observed, 197
Flight in persecution, 22, 83, 107,
114. 116, 119, 157, 167, 256,
284, 312, 314, 315, 344, 345,
352, 353. 359, 377
Forgiveness of injuries, 3, 203
Fortune (genius) of the city, the,
307. 335 ; of the emperor, 24,
25, 68, 132
God, inquiries after the Chris
tian's, 47, 52, 65, 130, 146, 274,
320
Heaven open to martyrs at once,
70, 175, 188; but see 38, 73.
74
Hell fire, fear of, 25, 46, 126,
152, 265, 336, 344, 358 ; prayers
for those in, 93 foil.
Heretical martyrs, 128, 134, 198,
306
Informers, 17, 67, 75, 78, 162,
358, 402
Intolerance, saintly, 12, 21
Jacob, the sign of, 176
Jews take part against the
Christians, 26, 28, 32, 77, 124,
125, 129, 145, 303, 335; kindly
disposed towards them, 375
Kiss of peace, 3, 98, 104, 181,
183, 219, 300, 301
Lying sometimes thought justifi
able, 257
Magic, Christians suspected of
practising, 100, 149, 273, 356,
357. 367
Magistrates dislike persecution,
13. 75. 213, 214, 394, 412,
415
• Marriage ofthe saints, 10

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

Martyrdom, definition of, 55 ;
eagerness for, 19, 135, 175, 181,
188, 189, 193, 199, 213, 218,
220, 288, 293, 301, 316, 328,
369. 372, 381, 384. 391, 392.
407 ; not to be rashly sought,
22, 162, 167, 198, 310, 312, 399
Martyrs not worshipped, 28 ; re
liance upon their powers with
God, 179, 184, 197, 202, 216,
293
Mines, condemnation to the,
77, 107, 158, 162, 164, 223, 292,
293, 294, 307 foU., 356
Modesty, care for, 85, 103, 255,
285, 370
Oaths, Christian view of, 70, 86,
320
Odour of sanctity, 28, 48 ; cp. 99
Paradise, 176
Philosophy, Christian, 34, 70 foil.,
230, 319 foil.
Pictures in churches, 228, 375
Pope {Papa), the word, 99, 169,
232
Prison, horrors ofthe, 46,89, 153,
159, 160, 174, 175, 188, 310,
381 ; visitation of sufferers in,
89, 128, 160, 174, 177, 196, 288,
399
Prophecy, the gift of, 17, 152
Relics, care for, 29, 39, 54, 171,
192, 222, 228, 236, 272, 274,
281, 302, 341, 382, 389, 390
Resurrection, the first, 134
Rome, greatness of the Church
at, 151
Sacrifice, the Christian, 27, 65,
71, 74, 81, 92, 135, 136, 193,
239, 252, 260, 267, 300, 319,
349. 350, 360, 374, 388. 393.
394, 395. 397. 406

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

423

Saints, communion of, 136
Scriptures, attack upon the, 69,
220, 323. 333 foU., 341, 343.
372, 381, 398, 399, 400 foil.,
403, 404 foil,, 406, 412
Shoes, taking off a bishop's, 26,
197
Slaves, evidence of, 6, 43, 75
Social persecution, 40
Soldiers, Christians refuse to serve
as, 79, 206, 209, 387
Stoic courage and Christian, 33
Suicide to escape outrage, 284,
285, 371

Testaments of martyrs, 247
Traditor, 400 foU.
Treasures of the Church sur
rendered, 194, 333 foil., 401
Visions and dreams, 23, 86, 87,
90, 94, 95. 97, 120, 160, 163,
174, 175, 176, 177, 182, 183, 185,
186, 188, 190, 191, 200, 326, 340
Voices from heaven, 24, 29, 190
¦ Wives tempting husbands to
forsake their faith, 122, 215,
324, 349 ; encouraging them to
endure, 212, 225

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