From St. Chrysostom, l. contra Gentiles de S. Babyla, and hom. de S.
Babyla, t. 2, ed. Ben. p. 531. He wrote the first discourse against the
Gentiles, expressly to confound them by the miracles of this saint. He
spoke the second five years after, in 3871 on St. Babylas's feast,
before a numerous auditory, and mentions Flavian, the bishop of Antioch,
and others, who were to speak after him on the same subject. The
miracles were recent, performed before the eyes of many then present.
Nome of the three acts of this saint in Bollandus can be authentic. See
Tillemont, Mem. t. 3, p. 400, and Hist. des Empereurs, t. 3, and F.
Merlin. Dissertation contre M. Bayle sur ce que rapporte S. Chrysostome
du Martyre de S. Babylas, Mem. de Trevoux, Juin 1737, p. 1051. Also
Stilting, the Bollandist, in Vit. S. Chrysost. Sec.15. p 439, ad 14
Septemb. t. 4.
About the year 250.
THE most celebrated of the ancient bishops of Antioch, after St.
Ignatius, was St. Babylas, who succeeded Zebinus in the year 237, and
governed that church with great zeal and virtue, about thirteen years,
under the emperors Gordian, Philip, and Decius. Philip, an Arabian by
birth, and of mean extraction, raised by the young emperor Gordian to be
prefect of the praetorian guards, perfidiously murdered his master at the
head of his victorious army in Persia, and caused himself to be
acknowledged emperor by the senate and people of Rome, in the year 244.
We have very imperfect histories of his reign. Eusebius says that he
abolished the public stews and promiscuous bathing in Rome, which
Alexander Severus, the most virtuous of the heathen emperors, had in
vain attempted to do. The same historian adds, it was averred[1] that
Philip, being a Christian, subjected himself to canonical penance at
Antioch, where being arrived on the eve of a great festival, as the
chronicle of Alexandria relates, he presented himself at the Christian
oratory, with his wife; but being excluded by the bishop, with a meek
rebuke for his crimes, he made his exomologesis, or confession, and
ranked himself among the penitents without doors. St. Jerom, Vincent of
Lerins, Orosius, and others, positively affirm that this emperor was a
Christian: and Eusebius, Rufinus, St. Jerom, Vincent of Lerins, and
Syncellus say, that Origen wrote two letters, one to the emperor Philip,
another to his wife, with an authority which the Christian priesthood
gave him over emperors.
Philip assisted at the heathenish solemnity of the thousandth year of
Rome; but his presence was necessary on that occasion, nor is he said to
have offered sacrifice. He was indeed a bad Christian, and probably only
a catechumen, an ambitious and cruel tyrant, who procured the death of
Misitheus, father-in-law of Gordian, murdered Gordian himself to usurp
his empire, and put to death the young prince, son of the king of
Persia, of the Parthians, left a hostage in his hands: circumstances
mentioned by St. Chrysostom. Having reigned something upwards of five
years, he was slain with his son Philip, his colleague in the empire, by
Decius, about the middle of the year 249. The peace and favor which the
church had enjoyed during his reign, had much increased her numbers, but
had relaxed the fervor of many, as we see in St. Cyprian's works, and in
the life of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus. Whole cities had embraced the
faith, and public {212} churches were erected. Decius equally hated the
Philips and the Christian religion, against which he published the most
cruel edicts in the year 250; which caused the seventh general
persecution, permitted by God to purge away the dross to his flock, and
to awake them to fervor.
St. Chrysostom extols the courage and zeal of St. Babylas, in shutting
the church-doors against an emperor and a barbarous tyrant, then at the
head of a victorious army. We find Philip styled conqueror of the
Parthians, in an inscription in Gruter,[2] by which he seems to have
returned triumphant, though Zonoras pretends he had bought a peace.
Eusebius mentions it as a report, that the emperor received the bishop's
rebuke with meekness, and submitted to public penance: but St.
Chrysostom insinuates, that the same tyrant, in a rage for being refused
admittance, threw St. Babylas into a dungeon, where he soon died. St.
Jerom says that Decius imprisoned him, which seems the true account. F.
Stilting thinks that Decius, after being proclaimed emperor in Pannonia,
marched first against Philip, and when he was slain, led his army into
Syria, where Priscus, Philip's brother, commanded the troops of those
parts, and Jotapian about that time assumed the purple, but was soon
crushed. At this time he doubts not but Decius was forbid by St. Babylas
to enter the church, because he was an idolater, and had perfidiously
murdered a prince who was the son of some king of a nation of
barbarians, who had sent him as a hostage to that tyrant. For many
transactions of that time are not recorded by the Roman historians. At
least it seems to have been under Decius that St. Babylas consummated
his martyrdom by the hardships of his prison: and when dying, ordered
his chains to be buried with him, as the happy instruments and marks of
his triumph. The Christians built a church over his tomb. His body
rested here about one hundred years, till 351, when Gallus Caesar
translated it to Daphne, five miles from Antioch, to oppose the worship
of a famous idol of Apollo, which gave oracles in that place. Gallus
erected a church, sacred to the name of St. Babylas, near the profane
temple, and placed in it his venerable ashes in a shrine above ground.
The neighborhood of the martyr's relics struck the devil dumb, as is
averred by St. Chrysostom. Theodoret,[3] Sozomen, and others, who
triumph over the pagans on this account.[4] Eleven years after, Julian
the Apostate came to Antioch, in the year 362, and by a multitude of
sacrifices endeavored to learn of the idol the cause of his silence. At
length the fiend gave him to understand, that the neighborhood was full
of dead bones, which must be removed before he could be at rest and
disposed to give answers. Julian understood this of the body of St.
Babylas, and commanded that the Christians should immediately remove his
shrine to some distant place; but not touch the other dead bodies. Thus
do the fathers and Christian historians of that age relate this
miracle.[5] The Christians obeyed the order, and with great solemnity
carried back in procession the sacred relics to Antioch, singing on this
occasion the psalms which ridicule the vanity and feebleness of idols,
repeating after every verse: "May they who adore idols and glory in
false gods, blush with shame and be covered with confusion." The
following evening, lightning fell on the temple of Apollo, and reduced
to ashes all the rich and magnificent ornaments with which it was
embellished, and the idol itself, leaving only the walls standing.
Julian, the emperor's uncle, {213} and governor of the East, upon this
news hastened to Daphne, and endeavored by tortures to compel the
priests to confess if the accident had happened by any negligence, or by
the interposition of the Christians: but it was clearly proved by the
testimony of these very priests, and also by that of several peasants
who saw the fire fall from heaven, that lightning was the cause. The
Apostate durst not restore the idol lest the like thunder should fall on
his own head: but he breathed nothing but fury against the Christians in
general, more especially against those of Antioch, the fatal effects of
which he intended they should feel at his return from the Persian war.
Vain projects against God, who defeated them by his unhappy death in
that expedition! The ruins of this temple remained in the same condition
above twenty years after. The Roman Martyrology, with that of St. Jerom
and others of the West, celebrate the memory of St. Babylas on the 24th
of January, but the Greeks on the 4th of September, together with three
children martyred with him, as St. Chrysostom and others mention. His
body is said to be now at Cremona, brought from the East in the
crusades. St. Babylas is the titular saint of many churches in Italy,
France, and Spain.
Footnotes:
1. [Greek: Touton katexei xristianon honta] Eus. l. 6, c. 3.
2. P. 273.
3. Theodoret l. 3. Hist. c. 6, and de Graecor. Affect. l. 10. Rufin.
Chrys.
4. St. Chrysostom has given us the lamentation of Libanius, the
celebrated heathen sophist, bewailing the silence of Apollo at
Daphne; adding that Julian had delivered him from the neighborhood
of a dead man, which was troublesome to him.
5. Ammianus Marcellinus, a heathen, and Julian's own historian, says b.
2, p. 225, that he caused all the bones of dead men to be taken away
to purify the place.