THESE martyrs were two officers of distinction in the foot-guards of
Julian the Apostate.[1] When that tyrant was on his march against the
Persians, they let fall at table certain free reflections on his impious
laws against the Christians, wishing rather for death than to see the
profanation {220} of holy things. The emperor, being informed of this,
sent for them, and finding that they could not be prevailed upon by any
means to retract what they had said, nor to sacrifice to idols, he
confiscated their estates, caused them to be cruelly scourged, and, some
days after, to be beheaded in prison at Antioch, January the 25th, 363.
The Christians, with the hazard of their lives, stole away their bodies,
and after the death of Julian, who was slain in Persia on the 26th of
June following, erected for them a magnificent tomb. On their festival
St. Chrysostom pronounced their panegyric, in which he says of these
martyrs: "They support the church as pillars, defend it as towers, and
repel all assaults as rocks. Let us visit them frequently, let us touch
their shrine, and embrace their relics with confidence, that we may
obtain from thence some benediction. For as soldiers, showing to the
king the wounds which they have received in his battles, speak with
confidence, so they, by an humble representation of their past
sufferings for Christ, obtain whatever they ask of the King of
heaven."[2]
Footnotes:
1. Julian, surnamed the Apostate, rebelled against Constantius, his
cousin-german, in the spring, in 360, and by his death, in November,
361, obtained the empire. He was one of the most infamous
dissemblers that ever lived. Craft, levity, inconstancy, falsehood,
want of judgment, and an excessive vanity, discovered themselves in
all his actions, and appear in his writings, namely, his epistles,
his satire called Misopogon, and his lives of the Caesars. He wrote
the last work to censure all the former emperors, that he might
appear the only great prince: for a censorious turn is an effect of
vanity and pride. He was most foolishly superstitious, and
exceedingly fond of soothsayers and magicians. After the death of
Constantius, he openly professed idolatry, and by besmearing himself
with the blood of impious victims, pretended to efface the character
of baptism. He was deceived in almost every step by ridiculous
omens, oracles, and augurs, as may be seen in his heathen historian,
Ammianus Marcellinus, (b. 22.) Maximus, the magician, and others of
that character, were his chief confidants. He endeavored, by the
black art, to rival the miracles of Christ, though he effected
nothing. He disqualified Christians from bearing offices in the
state; he forbade them to teach either rhetoric of philosophy, that
he might deprive them of the advantages of human literature, a thing
condemned by Ammianus himself. He commanded, by an edict, that they
should be no longer called Christians, but Galileans, and though he
pretended to toleration, he destroyed more souls by recompenses,
caresses, and strategems, than he could have done by cruelties. He
levied heavy fines and seized the estates of Christians, saying, in
raillery, that he did it to oblige them to follow the gospel, which
recommends poverty. He often put them to death, but secretly, and on
other pretences, that he might deprive them of the honor of
martyrdom: which artifice might have its influence on philosophers,
the lovers of vanity; but not on the servants of God, who desired to
be known to him alone, and to suffer, regardless of the applause of
men, as St. Gregory Nazianzen observes. (Or. 3, in Julian.) That
father, when he knew him a student at Athens, in 355, prognosticated
(Or. 4, in Julian, p. 122) from his light carriage, wandering eye,
haughty look, impertinent questions, and foolish answers, what a
monster the Roman empire was fostering and breeding up. In his march
to his Persian expedition, he was made a subject of mockery and
ridicule at Antioch, on account of his low stature, gigantic gait,
great goat's beard, and bloody sacrifices. In answer to which, he
wrote his Misopogon, or Beardhater, a low and insipid satire. He
everywhere threatened the Christians upon his return from the
Persian war. The oracles of Delos, Delphos, Dodona, and others,
promised him victories, as Theodoret, St. Gregory Nazianzen,
Philostorgius, and Libanius himself, (Libanius, Or. 12,) a heath,
and the chief favorite of Julian, testify: all the pagan deities
wherever he passed, gave him the like assurances, as he himself
writes (Julian, ep. 2.) But in Persia he rashly ventured into wilds
and deserts, with an army of sixty-five thousand men, where he was
defeated and slain in June, 363. Ammianus, who was then in the army,
only says that he was mortally wounded in the battle, and died in
his tent the same day, before noon. Theodoret, Sozomen, and the acts
of St. Theodoret the martyr, say, that finding himself wounded, he
threw up a handful of blood towards heaven, crying out: "Thou hast
conquered, O Galilean, thou hast conquered." It was revealed to many
holy hermits, that God cut him off to give peace to his church.
2. Hom. in SS. Juv. et Max. t. 2, p. 583.