THE city of Melitine, a station of the Roman troops in the Lesser
Armenia, is illustrious for a great number of martyrs, whereof the first
in rank is Polyeuctus. He was a rich Roman officer, and had a friend
called Nearchus, a zealous Christian, who, when the news of the
persecution, raised by the emperor against the church, reached Armenia,
prepared himself to lay down his life for his faith; and grieving to
leave Polyeuctus in the darkness of Paganism, was so successful in his
endeavors to induce him to embrace Christianity, as not only to gain him
over to the faith, but to inspire him with an eager desire of laying
down his life for the same. He openly declared himself a Christian, and
was apprehended and condemned to cruel tortures. The executioners being
weary with tormenting him, betook themselves to the method of argument
and persuasion, in order to prevail with him to renounce Christ. The
tears and cries of his wife Pauline, of his children, and of his
father-in-law, Felix, were sufficient to have shaken a mind not superior
to all the assaults of hell. But Polyeuctus, strengthened by God, grew
only the firmer in his faith, and received the sentence of death with
such cheerfulness and joy, and exhorted all to renounce their idols with
so much energy, on the road to execution, that many were converted. He
was beheaded on the 10th of January, in the persecution of Decius, or
Valerian, about the year 250, or 257. The Christians buried his body in
the city. Nearchus gathered his blood in a cloth, and afterwards wrote
his acts. The Greeks keep his festival very solemnly: and all the Latin
martyrologies mention him. There was in Melitine a famous church of St.
Polyeuctus, in the fourth age, in which St. Euthymius often prayed.
There was also a very stately one in Constantinople, under {410}
Justinian, the vault of which was covered with plates of gold, in which
it was the custom for men to make their most solemn oaths, as is related
by St. Gregory of Tours.[1] The same author informs us, in his history
of the Franks,[2] that the kings of France, of the first race, used to
confirm their treaties by the name of Polyeuctus. The martyrology
ascribed to St. Jerom, and the most ancient Armenian calendars, place
his feast on the 7th of January, which seems to have been the day of his
martyrdom. The Greeks defer his festival to the 9th of January: but it
is marked on the 13th of February in the ancient martyrology, which was
sent from Rome to Aquileia in the eighth century, and which is copied by
Ado, Usuard, and the Roman Martyrology. See his acts taken from those
written by Nearchus, the saint's friend, and Tillem. t. 3, p. 424. Jos.
Assemani, in Calend. ad 9 Januarii, t. 6.
Footnotes:
1. De Glor. Mart. c. 103.
2. Hist. l. 7, c. 6.