KING SAPOR, in the eighteenth year of his reign, raised a bloody
persecution against the Christians, and demolished their churches and
monasteries. Jonas and Barachisius, two brothers of the city Beth-Asa,
hearing that several Christians lay under sentence of death at Hubaham,
went thither to encourage and serve them. Nine of that number received
the crown of martyrdom. After their execution, Jonas and Barachisius
were apprehended for having exhorted them to die. The president mildly
entreated the two brothers to obey the king of kings, meaning the king
of Persia, and to worship the sun, moon, fire, and water. Their answer
was, that it was more reasonable to obey the immortal King of heaven and
earth than a mortal prince. The Magians were much offended to hear their
king called mortal. By their advice the martyrs were separated, and
Barachisius was cast into a very narrow close dungeon. Jonas they
detained with them, endeavoring to persuade him to sacrifice to fire,
the sun, and water. The prince of the Magians, seeing him inflexible,
caused him to be laid fiat on his belly with a stake under his navel,
and to be beaten both with knotty clubs and with rods. The martyr all
the time continued in prayer, saying: "I thank you, O God of our father
Abraham. Enable me, I beseech you, to offer to you acceptable
holocausts. _One thing I have asked of the Lord: this will I seek
after_.[1] The sun, moon, fire, and water I renounce: I believe and
confess the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." The judge ordered him next to
be set in a frozen pond, with a cord tied to his foot. After supper, and
a short nap, he sent for Barachisius, and told him his brother had
sacrificed. The martyr said it was impossible that he should have paid
divine honors to fire, a vile creature, and spoke much on the immensity
and power of God, and with such, eloquence and force that the Magians
were astonished to hear him, and said one to another, that if he were
permitted to speak in public, he would draw over many from their
religion. Whereupon they concluded for the future to hold his
interrogatories in the night. In the mean time they caused two red-hot
iron plates, and two red-hot hammers, to be applied under each arm, and
said to him: "If you shake off either of these, by the king's fortune,
you deny Christ." He meekly replied: "I fear not your fire; nor shall I
throw off your instruments of torture. I beg you to try without delay
all your torments on me. He who is engaged in combat for God is full of
courage." They ordered melted lead to be dropped into his nostrils and
eyes; and that he should then be carried to prison, and there hung up by
one foot. Jonas, after this, being brought out of his pool, the Magians
said to him: "How do you find yourself this morning? We imagine you
passed the {673} last night out very uncomfortably." "No," replied
Jonas; "from the day I came into the world, I never remember a night
more sweet and agreeable: for I was wonderfully refreshed by the
remembrance of Christ's sufferings." The Magians said: "Your companion
hath renounced." The martyr, interrupting them, answered: "I know that
he hath long ago renounced the devil and his angels." The Magians urged:
"Take care lest you perish, abandoned both by God and man." Jonas
replied: "If you are really wise, as you boast, judge if it be not
better to sow the corn than to keep it hoarded up. Our life is a seed
sown to rise again in the world to come, when it will be renewed by
Christ in immortal light." The Magians said: "Your books have drawn many
aside." Jonas answered: "They have indeed drawn many from worldly
pleasures. When a servant of Christ is in his sufferings inebriated with
love from the passion of his Lord, he forgets the transitory state of
this short life, its riches, estates, gold, and honors; regardless of
kings and princes, lords and noblemen, where an eternity is at stake, he
desires nothing but the sight of the only true King, whose empire is
everlasting, and whose power reaches to all ages." The judges commanded
all his fingers and toes to be cut off, joint by joint, and scattered
about. Then they said to him: "Now wait the harvest to reap other hands
from this seed." To whom he said: "Other hands I do not ask. God is
present, who first framed me, and who will give me new strength." After
this, the skin was torn off the martyr's head, his tongue was cut out,
and he was thrown into a vessel of boiling pitch; but the pitch by a
sudden ebullition running over, the servant of God was not hurt by it.
The judges next ordered him to be squeezed in a wooden press till his
veins, sinews, and fibres burst. Lastly, his body was sawn with an iron
saw, and, by pieces, thrown into a dry cistern. Guards were appointed to
watch the sacred relics, lest Christians should steal them away. The
judges then called upon Barachisius to spare his own body. To whom he
said: "This body I did not frame, neither will I destroy it. God its
maker will again restore it and will judge you and your king."
Hormisdatscirus, turning to Maharnarsces, said: "By our delays we
affront the king. These men regard neither words nor torments." They
therefore agreed that he should be beaten with sharp-pointed rushes;
then that splinters of reeds should be applied to his body, and by cords
strait drawn and pulled, should be pressed deep into his flesh, and that
in this condition his body, pierced all over with sharp spikes, armed
like a porcupine, should be rolled on the ground. After these tortures,
he was put into the screw or press, and boiling pitch and brimstone were
poured into his mouth. By this last torment he obtained a crown equal to
that of his brother. Under their most exquisite tortures they thought
they bought heaven too cheap. Upon the news of their death, Abtusciatus,
an old friend, came and purchased their bodies for five hundred drachms
and three silk garments, binding himself also by oath never to divulge
the sale. The acts are closed by these words: "This book was written
from the mouths of witnesses, and contains the acts of the saints,
Jonas, Barachisius, and others, martyrs of Christ, who by his succor
fought, triumphed, and were crowned, in whose prayers we beg place may
be found, by Esaias, son of Adabus of Arzun, in Armenia, of the troop of
royal horsemen, who was present at their interrogatories and tortures,
and who wrote the history of their conflicts." They were crowned on the
29th of the moon of December. This was the 24th of that month, in the
year of Christ 327, of Sopar II. the 18th. The Roman Martyrology
mentions them on the 29th of March.
* * * * *
Those powerful motives which supported the martyrs under the sharpest
{674} torments, ought to inspire us with patience, resignation, and holy
joy, under sickness and all crosses or trials. These are the times of
the greatest spiritual harvest, by the exercise of the most perfect
virtues. For nothing is more heroic in the practice of Christian virtue,
nothing more precious in the sight of God, than the sacrifice of
patience, submission, constant fidelity and charity in a state of
suffering. Under sickness we are too apt eagerly to desire health, that
we may be able to do something for God, and to discharge the obligations
of our profession, as we persuade ourselves. This is a mere invention of
self-love, which is impatient under the weight of humiliation. Nothing,
indeed, is more severe to nature than such a state of death, and there
is nothing which it is not desirous of doing, to recover that active
life, which carries an air of importance by making an appearance in the
tumultuous scene of the world. But how much does the soul generally lose
by such an exchange! Ah! did we but truly know how great are the
spiritual advantages and riches, and how great the glory of patience
founded upon motives of true charity, and how precious the victories and
triumphs are which it gains over self-love, we should rejoice too much
in a state of suffering and humiliation ever to entertain any inordinate
desires of changing it. We should only ask for health in sickness under
this condition, if it be more expedient for God's honor and our
spiritual advancement. With St. Paul, we should find a joy and delight
in a state of privation and suffering, in which we enter into a true
sense of our absolute weakness, feel that we are nothing, and have no
reliance but on God alone.
Footnotes:
1. Psa. xxvi 4.