They were Persians, but coming to Rome, courageously confessed the
faith of Christ in the persecution of Decius in 250. They were
cruelly tormented, but the more their bodies were mangled and
covered with ghastly wounds, the more were their souls adorned and
beautified with divine grace, and rendered glorious in the sight of
heaven. The Christians at Rome did not treat them as strangers, but
as brethren united to them in the hope of the same blessed country;
and after their death carefully deposited their bodies in the house
of a subdeacon called Quirinus. In the reign of Constantine the
Great, their relics were removed into the ancient burying place of
Pontian, so called from some rich man who built it: called also,
from some sign, Ad Ursum Pileatum. It afterward received its name
from SS. Abdon and Sennen. It was situated near the Tiber, on the
road to Porto near the gates of Rome. The images of these martyrs
with Persian bonnets and crowns on their heads, and their names, are
to be seen there at this day in ancient sculpture.[342] SS. Abdon
and Sennen are mentioned in the ancient Liberian Calendar, and in
other Martyrologies; though their modern acts deserve no notice, as
cardinal Noris has demonstrated.[343]
The martyrs preferred torments and death to sin, because the love
of God above all things reigned in their breasts. “We say we are
Christians,” says Tertullian;[344] “we proclaim it to the whole
world, even under the hands of the executioner, and in the midst of
all the torments you inflict upon us to compel us to unsay it. Torn
and mangled, and weltering in our blood, we cry out as loud as we are
able to cry, That we are worshippers of God through Christ.” Upon
which Mr. Reeves observes, that no other religion ever produced any
considerable number of martyrs except the true one. Do we ever read
of any generation of men so greedy of martyrdom, who thought it long
till they were upon the rack, and were so patient, so cheerful and
steadfast under the most intolerable torments? Socrates was the only
philosopher that can be said to have died for his doctrine; and what
a restless posture of mind does he betray, who was esteemed the best
and the wisest of the heathens! With what misgivings, and fits of
hope and fear, does he deliver himself in that most famous discourse,
supposed to have been made by him a little before his death, about
a future state![345] And neither Phædo, Cebes, Crito, Simmias, nor
any other of his greatest friends who were present at his death,
durst maintain either his innocence, or that doctrine for which he
died, in the Areopagus. With what reserve did Plato himself dogmatize
concerning the gods whom he worshipped in public, but denied in
private! How did he dodge about, disguise himself, and say and unsay
the same excellent truths! Only the Christians suffered at this rate,
and they held on suffering for several hundred years together, till
they had subdued the world by dying for their religion. What could
engage such a number of men in such a religion, and support them in
it, in defiance of death in the most shocking forms, but evident
truth, and a superior grace and strength from above?