Church History Books 1–9 (trans.) 5 part 1/3

How many things Apollonius pursues in confuting the Cataphrygians. What things Irenaeus disputed against the heretics at the city of Rome. That at Rome Apollonius suffered martyrdom. Concerning the doubt which arose in Asia. How one opinion concerning the Pasch pleased all. What of the writings of Irenaeus have come down even to us. What also of the others who flourished in the same times.

Concerning those who introduced the sect of Artemon: of what character he was in his morals, and by what device they sought to profane the sacrosanct books. Therefore, Soter the bishop having administered the priesthood in the city of Rome for eight years, the twelfth from the apostles, Eleutherus, succeeds him, in the seventeenth year of the reign of Antoninus Verus; at which time, throughout many provinces of the Roman world, from the acclamation and sedition of the mob, persecutions were stirred up against our people—which we can easily infer from those things which we have found committed to writing for the preservation of the memory of the deeds done.

And although concerning this a fuller narrative by us—than that which we have pursued concerning the martyrdoms of individuals—appears to be set forth under its own title, yet, because we have judged these matters to be fitting equally also for the instruction of the present work, we shall insert a few things out of many.

For while other writers of histories relate wars, trophies, and victories, celebrate the brave deeds of magistrates and generals, and narrate the deaths of citizens or of enemies—passing over in silence, amid all those slaughters, the things which pertain to God—it will not be absurd if our narrative describe the wars which the flesh endured for the salvation of the soul, and the battles which the soul undertook that it might recover the heavenly fatherland; if it relate its contests which it waged for the faith of the truth, wherein it fought not against mortal soldiers but for the liberty of the spirit; if, I say, we commit to the monuments of letters those battles which were fought not for tracts of land nor for the possessions of provinces, but for the kingdom of the heavens and the inheritance of paradise—not seeking dominion for a mortal king, but destined to triumph under the immortal King, the God of all. These things, concerning the martyrs of Vienne, past which the most noble Rhone flows in headlong descent, in the times of the aforementioned Antoninus Verus, were described in order by them and transmitted by a faithful account to the churches of Asia and Phrygia.

That fuller faith may be had concerning these things, I shall set down the very examples of the writers themselves. 'The servants of Christ dwelling at Vienne and Lyons, cities of Gaul, who bear the faith and hope of the redemption wrought by Christ: peace and grace and glory be to you from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.' And when they had prefaced their account with certain matters, as it were by way of introduction, after some intervening words they thus begin the narrative of what was done: 'To recount the sufferings which they aimed upon the holy martyrs, as it truly was, we ourselves who were present are not sufficient, much less can any writing comprehend it.'

For with all his might the Enemy assailed us, as one who through the harshness of the persecution was already displaying the beginnings of his coming and thereby fulfilling the mystery of his wickedness and cruelty; so that first we were forbidden the dwelling in houses, then next the use of the baths, afterward even any going forth into public, and at the last, that we should not be seen at all in any place whatever, at home or abroad, in public or in private.

But the grace of God was present, which brought forth into the midst men steadier than pillars, who through their patience were able not only to bear the assaults which the Enemy devised, but even of their own accord to seek them out and willingly to expose themselves to all the torments, whether of reproaches or of tortures; and when the torturers were already almost wearied, they still thought their own portion too little, crying out with the strength of patient endurance that 'the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.' Thus they bravely bore the outcries raised against them and the reproaches, and patiently accepted being torn and stoned and shut up, receiving with equanimity whatever the madness of the raging mob might contrive.

Then at a certain time, while the tribune and the chief men of the city stood by, at the mere outcries of the people the brethren were seized and thrust into prison, and such cruelty was used that no one could set forth the several kinds of its savagery.

Now Vettius Epagathus, one of the brethren, who kept both a perfect charity toward God and an entire love toward men — whose life, though he was a young man, had been so tested by all and approved that even in the ordinances of the Lord he walked without blame, and was most ready also for the service of God's servants — he, being full of divine zeal and fervor of spirit, when he saw such cruel punishments inflicted upon the servants of God, and, against right and religion, so many penalties devised against human flesh, could no longer endure the indignity of the thing, but demanded to be heard, that he might prove that among us nothing impious was committed. For he was both most noble among his own and most learned. But when the obstinacy of the judge would not receive his defense, he asked only this of him, whether he too were a Christian.

With a most clear and free voice he testified that he was indeed a Christian. But in this the accusers knew not what they said, while he, having in himself Jesus as an Advocate for us, by this name was accounted worthy to be honored, following the example of the holy presbyter Zacharias, who had shown toward the saints the fullness of charity. And he himself, while he stands by the brethren and follows the Lord's example, laid down his soul for his sheep and for his friends. And therefore, together with these, as faithful disciples of Christ, they shall follow the Lamb in the coming kingdom, wherever He goes.

Making use, then, of these excellent and most faithful leaders, all the rest of the holy company was strengthened. But some, found unequal and weaker and too feeble to bear the weight of the persecution that was brought upon them, about ten in number, by their fall left us grief and immense sorrow, and broke the spirits of many whom the faith of the former had kindled. Whence we were all greatly terrified — not because of the punishments themselves, for the falls of our own people tortured us far more grievously than the torments that were being inflicted.

Yet daily there were arrested those whom the Lord judged worthy to be enrolled in place of the fallen, so that out of both churches all who seemed zealous and great were gathered. It happened also that certain pagan slaves of ours were seized, since it had been publicly ordered that all should be sought out and held; and these, at the instigation of the demon, dreading the torments which they saw inflicted upon the saints, and being urged to this very thing by the soldiers, charged us with perpetrating Oedipal deeds and other things which it is not lawful for us even to utter or to think, and such as we cannot believe were ever done among men.

And when these things had been spread abroad among the common people concerning us, we began to be a matter of the greatest horror and execration among all men, even among those who before, on account of kinship, had been more moderate. All at once they began to rage against the Christians and to be furious with an incurable hatred. Then we saw fulfilled that which was spoken by the Lord: 'The time shall come, in which everyone that kills you shall think that he offers a service to God.' After this, beyond every kind of telling was the measure of the punishments and tortures inflicted upon the holy martyrs, Satan pressing on, that thereby, forsooth, by their confession as well, some such thing might be extorted, as though committed by us.

In this they all persisted with one and the same fury — the mob, the judge, the official, the soldiers — pressing above all upon a certain Sanctus by name, a deacon of Vienne, and Maturus, a neophyte indeed, but most robust in faith and patience; and also Attalus, a citizen of Pergamum, who was a pillar and support of our church in all things; and Blandina, a woman, through whom Christ showed that the things which among men are despised and held in contempt are accounted in great glory before God, and that His love makes those things which by nature are frail to be, through grace, most firm.

For while we all were trembling for her, and even her mistress according to the flesh, who was herself one of the number of the martyrs, feared lest perhaps Blandina should give way under the torments and scarcely suffice for the tortures of even the first confession because of the weakness of the body — she was strengthened with such power of endurance that the hands of the executioners, who in turn succeeded one another out of the judge's contentious animosity, were sooner loosed and gave out. In the end, renewing the torments ever again from early morning until evening, they at last confessed themselves defeated, amazed how the spirit remained in her when nothing was now left in her body through the tortures.

But that truly blessed woman, as she herself afterward related to us, as often as she uttered the voice of confession and proclaimed 'I am a Christian,' so often were new strengths restored to her body, and, as though the pains were taken away through the confession, she was renewed afresh for the contests. And all the more, because she had understood that the devout voice extinguished the sense of pain, she the more frequently and more cheerfully proclaimed 'I am a Christian' and 'Among us nothing evil is done.'

The deacon Sanctus by name, likewise, above what can be told and above what it is lawful for human nature to bear, while the ministers of the demons pressed on the more fiercely, that they might extract from him some acknowledgment of an unlawful confession, endured new kinds of penalties, and such as far exceeded the substance of the human condition. But that man, full of God, so laughed at their cruelties and their savage bestiality in the questioning, that he never deigned to confess to them even so much as his race, whence he was, of what home or fatherland, nor even his own name; but to all these single inquiries he answered that he was a Christian: 'This is to me my name, this my race and fatherland. Otherwise,' said he, 'I am nothing at all but a Christian.'

Whence an incredible madness agitated them, that with so many kinds of penalties exhausted they had not been able to extort from him even the profession of his own name. They apply renewed fires to the more sensitive members of his body. From which his flesh, indeed, being scorched by the fire, flowed away, yet he himself remained unmoved, unshaken, unafraid, tempering within himself the human flames by those heavenly and eternal fountains which proceed from the belly of Jesus. And so the whole body shuddered; the recognition of the human form perished in him, and the cruelty of the torments had taken away the possibility of recognizing not only who he was, but even what he was.

Yet Christ alone was recognized in him through the glory of the martyr, who through his patience was destroying the adverse powers and showing to His own that there is nothing terrible where the Father is loved, nothing of pain where the faith of Christ is. But the artificers of crimes were by no means abashed at the martyr's virtue. For after a few days, considering that, if they should again inflict torments upon wounds still swelling — which would resent even the softest touch of a hand — and again vex the limbs already putrefied, one of two things would come to pass: either he would yield into their impious laws, or, if in the torments he should lay down his soul, terror of the cruelty would be held forth to threaten the rest. But this turned out far contrary to what the impious had thought.

For — a thing which can scarcely be believed by the unbelieving — he was restored to his former state, so that the second cruelty repaired what the first had taken away, and thus the repeated punishments no longer conferred upon him a penalty, but a healing. And Blandina too, whom we mentioned a little before, was by like example recalled to a second set of tortures. She, being almost half alive and set as it were on the borders of death, having been beaten again with repeated torments, as if awakening suddenly from sleep, came into remembrance of the future blessedness, and with steadfast voice said: 'You err, O men, in thinking that those feed on the entrails of infants who do not even use the flesh of dumb animals.' And so, persevering in her confession, she was again thrust back, joined to the number of the martyrs.

The servants of God, that is, worn down by the affliction of the prison and by the squalor of the penal confinement, and, as they say, with their feet stretched to the seventh hole in the stocks — contrary to what can be believed — in the innermost place of darkness, through all the kinds of penalties which the savagery of the raging men could devise, were perishing. Yet even there the help of the divine Majesty was not lacking to such an end of theirs. For some of those who had borne the most savage torments, and were not permitted to obtain any human remedy, in a wonderful manner, by the power of the Lord, grew strong again, and by their sudden alacrity of mind confirmed the rest unto patience.

And those were the more impatient of the penalties who had lately been seized and whose bodies the torments had not yet hardened. Those, in short, were the ones being killed by the horror of the filth and the darkness of the confinement. But the glory of blessed Pothinus, bishop of Lyons — who was more than ninety years of age and feeble in body as befitted that age, and in other respects almost already dead, living by love of martyrdom alone — he is led to the tribunal, or rather carried, being unstrung by age and languor. His soul was preserved for this alone, that Christ might through him more magnificently triumph in a frail body. Meanwhile the aged man is set before the tribunals. From all sides the shout of the impious populace is raised; they cry aloud that this very man is Christ.

Then indeed he is asked by the governor who was the God of the Christians. He answered: 'If you are worthy, you shall know.' Hereupon a kind of rabid frenzy of some immense fury seized upon them all, so that those who stood near struck him with their hands, and those farther off, whatever weapon had come into their hands, hurled it from afar, so that each one reckoned it to be a matter of the highest guilt for himself if he had not inflicted some outrage upon the old man. For in this they believed their gods to be avenged. And, half-dead, he gave back his breath. About the same time an immense dispensation of God is set in motion, and mercy is unexpectedly obtained through the skill of Christ the Lord.

That which we can scarcely remember was done before by persecutors: all who at first, being seized, had denied the faith, were arrested and thrust into prison to await their end, not now as Christians, but as murderers and incestuous persons, being detained; and the wretches had a double punishment, since indeed hope, and the martyr's crown, and the charity of Christ, and the grace of the Holy Spirit relieved the sufferings of the rest and comforted the afflicted, whereas these very penalties tormented these others. And so by their very look they were distinguished from the rest: for those were brought forth from the tortures joyful, and bearing on their very faces I know not what divine thing, accounting their chains as precious necklaces, made through the squalor of the prison the good odor of Christ, so that they seemed to themselves shut up not in a dungeon but in a perfumer's chamber.

But those others were sad, downcast, hideous in their very appearance, and fouler with every deformity of disgrace. Moreover they were reproached even by the heathen themselves, as men who had lost their faith and incurred a crime, and who had indeed been deprived of the name of Christians, yet had not escaped the punishments of murderers. When the rest saw these things thus done, they were incredibly strengthened, so that when arrested they constantly, without any wavering of mind, professed themselves to be nothing else. And when they had pursued certain matters in these places somewhat further, after other things, thereafter, through the diverse forms of their martyrdom, the Lord Christ, weaving as it were a certain crown composed of various flowers, offered it, that they might receive the reward.

For Maturus and Sanctus and Blandina and Attalus, on the days of the games, when countless thousands of nations of diverse sorts had been gathered for the spectacle, are set in the midst of the arena. And again Maturus with Sanctus, as though nothing had been done before, are exposed to all the torments; that they might break their endurance, and, so to speak, from the very crown of their heads snatch away their crowns, being incited by the mad voices of the people. But their spirits were all the more strengthened by the hope of the glory now near, which they seemed already, again and again, to touch and handle with their right hands.

And when both the kinds of torments and almost the whole time of the spectacles had been consumed, and they had not been able in any way to move them from their resolve — even when, set upon iron seats, the flesh consumed by the scourges was burned by the fire administered beneath — at the last the untiring spirits of the martyrs took flight through their necks cut with the sword. But Blandina, bound to a stake and stretched out in the fashion of a cross, is prepared as food for the beasts. Yet she, hanging on the wood, with unterrified and quite joyful countenance, poured forth a prayer to God, in which she besought both constancy for herself and perseverance for the rest, her partners in the contest.

And she confidently hoped that her vows would easily be fulfilled, which she aided by her own examples, teaching at the same time this also, that to those who are partners in the sufferings of Christ, the sharing of His glory too must be granted, even though bitter. But when none of the beasts dared to touch her body, being taken down from the wood she is again recalled to prison, to be prepared for still further contests, so that through many victories she might crush the head of the tortuous serpent, and rouse the spirits of the brethren to endurance by this, that she herself, in a small and frail body, remained unconquered through so many combats, and in each several contest [instructed them]... For [Attalus] was a man very active and, what is nobler than all, a man of the best conscience, and in the faith of Christ, through all exercises, ever a martyr.

And when he had been led around in the amphitheater, with a placard preceding him on which was written 'Attalus the Christian,' the fury of the raging mob began to rage against him the more vehemently. But when it had been made known to the governor that he was a man of Roman citizenship, he orders him to be brought back to prison with the rest, and reports concerning him to Caesar, and awaits his sentence, what he should command about him. But in the meanwhile, placed in prison, they suffered the time to pass not unfruitfully for themselves, but by the vigor of their soul and the alacrity of their faith, they made very many martyrs by their exhortations.

From this a great joy was born to the Mother Church, seeing her sons — who had seemed already almost to have fallen away into death — restored through these to life; and by their admonitions many who by denying had already been made as it were a kind of miscarriage, were taught; for they were taught by these that God does not will the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live. Therefore, when a rescript had come from Caesar, that [those who confessed should be tortured, and those who denied should be released], the judge orders Christians to be prepared for him and brought in, at a most celebrated [festival] in which men gathering from all provinces held a market, to furnish the pomp of punishments as a spectacle to all who were present. And so again crosses, again penalties, again torments are prepared.

And if perchance any Roman citizens were found, he decrees that these be beheaded, but the rest to be handed over to the beasts. But among those who had denied and could neither be dismissed nor [continued to] deny, now that pardon was granted to those who denied, [these] persisted in confession and, recalled from the flock of perdition, were joined to the number of the martyrs. So then, when the examination was being held concerning the aforesaid, a certain Alexander, a Phrygian by race and a physician by profession, a religious and prudent man, dear and acceptable to all by the uprightness of his life and character, being moved by the love of God, while he stood by the tribunal, was exhorting to confession by his nods those who were under examination, so that it became plain to all who stood by what disposition of mind he bore.

And when the people had marked this, being especially indignant on account of those who, what they had before denied, were now recalling by a revived confession, they cried out against Alexander that these very things were being committed at his instigation. He, being ordered by the governor to be set in the midst and asked who he was, testifies with free profession that he is a Christian; whom he straightway ordered to be prepared for the beasts. And on the next day [Alexander, along with Attalus, was brought in]. For the governor, the precept of Caesar being observed, wishing to gratify the peoples, ordered Attalus himself also to be handed over to the beasts.

But when none of the wild beasts had touched the bodies of the saints, he orders them, tormented with all the punishments of scourges and the other penalties, at the last to be slaughtered in the sight of the people in the midst of the arena; blessed Alexander in all the punishments which he endured uttering not even a single word at all, but from the beginning even to the end always speaking within himself with God and remaining in His praises and prayers. But Attalus, when he was being roasted in an iron chair with live coals placed beneath, and the reek of the burning flesh was carried to the nostrils and mouths of the people looking on, cried out with a great voice to the crowd: 'Behold, this is to eat men, which you are doing.'

'Why do you seek from us as a hidden crime that which you commit in open daylight? For we neither eat men nor do any other evil.' And when he was asked, 'What name has your God?' he answered: 'Those who are many are distinguished by names; He who is one has no need of a name.' After these, on the very last day of the games, [the martyrs were brought forth, and a certain boy of about fifteen years], who along with the others in the previous tortures had been ordered ever to stand by, that seeing the punishments of the rest they might the more be terrified. They are therefore set in the midst and ordered to swear by the gods. But they, on the contrary, said that those by whom they were being compelled to swear were nothing at all.

And when with very many other words they reproached the gods of the nations, the multitude of the people began to rage the more against them, pitying neither the tender age of the boy nor the sex of the woman, but through all the kinds of torments, driving them as it were around a certain circle, suffered nothing to be lacking to the penalties which cruelty had devised. Then Ponticus, receiving the greatest strength of endurance by his mother's exhortation and persevering in the confession of the faith, gave back his undefiled spirit. But the blessed Blandina, last of all, like a noble mother of all, exulting and rejoicing, as though invited to the bridal chamber of the Bridegroom and to the marriage feast.

From this it came about that she danced under the scourges and rejoiced though burned on the gridirons, and seemed so cheerful and glad as if she were reclining at a royal banquet amid the dishes. After this she is handed over to the beasts, but remains untouched by them. [Then she is enclosed in a net and cast] to a bull fiercely goaded; by which, when she had been assailed with countless blows and tossed about the whole circuit of the arena, she is not hurt at all, but remains, as ever, with joyful countenance, steadfast mind, already conversing with Christ by hope itself and the confidence of her soul. At the last she is ordered to be slaughtered with the sword — a woman who had been able to bear such and so great things! But not even so was cruelty able to take any satiety.

For being incited by the venom of the ancient serpent, their fierce and barbarous manners knew not how to grow gentle. Indeed, from the very patience of the saints they became the more savage. [They saw that] there was a greater virtue in the tortured than in the torturers. And from this the judge alike, and the people, were being incited to abominable hatreds, that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says: 'Let him that is unjust do injustice still, and he that is filthy be filthy still.' And so, by an unheard-of kind of savagery, [they treated the bodies] of those who were being killed in prison, that no one, out of a regard for humanity, might commit the gathered remains to burial.

But if perchance anything of the bodies of the martyrs had been left over either by the beasts or by the fire, it was kept guarded by the soldiers, and it was sought whether human [ingenuity] could inflict anything further. Yet the nations exulted, magnifying their idols, by whose power they said the vengeance had been given upon them. But if any among them seemed a little milder or more humane, they would say: 'Where now is their God?'

'And what did this religion profit them, for which they even laid down their souls?' So then among [the heathen this was] held; especially because we could not commit the bodies to the ground, since not even at the time of night was any opportunity granted us for this, nor was there any means, either to persuade the guards by gifts, or by prayers, or by any other kind [of entreaty]; so attentively and anxiously did they take care that no remains should be given [to burial]. [And so, when they had done all this,] the burned bones of the martyrs, reduced to ash, together with the rest of the dust of the earth, they scattered into the river Rhone, that nowhere might their remains rest — as though, forsooth, by doing this they might conquer God, and, as they said, might thereby take away from them the hope of resurrection.

'For hoping this' (they said), 'and by I know not what superstition persuading themselves, they gladly subject themselves to torments and to death. Now let us see whether they will rise again, and whether their God can be present to help them and to snatch them out of our hands.' These are the things which are declared to have been done in those times, from the letter of the brethren of Lyons. From which what may also have been done throughout the other provinces is to be gathered by conjecture. There are still related in that same letter certain things also concerning the humanity and gentleness of the blessed martyrs, which I think worthy to be associated by their own words with these matters, as with the rest.

'And these,' they say, 'in imitation of Christ, who, when He was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God' — placed in such great glory, and made martyrs once and again and more frequently, after the beasts, after the fires and the [heated] plates, neither called themselves martyrs, nor allowed others so to name them; but if perchance any of us, either in a letter or in conversation, had named them martyrs, they rebuked him sharply, saying that this appellation is due to Christ alone, who alone is the faithful and true Witness (martyr), and who is the firstborn from the dead and the author of eternal life; or else that this title is fitting only for those who, after a good confession, have merited to depart from this life and to go to God.

'But we,' they said, 'lowly and needy, desire that at least the confession itself may remain safe in us.' And in this they also besought the other brethren with tears, that they would pray to the Lord for them, that they might merit to receive martyrdom as the seal of a perfect confession. And so great humility was in them, that though in the very facts they were martyrs, yet they fled the boasting of the name. But among the heathen they stood with all boldness, showing the nobility of their soul through contempt of injury and endurance of punishments. They were therefore humble among the brethren, exalted among the persecutors, meek toward their own, terrible toward their adversaries, subject to Christ, upright against the devil.