Sebastian, a most Christian man, by birth a Narbonensian and a citizen of Milan, was so dear to the emperors Diocletian and Maximian that they entrusted to him the command of the first cohort and ordered him always to stand before their sight. He wore the military cloak only for this purpose, that he might strengthen the souls of the Christians whom he saw failing under torments. Now when the most illustrious men Marcellinus and Marcus, twin brothers, were to be beheaded for the faith of Christ, their parents came to them to recall their minds from their resolve. So the mother came, and with her head uncovered, her garments torn and her breasts laid bare, she said: 'O most sweet sons, an unheard-of misery and intolerable grief surround me.
Alas, wretched me, I am losing my sons as they go of their own accord to death! If enemies were to carry them off from me, I would follow the ravishers through the midst of war; if violent judgments shut them up in prison, I would burst in, ready to die. This is a new kind of perishing, in which the executioner is begged to strike; life is desired in order to perish; death is invited in order to come. This is a new grief, a new misery, in which the youth of the sons is lost of its own will, and the pitiable old age of the parents is compelled to go on living.' As the mother said this, the aged father was led in by the hands of servants, and with his head sprinkled with dust, he uttered such cries to heaven: 'I have come to bid farewell to my sons who are setting out of their own accord to death, that I, unhappy, may spend on my sons' burials what I had prepared for my own.
O my sons, the staff of my old age and the twofold light of my inmost being, why do you so love death? Come here, young men, weep over young men who perish of their own accord. Come hither, old men, and mourn with me over my sons; come near here, fathers, and forbid lest you suffer such things. Fail with weeping, my eyes, that I may not see my sons cut down by the sword.' As the father said this, the wives came, presenting their own children before their sight, and wailing aloud they cried: 'To whom do you abandon us? Who shall be lords of these infants?
Who shall divide your ample possessions? Alas, what hearts of iron, that you despise your parents, reject your friends, cast off your wives, disown your children, and offer yourselves of your own accord to the executioners.' Meanwhile the hearts of the men began to soften. Then holy Sebastian, who was present there, breaking into their midst, said: 'O most valiant soldiers of Christ, do not, through wretched flatteries, lay down the everlasting crown.' But to the parents he said: 'Do not fear, they shall not be separated from you, but they go into heaven to prepare for you starry dwellings. For from the beginning of the world this life has deceived those who hope in it, has cheated those who await it, has mocked those who presume upon it, and so has rendered no one at all secure, that it is proved to have lied to all.
This life urges the thief to steal, the wrathful to rage, the liar to deceive. It commands crimes, orders misdeeds, and persuades to injustice. But this persecution which we suffer here flares up today and vanishes tomorrow, blazes up today and grows cold tomorrow; it is brought in within one hour and shut out within one hour. But eternal pain is renewed in order to rage, increased in order to burn up, kindled in order to punish. Therefore let us now rouse our affections in the love of martyrdom.
For there the devil thinks he conquers, who, while he seizes, is himself seized; while he holds, is held; while he conquers, is conquered; and while he torments, is tormented; while he slays, is slain; and while he insults, is mocked.' Therefore, while blessed Sebastian was uttering these things from his mouth, suddenly for about one hour he was illumined by an exceeding splendor descending from heaven, and under that splendor he was clothed in a most shining mantle and surrounded by seven most radiant angels. A young man also appeared beside him, giving him peace and saying:
'You shall always be with me.' But while blessed Sebastian was preaching these and similar things, Zoe, the wife of Nicostratus—in whose house the saints were kept—who had lost the power of speech, cast herself at his feet and by gestures begged for pardon. Then Sebastian said: 'If I am a servant of Christ, and if all the things are true which this woman has heard from my mouth and believed, let Him open her mouth who opened the mouth of His prophet Zechariah.' At this word the woman cried out: 'Blessed shall be the speech of your mouth, and blessed are they who believe all the things you have spoken.
For I saw an angel holding a book before you, in which all the things you said were written.' Her husband, hearing this, fell at the feet of holy Sebastian, begging that pardon be granted him; and immediately, setting the martyrs free, he asked them to depart freely. But they said that they would in no way abandon the victory they had won. So great a grace and power had the word of holy Sebastian conferred, that he not only strengthened Marcellinus and Marcus in the constancy of martyrdom, but also converted to the faith their father, named Tranquillinus, and their mother, together with many others; all of whom the presbyter Polycarp baptized. And Tranquillinus, laboring under a most grievous illness, as soon as he was baptized, recovered his health.
Now the prefect of the city of Rome, who himself also was laboring under a most grievous illness, asked Tranquillinus to bring to him the one who had given him health. So when the presbyter Polycarp and Sebastian had come to him, and he himself begged them that he too might recover his health, Sebastian told him that he must first renounce the idols and hand over to him the power of breaking them, and thus he would recover his health. When Chromatius the prefect said to him that his servants should do this and not himself, Sebastian said:
'The fearful dread to break their gods; but even if on this occasion the devil were to harm them, they would say that those men were faithless and were harmed for this reason, that they broke their gods.' And so Polycarp and Sebastian, girding themselves, broke more than two hundred idols. After this they said to Chromatius: 'Since, while we were breaking the idols, you ought to have recovered your health and yet did not, it is certain that either you have not yet cast off your faithlessness, or you have kept back some idols.' Then he disclosed that he had a chamber in which was all the science of the stars, on which his father had spent more than two hundred pounds of gold, and through which he foresaw all things to come. Sebastian said to him:
'As long as you keep this intact, you will not have yourself intact.' And when he consented to this, Tiburtius his son, an excellent young man, said: 'I will not allow so splendid a work to be destroyed; but lest I seem opposed to my father's health, let two furnaces be kindled, so that, if after the work is destroyed my father does not recover his health, both men may be burned.' Sebastian said to him: 'Let it be done as you have said.' So while those things were being broken, an angel appeared to the prefect and announced that health had been restored to him by the Lord Jesus; and immediately, being made whole, he ran after him to kiss his feet.
But Sebastian forbade him from this, because he had not yet received baptism; and so he himself and Tiburtius his son and one thousand four hundred of his household were baptized. But Zoe, seized by the unbelievers and long tortured, gave up the spirit. When Tranquillinus heard this, he rushed forth and said: 'The women precede us to the crown. For what do we live?' And he himself, a few days later, was stoned. Now holy Tiburtius was ordered either to put incense upon the coals brought to him for the gods, or to walk with bare feet upon them. Making the sign of the cross over himself, he steadfastly stepped upon them with bare feet, saying: 'It seems to me that I am walking upon rosy flowers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Fabian the prefect said to him:
'Who does not know that Christ taught you the magic art?' Tiburtius said to him: 'Be silent, wretched man, for you are not worthy to name a name so holy and so sweet as honey.' Then the prefect, enraged, ordered him to be beheaded. But Marcellianus and Marcus were fastened to a stake, and when they had been fixed there, singing they said: 'Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity.' The prefect said to them: 'Wretches, lay aside your madness and free yourselves.' They said to him: 'Never have we feasted so well. Would that you would permit us to remain thus as long as we are clothed with the garment of the body.' Then the prefect ordered them to be pierced through the sides with lances, and thus they completed their martyrdom.
After this the prefect informed the emperor Diocletian about Sebastian. Calling him to himself, he said: 'I have always kept you among the first in my palace, and you, against my welfare and to the injury of the gods, have hitherto lain hidden.' Sebastian said to him: 'For your welfare I have always worshipped Christ, and for the state of the Roman Empire I have always adored God, who is in heaven.' Then Diocletian ordered him to be bound in the middle of a field and shot by the soldiers, who so filled him with arrows that he seemed like a hedgehog; and thinking him dead, they departed. Within a few days he was healed, and standing on the steps of the palace he sternly rebuked the emperors as they came, for the evils they were inflicting on the Christians. The emperors said:
'Is this not the Sebastian whom we long ago ordered to be killed with arrows?' Sebastian said to him: 'For this the Lord has deigned to raise me up, that I might confront you and rebuke you for the evils which you inflict on the servants of Christ.' Then the emperor ordered him to be beaten with cudgels until he breathed forth his spirit. And he caused his body to be cast into a sewer, lest he should be venerated by the Christians as a martyr. But holy Sebastian, on the following night, appeared to holy Lucina and revealed his body to her, and charged that she should bury it beside the tombs of the apostles. And this was done. He suffered under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, who began to reign about the year of the Lord 287. [. . .]