March XXIX

SS. Jonas, Barachisius, and their Companions,

martyrs

From their genuine acts compiled by Esaias, a noble Armenian knight in the troops of king Sapor, an eye witness; published in the original Chaldaic, by Stephen Assemani, Act. Mart. Orient, t. 1, p. 211. They were much adulterated by the Greeks in Metaphrastes. Ruinart and Tillemont think Sapor raised no persecution before his fortieth year: but Assemani proves from these acts, and several other monuments a persecution in his eighteenth year. See Præf. Gen. and p. 214, app.

A. D. 327.

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 flat on his belly with a stake under his navel, and to be beaten both with knotty clubs and with tods. 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 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 honours; 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.” Hormisdatseirus, 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 wrom 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 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.

SS. Armogastes, Archinimus, and Saturus,

martyrs

Genseric, the Arian king of the Vandals, in Africa, having, on his return out of Italy, in 457, enacted new penal laws, and severer than any he had till then put in force against Catholics, count Armogastes was on that occasion deprived of his honors and dignities at court, and most cruelly tortured. But no sooner had the jailers bound him with cords, but they broke of themselves, as the martyr lifted up his eyes to heaven; and this happened several times. And though they afterwards hung him up by one foot with his head downwards for a considerable time, the saint was no more affected by this torment than if he had lain all the while at his ease on a feather-bed. Theodoric, the king’s son, thereupon ordered his head to be struck off: but one of his Arian priests diverted him from it, advising him to take other measures with him to prevent his being looked upon as a martyr by those of his party, which would be of disservice to the opposite cause. He was therefore sent into Byzacena to work in the mines; and some time after, for his greater disgrace, he was removed thence into the neighborhood of Carthage, and employed in keeping cows. But he looked upon it as his glory to be dishonored before men in the cause of God. It was not long before he had a revelation that his end drew near. So having foretold the time of his death, and given orders to a devout Christian about the place where he desired to be interred, the holy confessor, a few days after, went to receive the rewards of those that suffer in the cause of truth.

Archinimus, of the city Mascula, in Numidia, resisted all the artifices which the king could use to overcome his faith, and was condemned to be beheaded, but was reprieved while he stood under the axe. Satur, or Saturus, was master of the household to Huneric, by whom he was threatened to be deprived of his estate, goods, slaves, wife, and children for his faith. His own wife omitted nothing in her power to prevail with him to purchase his pardon at the expense of his conscience. But he courageously answered her in the words of Job: “You have spoken like one of the foolish women.¹ If you loved me, you would give me different advice, and not push me on to a second death. Let them do their worst: I will always remember our Lord’s words: If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother, his wife and children, his brethren and sisters, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”² He suffered many torments, was stripped of all his substance, forbid ever to appear in public, and reduced to great distress. But God enriched him with his graces, and called him to himself. See St. Victor Vitensis, Hist. Persec. Vandal, l. 1, n. 14.

St. Eustasius, or Eustachius,

abbot of luxeu,

Succeeded his master St. Columban in that charge, in 611. He sanctified himself by humility, continual prayer, watching, and fasting; was the spiritual father of six hundred monks, and of many holy bishops and saints, and died in 625. He is named in the Martyrologies of Ado, and in the Roman. See his life by Jonas, his colleague, in the Bollandists, and in Mabillon.

St. Gundleus, Confessor

This saint, who was formerly honored with great devotion in Wales, was son to the king of the Dimetians in South-Wales. After the death of his father, though the eldest son, he divided the kingdom with his six brothers who nevertheless respected and obeyed him as if he had been their sovereign. He married Gladusa, daughter of Braghan, prince of that country, which is called from him Brecknockshire, and was father of St. Canoc and St. Keyna. St. Gundleus had by her the great St. Cadoc, who afterwards founded the famous monastery of Llancarvan, three miles from Cowbridge, in Glamorganshire. Gundleus lived so as to have always in view the heavenly kingdom for which we are created by God. To secure this, he retired wholly from the world long before his death, and passed his time in a solitary little dwelling near a church which he had built. His clothing was sackcloth, his food barley-bread, upon which he usually strewed ashes, and his drink was water. Prayer and contemplation were his constant occupation, to which he rose at midnight, and he subsisted by the labor of his hands: thus he lived many years. Some days before his death he sent for St. Dubritius and his son St. Cadoc, and by their assistance, and the holy rites of the church, prepared himself for his passage to eternity. He departed to our Lord towards the end of the fifth century, and was glorified by miracles. See his life in Capgrave and Henschenius, from the collection of John of Tinmouth. See also bishop Usher.

St. Mark, Bishop and Confessor

Some Greeks rank among the saints on this day, Mark, bishop of Arethusa, in Syria, in the fourth age. When Coustantius put to death his uncle, Julius Constantius, brother of Constantine the Great, with his eldest son; the two younger, Gallus and Julian, narrowly escaped the sword. In that danger Mark concealed Julian, and secretly supplied him with necessaries for his subsistence. When Julian became emperor, he commanded that the temples which had been demolished by Christians, during the two preceding reigns, should be rebuilt at their expense. Mark had, by the authority of Constantius, demolished a very magnificent temple which was held in great veneration by the idolaters: he had also built a church, and converted a great number of infidels. Authorized by the law of Julian, the heathens of Arethusa, when they saw themselves uppermost, fell on the Christians; and Mark, finding that they were ready to show their resentment against him in particular, which they had long concealed, he at first, pursuant to the gospel precept, betook himself to flight to escape their fury. But understanding that they had apprehended some of his flock instead of him, he returned and delivered himself up to the persecutors, to animate others in the same cause by his example and instructions. They seized him soon after his return, dragged him through the streets by the hair, or any part they could lay hold of, without the least compassion for his age, or regard for his virtue and learning. Having stripped him, and scourged him all over his body, joining ignominy and insults with cruelty, they threw him into the stinking public jakes. Having taken him from thence, they left him to the children, ordering them to prick and pierce him, without mercy, with their writing-styles, or steel pencils. They bound his legs with cords so tight as to cut and bruise his flesh to the very bone; they wrung off his ears with small strong threads; and in this maimed, bloody condition, they pushed him from one to another. After this they rubbed him over with honey and fat broth; and shutting him up in a kind of cage, hung him up in the air where the sun was most scorching, at noonday, in the midst of summer, in order to draw the wasps and gnats upon him, whose stings are exceeding sharp and piercing in those hot countries. He was so calm in the midst of his sufferings, that, though so sorely wounded and covered with flies and wasps, he bantered them as he hung in the air; telling them, that while they were grovelling on the earth, he was raised by them towards heaven. They frequently solicited him to rebuild their temple, but though they reduced their demands by degrees to a trifling sum, he constantly answered, that it would be an impiety to give them one farthing towards such a work. This indeed would be to concur to idolatrous worship; but his demolishing the temple would have been against the order of law and justice, had he done it without public authority. At length the fury of the people was turned into admiration of his patience, and they set him at liberty; and several of them afterwards begged of him to instruct them in the principles of a religion which was capable of inspiring such a resolution. Having spent the remainder of his life in the faithful discharge of the duties of his station, he died in peace under Jovian or Valens. He is not named in the Roman Martyrology, nor venerated by the church among the saints. He had been long engaged in the errors and intrigues of the Semi-Arians; but the encomiums given him by St. Gregory Nazianzen, Theodoret, and Sozomen, when they relate his sufferings, show that towards the end of the reign of Constantius he joined in the orthodox communion.

¹ Psa. 26:4.

¹ Job 2:9.

² Luke 14:26.

 Butler, A., The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (New York 1903) I, 672-676.