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| Events at Edessa: Constancy of the Devout Citizens, and Courage of a Pious Woman.
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Chapter XVIII.—Events
at Edessa: Constancy of the Devout Citizens, and Courage of a Pious
Woman.
But we must here mention
certain circumstances that occurred at Edessa in Mesopotamia. There is
in that city a magnificent church611
| 611The kind of church here meant was a memorial
structure to a martyr, erected where his relics were deposited, and was
called Μαρτύριον .
See Bingham, Christ. Antiq. VIII. 1.
|
dedicated to St. Thomas the Apostle, wherein, on account of the
sanctity of the place, religious assemblies are incessantly held. The
Emperor Valens wishing to inspect this edifice, and having learnt that
all who usually congregated there were opposed to the heresy which he
favored, he is said to have struck the prefect with his own hand,
because he had neglected to expel them thence also. As the prefect
after submitting to this ignominy, was most unwillingly constrained to
subserve the emperor’s indignation against them,—for he did
not desire to effect the slaughter of so great a number of
persons,—he privately suggested that no one should be found
there. But no one gave heed either to his admonitions or to his
menaces; for on the following day they all crowded to the church.612
| 612The same church which above was called a μαρτύριον
from its origin, is here called εὐκτήριος
τόπος, from its use (‘a place of
prayer’).
|
And when the prefect was going towards it with a large military force
in order to satisfy the emperor’s rage, a poor woman leading her
own little child by the hand hurried hastily by, on her way to the
church, breaking through the ranks of the prefect’s company of
soldiers. The prefect irritated at this, ordered her to be brought to
him, and thus addressed her: ‘Wretched woman! whither are you
running in so disorderly a manner?’ She replied, ‘To the
same place that others are hastening.’ ‘Have you not
heard,’ said he, ‘that the prefect is about to put to death
all that shall be found there?’ ‘Yes,’ said the
woman, ‘and therefore I hasten that I may be found there.’
‘And whither are you dragging that little child?’ said the
prefect: the woman answered, ‘That he also may be made worthy of
martyrdom.’613
| 613Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall, chap. 16,
quotes a number of extracts from Sulpicius Severus and Ignatius,
showing the honor in which martyrdom was held in the early church, and
the eagerness with which it was sought. To check the excess of zeal
which was thus manifested, the Council of Elvira, in 306 a.d., passed a canon (its sixtieth) to the following
intent: ‘that if any one should overthrow idols, and should
therefore be put to death, inasmuch as this is not written in the
Gospel nor found done among the apostles at any time, such a one should
not be received among the martyrs.’
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The prefect on hearing these
things, conjecturing that a similar resolution actuated the others who
were assembled there, immediately went back to the emperor, and
informed him that all were ready to die in behalf of their own faith.
He added that it would be preposterous to destroy so many persons at
one time, and thus persuaded the emperor to control his wrath. In this
way were the Edessenes preserved from being massacred by order of their
sovereign.
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