44 Monks
Acta Sanctorum, May 16
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://actasanctorum.org/may/day-16/44-monks.html
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ON THE HOLY 44 MONKS

FROM THE LAURA OF ST. SABAS, MARTYRS IN PALESTINE.

IN THE YEAR 614

[Commentary]

Forty-four, monks of Sabas, Martyrs in Palestine (SS.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

Among the monastic wrestling-schools of the desert of Palestine
was eminent the Laura of St. Sabas the Abbot, of which by several things
we treated March 20, at the Acts of the Martyrs
twenty, there in the year 797 by the Saracens
slain; which by Stephen a monk of Sabas excellently
described, on the said day we edited in Latin and Greek. Long
before these times others there were by martyrdom
taken away: [The Martyrdom written by Antiochus a coeval monk,] of whom makes mention a coeval author, who with them in
the same Laura lived, Antiochus a monk, whose works are extant
Greek-Latin in volume 1 of the library of the ancient Fathers
at Paris in the year 1624 printed. He in an Epistle prefixed
to Eustachius Provost of the monastery of the Atalina city
of Ancyra in Galatia, asked about these monks'
life and slaying, undertook in brief to open, what to
them pertains; and them thus he describes.

[2] But about the laudable life of them at present
to treat the time does not demand, [men all in virtue eminent] nor my tongue
those things could easily run through. This only I will say,
that men they were truly divine (if men only
them one ought to call rather than Angels)
since in spiritual exercise and the monastic life and
labors, which for piety they sustained, from their youth
they had grown old: old men indeed venerable and with hoary
hairs they had, but in mind more they excelled and
in humility, honest, modest, truthful, irreprehensible,
chaste, pious, from all turpitude and depravity
strangers, with all good adorned and with divine filled love.
Some of them here from years fifty and sixty
had survived, nor ever from the Laura had gone out.
Some also neither to the church
had proceeded, nor the city any more had seen, from when
the monastic life they had embraced. With so great also
virtues they shone, that they seemed terrestrial Angels
and heavenly men. Wherefore this end they
attained and the victory's reward obtained.

[3] When the Ishmaelites to our Laura had come,
one week before the holy city had been
occupied; and all the sacred vessels of the church had plundered, [in the inroad of the Saracens,]
most of the Fathers as soon as possible fled away. There remained
moreover in the Laura, who the stronger had been Christ's
servants, that sacred place to forsake by no pact
willing. The barbarians indeed when them they had seized,
many days inhumanly treated and with torments
afflicted, monies by this pact themselves about to find thinking,
with whom nothing of this age was found; together
moreover when they understood, themselves at last of their hope and purpose
to have fallen, into the most savage turned rage, to
one each man limb by limb those blessed ones they cut to pieces. [limb by limb they are cut to pieces:] Who and
with joy incredible suffused, and therefore with an alacrious countenance
beaming, with all giving of thanks their souls
rendered to the Lord: since they had not so long before
in their prayers had to be dissolved and with Christ to be. The bodies
indeed more than tragically slain, when not few
days on the ground scattered, without the benefit of burial
had lain, from Arabia thither even we hastened. And
indeed the eminent Abbot Nicomedes, that spectacle
miserable of the slain Fathers having contemplated, into a swoon
of mind fell, and thence carried back dead
nearly was. Modestus besides, and he himself most holy, [honorably they are buried:]
our coming when he had anticipated, and of the Saints
those had surveyed first the dwellings all, likewise
with anguish of mind contracted, with many he bedewed himself tears:
and the holy, which thus far had remained Relics embracing,
in the higher Fathers' he placed tombs.
He at these things, when he had performed the solemn and according to custom
accustomed Canon, that soon oracle of Isaiah
with a raised voice he brought forth: The just men are taken away and no one
considers. [Isa. 57] From the face of iniquity is taken away the just. There will be
in peace his sepulcher. [Wis. 3] And, their hope is of immortality
full. In few things vexed, in many they will be well disposed:
because God tested them, and found them worthy of Himself,
and as a holocaust's victim received them, and in the time
of their visitation they will shine and glitter.
And these things about those Saints when he had expounded, each one
of us to exhort he began, that not anywhere we should emigrate,
of that place our deserters… We therefore
humble and abject by the grace first of God, then by the serious
exceedingly and accurate diligence of the aforementioned
most holy Modestus, this sedentary we pass life
in freer and more tranquil leisure, for these even now
which a little happened before actions of thanks
paying and glorifying God, who both mortifies
and vivifies… The number of the holy Fathers, whom
the tyrannical took away assault, [the number 44.] is forty-four.
Their memory in May month is celebrated, on the tenth
fifth of the month's day.

[4] Thus far Antiochus. The Greeks in the MS. Synaxary and
other Menaea celebrate, not on the day 15, but on this May 16, the contest
however of the monks in the monastery of St. Sabas slain. [they are venerated May 16,]
Which same are read in the Menology of Sirletus, which cited
these things in the present Roman Martyrology are read on
this May 16: In Palestine the passion of the holy monks,
by the Saracens in the Laura of St. Sabas killed.
Where Baronius thinks in the Notes, above in Antiochus,
by an error either of the typographer or copyist is read to be celebrated
the memory on the day May 15. That these 44 monks
were slain one week, before the city holy had been
occupied, above it is related, and more clearly indicates the city's slaughter
Antiochus in homily 107 on Compunction, where these things
he writes: We therefore ought tears to pour
of bitterness full, [slain in the year 614.] first indeed that the city
holy Jerusalem by burning was consumed: the Cross also
holy of Christ our God into Persia migrated:
in their also grace who so many slain in wars
perished, for to us they were of one body, and the same
with us were marked by faith. Which happened in the year
614 in the Indiction II, of the Empire of Heraclius IV, as is indicated
in the Alexandrian Chronicle of a coeval author: to which year
this whole Antiochus relation is inserted into the Annals of Baronius,
but as well there as in other editions all things are had
from the interpretation of Godefridus Tilmannus the Carthusian, where
we know not how about the enormous of those age are these words
intruded: Some of them a hundred had exceeded years
and fifty-six, in a quiet and monastic life
when they had spent: since Greek thus is read: "Some
of them having passed beyond from fifty
and sixty years, not going out at all from
the Laura." Some of them from
years fifty or sixty (namely in the Laura)
had survived: nor ever from the Laura had gone out.
Some also neither to the church had proceeded,
namely some public one, content with the domestic of the Laura
oratory, nor the city, namely Jerusalem, any more
had seen.

[5] [Their memory in the Acts of the 20 Martyrs of Sabas,] He who named at the beginning of the Sabaites twenty the passion
described Stephen at no. 81 to St. Sabas, of that Laura the founder,
congratulates such fosterlings; and when he had said, that unwonted
to him it is not disciples to instruct for a contest and
for martyrdom apt to exhibit: I attest, he says, the memorable
times of the Persian inroad, when also
intercepted the holy of Christ city was, and the venerable
and adorable those places and temples by burning were consumed.
For then from the number of your fosterlings
not fewer than forty you brought to Christ,
to the Martyrs to be associated; against whom rushing, the of fire and Mithras
mad worshipers the Persians, on one stone together
all they cut to pieces; preferring even themselves in their own
Laura to die, than from the face of the enemies to run away,
and from it by exile life to redeem by flight. There was shown
namely still that stone, that to doubt we cannot but that this
about it circumstance, by Eustachius omitted, from a certain
of their tradition added Stephen: and so in them was renewed
the example of the slaughter, by Abimelech once perpetrated in
Ophrah, Judges IX, who killed his brothers, the sons of Jerobaal,
seventy men upon one stone.

[6] [and in Quaresmius but with a confused number.] Francis Quaresmius of the elucidation of the Holy Land
bk. 6 ch. 9 pilgr. 3 the very of Antiochus the monk epistle
exhibits, the Datalena monastery calling, which Aralina
written we found; about the present moreover of that laura state
speaking, among other things thus has: There in a chamber or chapel,
altogether however closed or walled up, lie the bodies
of six hundred monks, by the infidels for
Christ's faith slain, narrated to me the dwelling
monks, when the holy place I visited. They added moreover,
by the command of their Patriarch the holy place
to have been altogether closed, lest those sacred pledges
be carried off and into other parts borne. Thus he; whom
I fear, lest either his memory deceived him, or they themselves their things too much
augmenting the monks, and so from sixty (namely how many
together in a round number were taken, who by the Persians forty
and by the Arabs twenty were slain) to have become
six hundred: whom a single chamber or chapel could not
through tombs or sepulchers arranged, and in them conspicuous
contain: for thus placed they were, indicates the care
of closing that chapel, after so many ages first applied.

[7] [more however in Ferrarius and Galesinius.] Philip Ferrarius, in the Catalogue of saints who in
the Roman Martyrology are not, on April 22 the memory
places at Jerusalem of the holy thirty monks,
Martyrs, under King Chosroes; alleging in the notes
the Menology of the Greeks: and Galesinius corrects, who
the same from the Greeks on the same day received, but for thirty,
wrote thirty thousand Martyrs. We on that day neither one
nor the other number found in any of the Greeks' Menaea
and synaxaries, although at Milan and Venice we have seen
all things, which Ferrarius could have seen, if he saw any: for I fear
lest with the same levity he cited the Menology, with which he cites Galesinius,
who in the notes to that day says himself those 30 thousand
to have, not from the tables Greek, which on the same day for St.
Nearchus the Martyr he alleges; but from a MS. Codex and the Annals
of Burchardus the Dominican. Flourished this writer, by others
Brocardus called, about the year 1260; and besides the description
of the Holy Land, which we would wish to find, he wrote
Annals on the affairs of the Emperor Frederick in the Holy Land,
which equally we lack. We suspend therefore our about these
judgment; although in the silence of the older ones deservedly we fear,
lest, if that number truly Burchardus had which
Galesinius expresses, the same to him happened which to Quaresmius:
for what to the MS. Codex pertains, faith scant with
us it has, on account of Galesinius's in Codices to be cited accuracy
scant.
