Pamphilus and His Companions

It is time now to describe the great and famous spectacle of Pamphilus, a man dear to me three times over, and of those who finished their course with him. There were twelve of them in all, counted worthy of the grace and the number of the apostles. [a]

Their leader, and the only one of them honored with the office of presbyter at Caesarea, was Pamphilus. All his life he was famous for every virtue: for renouncing and despising the world, for sharing what he had with those in need, for scorning the hopes of this earth, and for a philosopher’s conduct and discipline. Above everyone in our time he excelled in a wholehearted devotion to the divine Scriptures, in tireless hard work at whatever he took in hand, and in his readiness to help his relatives and companions. [b] In a separate account of his life, in three books, I have already described the excellence of his virtue. I refer to that work those who enjoy such things and want to know them, and let us now take the martyrs in order. [c]

Second after Pamphilus, Valens entered the contest, a man honored for his venerable gray hair. He was a deacon from Aelia, an old man of the most serious bearing, and as well versed in the divine Scriptures as anyone has ever been. He had stored them up in his memory so thoroughly that whenever he set out to recite any passage of Scripture, he had no need to look at the books. [d] The third was Paul, from the city of Jamnia, who was known among them as most zealous and fervent in spirit. Before his martyrdom he had already endured the contest of confession, being branded with hot irons. [f]

These men had been in prison for two whole years when the occasion of their martyrdom came: a second party of brothers arrived from Egypt, who suffered with them. They had escorted the confessors in Cilicia to the mines there and were on their way home. At the entrance to the gates of Caesarea the guards, brutal men, asked them who they were and where they came from. They held back nothing of the truth, and they were seized like criminals caught in the act. There were five of them. Brought before the tyrant, they spoke with great boldness in his presence and were thrown straight into prison. The next day, the nineteenth of the month Peritius, which by the Roman reckoning is the fourteenth day before the Kalends of March, they were brought by his order before the judge, together with Pamphilus and his companions, whom I have named. First he put the unconquerable firmness of the Egyptians to the test with every kind of torture, using strange and newly invented machines of every sort. [h]

When he had worked these cruelties on the leader of them all, he asked him first who he was. In reply he heard the name of a prophet instead of the man’s own name. For it was their practice to take other names in place of the names of idols their fathers had given them, if they had such names. So you would hear them calling themselves Elijah or Jeremiah or Isaiah or Samuel or Daniel, showing themselves Jews inwardly and the genuine Israel of God, not only in their deeds but in the very names they bore. When Firmilian had heard some such name from the martyr, and did not grasp what the name meant, he next asked what his country was. [i] The martyr gave a second answer like the first: he said that Jerusalem was his country. He meant the Jerusalem of which Paul says, “The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother,” and, “You have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” [k]

That was what he meant. But the judge, whose thoughts did not rise above the earth, set out to find exactly what this city was and in what part of the world it lay, and so he applied tortures to make him admit the truth. But the man, with his hands twisted behind his back and his feet crushed in strange machines, insisted firmly that he had spoken the truth. Asked again and again what the city he spoke of was and where it lay, he said that it was the country of the godly alone, for no one else would have a place in it, and that it lay toward the far East and the rising sun. He reasoned these things out by his own understanding, and nothing turned him from them, not even the tortures that pressed on him from every side. As if he had no flesh or body, he seemed not to feel his sufferings. But the judge was at a loss and grew impatient, thinking that the Christians were about to found a city somewhere that would be an enemy and a threat to the Romans. He asked a great deal about this, and tried to find out where that country toward the East was located. But when he had torn the young man with scourging for a long time and punished him with every kind of torment, he saw that nothing would change his persistence in what he had said, and he passed sentence of death on him. Such was the spectacle presented by what was done to this man. After putting the others through the same tortures, he sent them off in the same way.

Then, worn out and seeing that he was punishing these men to no purpose, and having had his fill, he turned to Pamphilus and his companions. He knew that under earlier tortures they had already shown an unshakable zeal for the faith, and he asked them whether they would obey now. From every one of them he received only this single answer, their last word of confession in martyrdom, and he sentenced them to the same punishment as the others.

When this had been done, a young man, one of Pamphilus’s household servants, who had been brought up in the noble way of life and the teaching of such a man, heard the sentence passed on his master and cried out from the middle of the crowd, asking that their bodies be given burial. At that the judge, who was not a man but a wild beast, or whatever is more savage than a wild beast, made no allowance for the young man’s age and asked him only the same question. When he learned that he confessed himself a Christian, he swelled with rage, as if he had been struck by an arrow, and ordered the torturers to use all their strength against him. When he saw that he refused to sacrifice as commanded, he ordered them to keep scraping him down to the very bones and into the inmost depths of his bowels, not as though he were human flesh but as though he were stones or wood or some lifeless thing. But after keeping at it for a long time he saw that it was useless, for the man made no sound and seemed to feel nothing, and was almost lifeless, his body worn out by the tortures. Still inflexibly merciless and inhuman, he ordered him to be handed over at once, just as he was, to a slow fire. So, though he had entered the contest last, he was released from the body before his master on earth died, while those who were busy with the others were still delaying. [m]

Then you could see Porphyry, like a man who has come off victorious in every contest, his body covered with dust but his face cheerful after all he had suffered, going to his death with a brave and exultant spirit. As if truly filled with the divine Spirit, wearing only his philosopher’s cloak thrown around him, he calmly and clearly gave his friends his instructions about what he wanted, and signaled to them, keeping a cheerful face even at the stake. When the fire was lit in a circle around him at some distance, he drew the flame into his mouth, and from then until his death he held to a most noble silence, after the one word he spoke when the flame first touched him, crying out for the help of Jesus, the Son of God. Such was Porphyry’s contest. [n]

His death was reported to Pamphilus by a messenger, Seleucus, one of the confessors from the army. As the bearer of such news he was at once judged worthy of the same lot. For as soon as he had told of Porphyry’s death and had greeted one of the martyrs with a kiss, some of the soldiers seized him and took him to the governor. And the governor, as if eager to hurry him on to be the other man’s companion on the road to heaven, ordered him to be put to death at once. This man came from Cappadocia. He had belonged to a picked corps of soldiers and had won no small distinction in the honors the Romans prize. In height and bodily strength, in size and vigor, he far surpassed his fellow soldiers, so that his looks were the talk of everyone, and his whole frame was admired for its size and fine proportions. At the beginning of the persecution he stood out in the contests of confession by his endurance under scourging. After he left the army he set himself to imitate zealously the ascetics of our religion, and like a father and guardian he showed himself the overseer and protector of destitute orphans, of widows with no one to defend them, and of those worn down by poverty or sickness. It is likely that this is why he was judged worthy of an extraordinary call to martyrdom by God, who delights in such things more than in the smoke and blood of sacrifices. [o] He was the tenth of the champions we have named as meeting their end on one and the same day. On that day, as was fitting, the great gate was opened, and a ready way into the kingdom of heaven was given to the martyr Pamphilus and to those with him.

In the footsteps of Seleucus came Theodulus, a serious and devout old man who belonged to the governor’s household. Firmilian himself had honored him above everyone else in his house, for his age, because he had lived to be the father of a third generation, and for the kindness and utterly faithful conscientiousness he had shown toward him. When he was brought before his master for following the same course as Seleucus, his master was angrier with him than with those before him, and condemned him to suffer the Savior’s martyrdom, on the cross. [p]

One was still lacking to make up the number of twelve martyrs we have spoken of, and Julian came to complete it. He had just arrived from abroad and had not yet entered the city gate when he learned about the martyrs while still on the road, and at once, just as he was, he ran to see them. When he saw the bodies of the saints lying on the ground, he was filled with joy, and he embraced and kissed them all. [r] The agents of slaughter seized him at once while he was doing this and took him to Firmilian. Acting as was his custom, Firmilian condemned him to a slow fire. At that Julian leaped and exulted, and gave thanks in a loud voice to the Lord who had judged him worthy of such things, and he was honored with the crown of martyrdom. He was a Cappadocian by birth, and in his way of life most careful, faithful and sincere, zealous in every other respect, and animated by the Holy Spirit himself. Such was the company judged worthy to enter into martyrdom with Pamphilus. By order of the ungodly governor their sacred and truly holy bodies were left out as food for wild animals for four days and as many nights. But strange to say, through the providential care of God nothing came near them, no beast of prey, no bird, no dog. So they were taken up unharmed, and after due preparation they were buried in the customary way.

When the report of what had been done to these men spread in every direction, Adrian and Eubulus came from the so-called region of Manganaea to Caesarea to see the confessors who remained. They too were asked at the gate why they had come, and when they admitted the truth they were brought to Firmilian. He, as was his custom, without delay inflicted many tortures on their sides and condemned them to be devoured by wild animals. [s] Two days later, on the fifth of the month Dystrus, the third day before the Nones of March, which was held to be the birthday of the guardian deity of Caesarea, Adrian was thrown to a lion and afterward killed with the sword. Eubulus followed two days after, on the Nones of March, that is, the seventh of the month Dystrus. The judge earnestly begged him to sacrifice and so enjoy what they counted freedom, but he preferred a glorious death for his religion to a passing life. Like the other, he was made an offering to wild animals, and as the last of the martyrs at Caesarea he set the seal on the list of champions. [u]

It is right also to tell here how, within a short time, heavenly providence overtook the ungodly rulers along with the tyrants themselves. That very Firmilian who had so abused the martyrs of Christ suffered the severest punishment along with the others and was put to death by the sword. Such were the martyrdoms that took place at Caesarea through the whole course of the persecution.