Hilarion; the Virgins of Heliopolis; the Martyrdom of Mark of Arethusa

At this same time the people of Gaza went looking for the monk Hilarion, but he had fled to Sicily. There he kept himself busy gathering wood in the wild country and on the mountains, and he carried it on his shoulders into the cities to sell. In this way he earned enough food to keep his body going. But in the end he was recognized by a man of rank whom he had once freed from a demon, and so he withdrew to Dalmatia. There, by the power of God, he worked many miracles. Through prayer he held back a flood from the sea and sent the waves back within their proper bounds. Then he moved on again, for he took no pleasure in living among people who praised him. Whenever he changed his home, he wanted to go unnoticed, and by moving often he hoped to be rid of the fame that followed him. At last he set sail for the island of Cyprus and landed at Paphos. At the earnest request of the bishop of Cyprus he came to love the life there, and he practiced philosophy at a place called Charburis. [a] He escaped martyrdom there only by running away. For he fled in obedience to the divine command that tells us not to put ourselves in the way of persecution, but, if we do fall into the hands of persecutors, to overcome the violence of our oppressors by our own courage. [c]

The people of Gaza and Alexandria were not the only citizens who committed such atrocities against the Christians as those I have described. The people of Heliopolis, near Mount Lebanon, and of Arethusa in Syria seem to have outdone them in cruelty. The people of Heliopolis were guilty of an act so savage that it could hardly be believed if it were not confirmed by the testimony of those who saw it. They stripped the holy virgins, whom the crowd had never laid eyes on, of their clothes, and put them on show naked as a public spectacle, to be insulted. After many other torments they finally shaved them, cut them open, and stuffed the food usually given to pigs into their insides. Since the pigs could not tell the difference, and were driven by hunger for their usual food, they tore the human flesh to pieces as well. [d] I am convinced that the citizens of Heliopolis did this savage thing to the holy virgins because their ancient custom had been forbidden: the custom of giving up their virgins to prostitution with any passerby before they were married to the men they were promised to. This custom was forbidden by a law of Constantine, after he had destroyed the temple of Venus at Heliopolis and built a church on its ruins. [e]

Mark, bishop of Arethusa, an old man honored for his gray hair and his life, was put to a very cruel death by the people of that city. They had long been hostile to him, because during the reign of Constantine he had won pagans over to Christianity with more zeal than persuasion, and had torn down a most sacred and magnificent temple. When Julian came to the throne, he saw that the people were stirred up against the bishop, and an edict was issued ordering the bishop either to pay the cost of putting the temple back up or to rebuild it himself. Mark reflected that the one was impossible and the other unlawful for a Christian, and still more so for a priest, and at first he fled from the city. But when he heard that many were suffering on his account, that some were being dragged before the courts and others tortured, he came back and offered to suffer whatever the crowd chose to do to him. Instead of admiring him all the more for an act worthy of a philosopher, the whole people decided he was acting out of contempt for them. They rushed on him and dragged him through the streets, squeezing, plucking and beating whatever part of him each one happened to get hold of. People of both sexes and every age joined eagerly and furiously in this atrocious business. His ears were cut off with fine cords. The boys who went to the schools made sport of him, tossing him in the air and rolling him over and over, pushing him along, catching him up, and stabbing him without mercy with their writing styluses. When his whole body was covered with wounds and he was still breathing, they smeared him with honey and a certain mixture, put him in a fish basket woven of rushes, and hoisted him up onto a height. It is said that while he hung there, with the wasps and bees settling on him and eating his flesh, he told the people of Arethusa that he was raised up above them and could look down on them below him, and that this reminded him of the difference there would be between them in the life to come. It is also told that the prefect, who though a pagan was so noble in his conduct that his memory is still honored in that country, admired Mark’s self-control. He boldly reproached the emperor for letting himself be beaten by an old man who was being put through countless tortures, and he added that such proceedings made the emperor look ridiculous, while at the same time they made the names of the persecuted famous. So the blessed man endured all the torments the people of Arethusa inflicted on him with such unshaken courage that even the pagans praised him. [f]