Other Confessors

After this deadly handing out of money, some of those who had received it were feasting together at a dinner. One of them took the cup in his hand, and did not drink before he had made the sign of salvation over it. [a] One of the guests found fault with him for this, and said it was quite inconsistent with what had just taken place. “What have I done,” he asked, “that is inconsistent?” Then he was reminded of the altar and the incense, and of his denial of the faith; for all these things are contrary to the Christian profession. When they heard this, most of the guests groaned and wept over themselves and tore out handfuls of hair from their heads. They got up from the banquet and ran through the Forum, crying out that they were Christians, that they had been tricked by the emperor’s schemes, that they took back their apostasy, and that they were ready to try to undo the defeat that had befallen them without their knowing it. Crying out like this, they ran to the palace, loudly denouncing the tyrant’s tricks and begging to be handed over to the flames, so that as they had been defiled by fire, by fire they might be made clean. All this drove the villain out of his senses, and on the spur of the moment he ordered them to be beheaded.

But as they were being led out of the city, the mass of the people began to follow them, marveling at their courage and glorying in their boldness for the truth. When they reached the place where criminals were usually executed, the eldest of them begged the executioner to cut off the head of the youngest first, so that he would not lose his nerve by watching the slaughter of the rest. No sooner had the young man knelt on the ground and the executioner drawn his sword than a man came running up with news of a reprieve, shouting from far off to stop the execution. Then the youngest soldier was grieved at being spared from death. “Ah,” he said, “Romanus was not worthy to be called Christ’s martyr”; for his name was Romanus. What moved the vile trickster to stop the execution was envy: he begrudged the champions of the faith their glory. Their sentence was changed to banishment beyond the city walls and to the most remote regions of the empire.