us, so that we may not, by letting that chain of argument wander too far from our memory, inadvertently lose the things most necessary for the dogmatic subject under consideration.
THE MARTYRDOM OF SAINT CODRATUS AND HIS COMPANIONS AT CORINTH IN THE PELOPONNESE
BY NICEPHORUS GREGORAS
CHAPTER ONE
The homeland and life of St. Codratus before his martyrdom.
A 1. For one undertaking to narrate the life of the great martyr Codratus, if he wishes not to be met with disbelief, it is necessary—on hearing of things somewhat unusual and full of the divinity, which happened to him while he was yet a mere infant in his early years—not to remain entirely occupied with human matters, but to keep in mind certain more divine prodigies of God, in which both ancient and recent writings abound. For those who reek of worldly and human-passionate matter, and who weigh what is being told only by the standards of nature, would with difficulty be led to contemplate any higher intuition; for they are shackled in a tyrannical manner by certain altogether intolerable bonds, and, bent toward the earth, they consider all things that exceed the measure of humanity to be mere trifles, even if they clearly bear the finger of God as their artificer, and they barely believe them. But others, reared on pious thoughts, whose occupation is to meditate on divine things, will find no great difficulty in preparing themselves to receive, in a manner worthy of God, those many wonders which He, at whatever times and seasons He wills, and toward whatever men and in whatever ways He pleases, B shows forth and performs.
2. Let the homeland of the great man who produced this hero for us be the starting point of my discourse. There is an isthmus lying toward the west, not very wide, but extending for a great length; someone seeing it might say that with its extremities on either side, as if with hands, it meets both the north and the south, and binds the land of Pelops to the rest of Greece, neither allowing the latter to depart completely from the former, nor permitting the Peloponnese to be an island, while from both sides [the encroaching seas]—
A act as a barrier and a wall between them. But how benign the configuration of the seasons is there, and how great is the grace and charm of other things that are heard of by men with no small pleasure; and how, at the ordered periods of the annual cycles, the sons of the Greeks used to flow together there, for the sake of the contests and the prizes alike—this is perhaps not the opportune time to relate. For all who have even slightly tasted the cups of Greek wisdom know it. To this isthmus, therefore, toward its southern limits, the city of Corinth extends: famous from the beginning, populous, and devoted with ardent affection to its gods, having been carried away by the superstitions of the fanatics; until at last, when the fishermen of the evangelical proclamation spread the net of our salvation over the whole world, she too immediately shook off the entire briny abyss and transferred herself to the waters of Paul.
There, the parents of Codratus flourished, distinguished by piety and a manner of life ordered by the standard of virtue, as well as by nobility and abundant wealth. Yet it was not granted to him, sprung from such a homeland and such parents, to enjoy these things for very long. Before his period of infancy had passed, his mother died, and his father died, both paying the debt of nature in a very short interval, as if they had been brought into life for no other reason than for his birth. And for this very reason, having brought him into this life, they then departed, not being permitted to contribute any more to his upbringing than that which nature and the ties of love compel parents to fulfill for their own infants; but they cast casting every hope of guardianship, so to speak, upon God. B The Lord, therefore, took him up, being destitute of all human assistance—for it would not be the law of God to overlook a man once he has been brought into the light,* he who gives food to all flesh, who makes grass to spring up for the cattle, and who provides food for all in due season—and having led him away from the society of the many, and brought him into a certain field, He looked after him miraculously and nourished him in ineffable ways, just as He once nourished that dweller of the desert, the Forerunner of the Savior. He, under the guardianship and providence of God, grew and was perfected in wisdom and grace, with various miracles coming to pass around him daily.
3. Martyrdom of St. Codratus and his Companions
3. But here, having arrived at this point in the narrative, I brought to mind the chosen one of God, Israel, and how much he experienced from God, having just entered the desert after the flight from Egypt; and I find that the things of that time are by no means dissimilar to those which I am now relating. For a cloud, then, passing under the sun by day and fighting against the heat of the sun, provided the holy people with the spring-time during the hour of noon; and at night, again, a kind of lamp stood by them, changing the nocturnal darkness into midday. And it says that at that time, there was not a weak person among their tribes. And he, too, dwelling in the deserts and in places having no remedy for health, C D
* Ps. civ, 15.
A always had health as his contemporary and fellow-dweller. For indeed, of a tunic or cloak or other such things which are necessary for human clothing, he stood in no need at all during all that time of his mountain and rustic life; but that one garment which his parents had provided for him before they died sufficed for him, growing and flourishing in an ineffable manner along with the maturing Codratus, itself also always growing and thriving. What more? The immensity of the Providence toward him was such, and the miracle as great as it is fitting for one to be who has once been consecrated to God and is entirely governed by the guidance of His right hand.
B 4. And now he was reaching a more mature age, and a thick growth of hair was covering his cheeks, and a mustache was shading his chin, when at length he descended into the city and began to converse with men, setting before them the oracles of God as a kind of table—one smelling truly of the field, yet full, and which, as the admirable Solomon says, the Lord has blessed. And just as if he had just returned from some divine vision, men hung upon his words and were intent upon him no differently than the Israelites were upon Moses, the great contemplator of God. While these things were occurring in this way, several of those who were joined to him in custom and character, and who were, so to speak, of one mind and following the same path as he, became his companions; with whom he would now depart and now arrive, now to the field and now to the city, though at unequal intervals of time. His stay was more frequent in the fields and rarer in the city, while he wisely fled from the crowd, dismissed the tumult of the populace, and from this, in greater tranquility, devoted the whole course of his life to communion with God.
CHAPTER II. The martyrdom of St. Codratus and his companions.
5. Now when that impious Decius had recently taken up the Roman scepters and Jason was governing Greece, and the dogma contrary to piety was prevailing more strongly, many others, as was fitting for disciples of Christ, displayed a manly spirit and did not unwillingly undergo danger. D Yet, more eagerly than the rest, the divine Codratus, along with his friends and associates in likeness of character—a most ready athlete, naturally, even in an aged body, and still struggling then with old age and the labors of asceticism, in which he had passed almost his entire life—offered himself. Therefore, the blessed man is brought bound to the tribunal of Jason, and speaking to him, says: "Whence, O wicked head, does such fury arise in you against my Christ and against us, His servants? Why do you drag us to the tribunal? Why do you threaten cruelty, and attempt to make a slave of a mind that is free and will yield to no one at all? For I would most clearly wish you to know of your own enmity toward us; you would sooner have us persuaded by you than you by us; but if perhaps that..."
first thing should be difficult, the other is surely impossible. A Delaying then in no way, refrain from nothing, spare not any of the torments which your wise demon teaches you—whether it be iron, or flame, or sea currents, or any other such things belonging to the same insolence; rather, bring them all upon us, ministering magnificently to your wicked father and guide. For we shall endure all these things just as long as iron endures the heavy blows of the blacksmiths' hammers.
B 6. As these things were being said, the angels above rejoiced, as though some umpires looking down from the heights of a theater; but the savage governor was struck, as if by some frequent whirlwinds that had descended upon him, and he was already anticipating all the results of the trial, considering all that he had heretofore devised against them as destined to become a laughingstock; and while the alternating waves of thought, returning, tossed his mind hither and thither just like a ship and confounded it, as if pushed backward by a contrary wind, that spirit, swelling with pride and boldness, summoned his council at frequent intervals and rose up again more strongly, revolving with himself what it would be more advantageous to refrain from, and which of those things he might attempt with hope of success and without fear, so that he might not clearly appear to be a laughingstock, cast down as if by a superior adversary. C And now he was eager to rid the martyrs of life and himself of trouble with a single blow; but a moment later he would draw back the impulse, fearing to commit the whole affair to the danger of experience, where, as in a game of dice, if something happens otherwise, it is the less unexpected the more a more fortunate outcome accords with expectation.
7. But let us go to the contest of the martyrs, to count the noble struggles of those men. At the beginning, the executioners, with all their might, beat Codratus along with his holy companions. D Then they suspended them by the feet to a height and with iron claws tore apart the structure of their flesh. After this, they kindled a fire, pretending in one and the same operation both to roast their bodies and to inflict sharp pain upon the passages dedicated to respiration. But the martyr, altogether withdrawing his mind from his body, sent it off to Christ, for whose sake he was enduring these things. Whence it was easy for him to despise the tortures of the body, to look only to the Umpire, to glory in his body as it melted away, and to deem that only a clear victory, by which the flesh, for the sake of the name of Christ who suffered before us, is despised in its suffering. Such was Codratus regarding the pains of his body; but turning toward his fellow-contestants, he used such words as these, like some trainer urging them on to new and unaccustomed conflicts, and inserting a most vehement fire into their souls: Men, he said, who run the same race as I, and look to the same prize, if and our nature's fleeting to us...
were hidden from us, and we expected to live forever, it might perhaps be reasonable to be fond of life, and not to despise the flesh so, and to be afraid of such great danger. But since the law of nature, being an inexorable necessity, and if not now, then at the last, will bring our life to an end either by old age, or by some disease that befalls us (and many and varied are the diseases that, due to the disorder of matter, come upon this wretched flesh) and will strip us of life, why do we not choose the better before the worse? For if we wait for the death that nature brings, it will be altogether inglorious, and will bury the memory of our life in the grave along with our bodies, and it is uncertain whether, even if fortune favors us, we shall have survivors to make use of it. But if we choose the death which these dangers threaten, the glory of our life will remain eternal, and this will be living rather than dying; and God will reward us with immortal prizes. B
8. By these words, like some general, he both encouraged those around him and, by heartening them, made them more manly for the coming contests. But the tyrant did not cease from that intense cruelty of his, but rather, he said that these were but a small preparation he had made against the saints. For he threatened other deaths, not moderate but bitter, such as no human body could bear. To which Codratus, kindling with the purpose of a generous spirit, answered: "We have no concern, he said, for death; for how could we? Nature herself has already passed judgment on us before you did, and it is impossible for anything that has been brought into being not to be subjected to corruption. But this is our greatest concern: that we do not depart from life in disgrace. Now, it is your prerogative to devise against us many and various torments; but it is ours to stand against them all, and to treat our flesh with contempt—and you shall find us harder than adamant. Nay, by heaping up torments you will be doing us a kindness, for we expect God, the C examiner of the contest, to count out for us crowns in proportion to the number of them."
9. These words did not soften the tyrant in the least, but rather inflamed his temper, just as fuel readily catches a flame of fire. And while his face grew red from anger, the martyrs smiled. He hurled insults, but they did not return insult for insult. He ordered the executioners to multiply torments upon torments, but they, as they endured them one after another in quick succession, rejoiced, since the firm hope of the soul sustained and uplifted the weak body, persuading them that they should consider these torments nothing else than a training ground for virtue. Furthermore, they were thrown as food to wild beasts; but from that, too, they escaped unharmed, thanks to an angel sent from God, who stopped the mouths of the beasts. And finally, D when—I am about to say...
the tormentor, having omitted almost nothing he could devise, saw that he was nonetheless being defeated by those victors, even against his will, he ordered them to be dragged through the city, lying on their backs with their feet bound. Thus, the athletes of Christ were dragged mercilessly; and they were pelted by everyone—so to speak—with stones, sticks, and whatever else came to hand from the promiscuous mob and the urchins of the marketplace, until finally they arrived outside the city, where they found the end of their lives, having had their heads severed by the sword. And thus, A when the divine Codratus and his companions had been driven forth from the city, their heads were reaped like ears of corn near the city walls, on the tenth day of March, when spring was already once again visiting the earth. The rock, moreover, which received the blood that flowed down from them, immediately yielded a fountain of water, and it continues even to our own times to send forth a remedy for diseases of every kind. Pious men gathered their venerable relics, and placed them in a temple which was later built by them to God near the city; these became a B magnificent protection for the city and a sacred treasure-house of healings.
CHAPTER III.
The martyrdom of fifteen others, who suffered after the example of St. Codratus.
10. But these things regarding Codratus and his companions are as stated; it remains to relate briefly the struggle of the others who used Codratus as their teacher and excellent model, and were strengthened in those times for the struggles endured for Christ, having their souls kindled with zeal for him. For all of them were brought before one judge, Tertius, the proconsul of Greece, and C after undergoing various torments, they departed from this life: first Victorinus, Victor, and Nicephorus, who, having been previously lacerated by countless tortures, were later violently crushed in a mortar and rendered their souls, safe and sound, to God. In the second place, Claudius, having had his hands and feet severed, ran to the God whom he sought, and bade farewell to life. Third, Diodorus, having kindled his soul with love for God, leaped into the midst of the pyre prepared for him, opposing, so to speak, fire with fire—the immaterial to the material—and having survived for a little while, he distributed himself between both fires, D giving whatever was earthly in him to the earth, but his spirit to the Divine, and through Him, to God. The fourth, Serapion, having endured a capital punishment, passed to Christ, as to his true Head. The fifth, Papias, having been baptized by the waves of the sea, reached the divine and incorruptible harbors. And these, too, are laid to rest in the same place as their divine teacher Codratus, being invaluable treasures for Corinth, extending thence their customary beneficence toward the martyrs throughout the whole world.
11. Those of this same company and of the same [index: entries preserved]
festival were many other martyrs who appeared, by whose conflicts Corinth was adorned. For having received from above, from Paul, pure and unadulterated seeds of piety, and having drunk to satiety from the springs of Codratus, it brought forth glorious branches for the Catholic Church of Christ. Neither the winters of unbelief, nor the wild and gusty winds—such as the adversary of this holy warfare, in those times, having swooped down heavily and violently, stirred up—were able in any way to overturn them. Instead, the enemy himself, his defeat turned back upon him, departed, having become the heir of his own shame and a contestant in grief for himself. That third man, then, who had been eager to fill his right hand with the blood of martyrs, was driven from life B by death, which passed an eternal sentence of exile upon him, and consigned him to torment that would never have an end. But a wicked successor to that wicked man, Venustus by name, became governor. Having received bloodthirsty orders from the Emperor against the pious, he approached Corinth with full sails, as they say, and having kindled there a great fire of impiety, and having presented many as martyrs to Christ, he seized along with all these others also not a few disciples of the holy school of Codratus. Among their number, Leonides was the first to meet the arena of martyrdom. He was first hoisted upon a high piece of wood, cruelly lacerated, and burned with flaming torches. Then, having been taken down—though he had been subjected to such severe torture—he did not succeed in moving the inhuman leader toward mercy; instead, the leader decreed for him even greater torments, as if he had hitherto endured none at all.
12. And so, having been stripped of his garments, he was stretched out upon iron caltrops, while C the upper parts of his body were mercilessly beaten with rods, so that no part of him remained free from pain. Not only were his lower members pierced, as the sharp points of the caltrops penetrated to the very bones, causing the most bitter agony, but from above, by the continuous and alternating onslaught of the rods, his flesh was pitiably torn. Yet he himself—O noble soul and most generous endurance, at which all nature, both terrestrial and celestial, was amazed!—did not betray his pain by even the slightest gesture. Rather, he rejoiced while viewing his flesh dripping on every side with that precious blood, like some distinguished bridegroom adorned in clothes woven with gold. However, that holy body, dedicated to such contests, had to be tried by other tortures, nor was it to be dissolved before it had satisfied that cruel executioner and inhuman tyrant, and had filled the raging spirit of that impious and beastly mind, which was always striving toward the worst designs. And now D behold, I pray you, what those reckless men dared, and what sort of games they played around the martyr. Since his body had experienced such great tortures, they spread it out over a hearth wherein a fire had been kindled, fearing lest it should altogether melt away and, failing in spirit, give up the ghost; but rather that, while the streams of blood might be dried up,
if any remained seething or putrefying, it might be roasted as if in a frying-pan. A But when the tyrant accomplished nothing, but, trying all things, was defeated in all, finally he ordered that they be thrown into the sea itself along with a not inconsiderable number of holy women, who were then completing the same struggle for piety and were no small part of that theater of martyrs, having been watered in their nature by the masculine irrigations of Codratus—whose names, because they are worthy of remembrance, it is pleasant to record here.
13. Chariessa then was one, and Nunechia, [women] filled with grace and a sober mind; Basilissa and Nice, who fought regally against impiety and were crowned with the wreaths of victory; Cale and Galene, who well crossed the salt [waters] of this life and arrived at a harbor exposed to no perturbation; and furthermore Theodora, that divine gift granted B by God to Corinth together with the others. Then truly, it is said that even the sea itself, reverencing those bodies of the martyrs, did not wish to swallow them, but for the space of thirty stadia served them as though it were land. Chariessa, too, walking upon the waves, is said to have sung with a loud voice this song to the Lord, the others following and singing along: "I have run one mile, O Lord; and, You have chased an army, O Lord; and, I have not denied You, O Lord; save my spirit." These are words similar to those which the sister of Moses and Aaron uttered. C And so, having stones tied to their necks, the martyrs were forced by violence into the depths, that by struggling with the bonds and the waves they might fail, cease to live, and be presented to God as perfect victims.
14. Such are the cultivations and the fruits of the labors of the divine Codratus, and such are the shoots of his teaching, and to such an extent did he increase the talent of grace. For Paul drew the sources of instruction from Him who is Wisdom itself; but this man, having received it from Paul, communicated it to others, and increased the talent of grace not only thirty or sixty times, but even a hundredfold; D so that we are firmly persuaded that it is permitted for him now to enjoy all good things freely before God, and that he does not take up just these or those mansions, but occupies all of them by dwelling in the same manner, as an heir and son in whom God the Father was well pleased, who walked in all His mandates, and fulfilled all things most excellently—all that others fulfilled partially or individually. Whence we say that he enjoys individually those things which not all [others] enjoy, and at the same time enjoys along with others that which individuals enjoy; for everyone recognizes in him the signs of their accustomed virtue. The ascetics receive him into the society of their choir, and make him a participant of their joy, paying out this as a sort of inescapable and worthy debt to Codratus—because he himself also produced much joy for them, when he was once running the same course as they, taking his stand in battle against the powers of the darkness of this age, and at every moment, in bloodless
B victories setting up trophies. But the Apostles, and before all the great preacher and coryphæus Paul, admit him into the gathering and fellowship of that common feast which has been prepared from that new and great sacrifice, as one who, second to them, acted as a more fervent herald of their Gospel, and brightened the words of Paul; who did not seek his own, but the Lord’s talent, neither burying it like that wicked servant, nor indeed sewing it—not in blessings, but maliciously—upon waters, rocks, and brambles, where labor is in vain and the fruit does not respond to expectation; but, having brought the dispositions of many to the Lydian stone of reason, examining each thing and dividing the good from the evil with the sword of the Spirit, he then laid bare the Gospel and presented the truth, which, like the sun, would dispel the moonless nights of every malice; and thus he led all the people to God, some without the blood of the athlete, others after they had poured it out; becoming the leader of both, not only by word, but even by actions themselves, teaching them the exercise which is according to God, this struggle which is undertaken for Christ’s sake, lest, as Paul says, preaching to others, he himself might seem a castaway, and for this reason hear himself openly called a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. Bearing in his own flesh the marks of the Lord, he was, so to speak, an ineffable herald, and a teacher instructing by deeds, standing less in need of words than what would be sufficient to sketch and delineate the truth to the souls of the hearers; but using much work after his words, as painters use colors after shadows, for the sake of a simple and brilliant manifestation and perspicuity of the truth. Now, indeed, you enjoy, O blessed one of the heavenly Father, the eternal and incorruptible goods prepared for you, which we have learned that neither human eye has seen, nor have they entered into a heart that walks upon the earth, and you rejoice, encountering the Awarder of the prize, Christ, without any obstacle. But remember us too, who keep festival in memory of your deeds, and all the assault of enemies—whether they attack us from ambush or openly—send them away to the abyss of perdition; and flatten every difficulty of life, so that, having safely passed over its salt waters, we may arrive at the divine harbors, being steered by your right hand—and through you, by the right hand of Christ, our Savior and God, to whom belongs glory, honor, and adoration unto the ages. Amen.