Saint Plato of Ancyra

This admirable generosity stirred up enemies against him who accused him of Christianity bef ore Agri Agrippin Vicar of the emperors and persecutor of Plato. ppinus, vicar of the emperors, a cruel man thirsty for the blood of the servants of the true God. Upon this accusation, he was arrested and brought to the tribunal of this judge. Agrippinus asked him who he was. "I am a Christian," he said, "I adore one God, creator of heaven and earth; I detest idols, which are the works of the hands of men; I abhor the demons, who sometimes speak through these idols, but are only rebellious creatures who have deserved, by their revolt, to be deprived of paradise." — "I am not unaware," said Agrippinus, "that you are a Christian; but I ask you for the name that your parents gave you at your birth." — "They," he said, "called me Platon; but above all I am a Christian, that is my true name, that is my calling. And, indeed, I was taught to serve Jesus Christ from my mother's womb; and I am ready to give all my blood and a thousand lives if I had them, for his love and for his service.

A bold and generous response, which raised our Platon incomparably above him who was called the divine philosopher; the latter, questioned in Athens on celui qui s'est fait appeler le divin philosophe Greek philosopher cited by way of comparison. his opinion regarding the unity or plurality of the divine nature, never dared to make a public profession of the truth he knew: he disguised his sentiments before men, for fear of being condemned, like his master Socrates, to swallow poison; while our Platon, fearing neither whips, nor tortures, nor burning furnaces, nor the most cruel death, persisted strongly in the confession of the unity of a God creator of heaven and earth, and of the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Agrippinus was irritated by his constancy; after having again uselessly attempted the path of remonstrances, promises, and threats, he ordered sixteen soldiers to strip him and whip him with all their strength with ox-sinews. They did so for a long time, one after the other, with all the violence and fury of which they were capable; but, after they had tired themselves out striking him, not a single bruise appeared on his body. This miracle filled everyone with astonishment and led Agrippinus to send him to prison. While he was being led away, a great number of the faithful gathered around him to congratulate him on his victory. He asked for a moment of audience; and, everyone having fallen silent, he gave them an admirable exhortation, filled with the fire of the charity with which he himself was ablaze, to encourage them to persevere and to endure martyrdom constantly in expectation of the eternal life promised to them. He was seven days in the dungeon, where the presence of his God consoled him so perfectly that the days seemed to him only as hours, and the hours as moments. There he implored the help of Saint Michael, as the leader of the armie saint Michel Archangel who appeared to Joan to reveal her mission. s of the living God; asking, not to be preserved from death, but to endure all kinds of tortures with firmness. At the end of seven days, he was brought back to the tribunal; there, Agrippinus showed him bronze cauldrons, iron stoves of prodigious size, grills, axes, hooks, arrows, needles, very sharp stones, crosses, wheels armed with razors, and several other types of instruments that were customarily used to test the courage of the Martyrs, threatening to make him pass through all these kinds of tortures if he remained stubborn in his resolution; on the other hand, he assured him that, if he would obey the wishes of the emperors, he would give him his own niece in marriage with a dowry so considerable that it would make him the richest in his province. But our invincible Platon mocked both the tyrant and his foolish promises; being animated by the Spirit of God, which is a spirit of strength and freedom, he said to him: "The proposal you make to me regarding your niece is ridiculous; I would not want her as a servant to my wife, if I were to marry. Furthermore, do not torment yourself any longer to find such proposals; you could offer me all the kingdoms of the earth, and you would not separate me from the love of my God."

The tyrant felt so keenly stung by this reply that, having had burning coals placed under an iron bed, he ordered the Martyr's body to be stretched upon it, and, to make him feel an acute and more unbearable pain, he willed that at the same time he be whipped with very thin rods, and that oil, molten wax, bitumen, and pitch-resin be thrown upon his limbs. One cannot exaggerate the severity of this torment, which has almost no equal in the tortures of other Martyrs; but Platon, far from being cast down, did not cease, during this time, to speak to the judge and the assistants with the same vigor as if he had been on a bed of roses. He pointed out to them that these fires upon which he was lying were but a slight image of those prepared for them, if they did not convert and abandon the infamous worship of idols to give themselves to the service of the true God; and that they should not delay any longer in doing penance, for fear that their obstinacy might close to them the doors of mercy that the blood of Jesus Christ had opened for them.

After having been in this state for three hours, he was taken down from this bed of fire; then his body appeared as beautiful and as fresh as if he had come out of a bath, and he exhaled an odor so pleasant that all the spectators felt as if perfumed by it. Many of the assistants, admiring this prodigy, cried out that the God of the Christians was great, that He alone performed admirable things, and that there was none but He who was worthy of divine honors! The assassin Agrippinus did not know where he stood, nor what more he could do to the Martyr. Thus, to have some reason to release him, he told him that he no longer asked him to adore the gods or to offer them sacrifices, but only to deny the crucified Jesus Christ, and that afterwards he would set him at liberty. "How," said Platon, "that I should deny Jesus Christ my Savior, from whom I have received so many graces and who fills me at every moment with such a great number of benefits? Get thee from me, impious one: let not thy execrable blasphemies offend my ears any longer! Is it not enough that thou shouldst lose thyself eternally, without involving in thy damnation the soldiers and servants of my Lord? Get thee away, I say, for I have this confidence in His goodness that He will make me stronger than all torments."

These words were like oil thrown upon the fire of Agrippinus's anger. He descended from his seat, and, having had two large copper balls heated red-hot before him, he ordered them to be applied, all glowing, to Platon's breast. This torture was horrible: the fire, penetrating even into the inner parts of his body, burned them so much that smoke issued from his nose; but, while he was thought dead, he was heard to defy the tyrant with more courage than ever, and even to reproach him for his impotence and weakness, in that with all the instruments of his rage, he could not break the one whom the virtue of Jesus Christ sustained.

Such surprising constancy drew upon him a fourth torment: almost all his skin and flesh were removed in shreds by whips and scourges. Nothing was as horrible as this strange execution. Even the pagans hated it and accused it of barbarity and impiety; but the Martyr still had the strength to take a shred of his torn body and throw it at the judge's feet, saying to him with a manly and generous voice: "O tyrant, more cruel than carnivorous beasts, since you take pleasure in blood and carnage, and in seeing the bodies of men who are your equals torn to pieces, take this shred of my flesh and satiate yourself with it like a tiger and a vulture! But know that God will restore to me this body that you are destroying, and that He will cast yours into the eternal flames."

There was nothing left whole in the invincible Platon except his venerable face, which the executioners had spared a little: as for the rest of his limbs, from head to foot, one could see only deep wounds and an abundance of blood flowing on all sides. Agrippinus, therefore, whom this last reproach animated more than ever, unleashed his fury upon this beautiful part which is like an image of the Divinity. Not only did he have the Saint slapped; but, not wanting any appearance of humanity to remain in him, he had his forehead, temples, cheeks, lips, and entire face torn with iron hooks: so much so that he was no longer recognizable, and one could apply to him what the prophet Isaiah said of Our Lord by foresight: "We considered him, but he had neither grace nor figure: he was unrecognizable; we took him for a leper and for a man despised and struck by the hand of God, and plunged into the last excess of humiliation."

It did not seem that in this state he was capable of hearing anything: however, the judge tried once more to corrupt him, shouting at him and having a bailiff shout that, if he wanted to save the little life that remained to him, he must no longer delay in obeying the laws of the prince and must finally resolve to acknowledge the gods of the empire. But, as these solicitations were as useless as the first, the ferocity of the tyrant led him to have the rest of the flesh and muscles that the Martyr still had on his arms and thighs torn away by a new flagellation. His command was executed with the same fury as the previous ones: the Saint's body remained so broken and shattered that his entrails were even coming out through his sides.

He must indeed have been fortified by a supernatural and entirely miraculous virtue not to succumb under so many evils; but the tyrant, instead of acknowledging it, increased his rage as God gave new signs of His protection. He therefore said to the Martyr that he was extremely astonished that, bearing the name of the wise and divine Plato, he did not imitate his actions and would not recognize the divinities that this great philosopher had recognized. "He only recognized them," said the generous Martyr, "out of cowardice: for he knew well that there was only one God, creator of heaven and earth, and that it could not be that there were several; but the fear of death made him shamefully betray the truth: thus he is one of those of whom the apostle Saint Paul speaks, who, knowing God, did not honor and glorify Him as God: that is why this just judge abandoned them, not only to the disorders of their mind, but also to infamous passions and a reprobate sense. As for me," he added, "I will not imitate his perfidy; I do not fear death, I do not dread torments: finish what you have begun. It only remains to dislocate my bones and separate them from one another: do it when you please. My Lord Jesus Christ, who is my help, will consummate my victory and make me stronger than all the instruments of your tortures."

This speech having silenced the president, he signaled to the executioners to detach the Martyr from the post to which he had been tied to be tormented more easily, and to lead him as soon as possible from the gallows to prison, and ordered the jailer not to dress his wounds and to give him nothing for his food but an ounce of bread per day with a little pure water. It did not take so much for the soldier of Jesus Christ: during the eighteen days he was in this dungeon, he never wanted to receive any food other than that of the word of God, which fortified his heart and satiated him more delightfully than the most exquisite dishes and the most magnificent feasts could have done. Finally, after this long time of imprisonment and abstinence, he was once again brought before the tribunal of Agrippinus, who, finding him firmer and more unshakeable than ever, condemned him to have his head cut off outside the city. He was led there immediately: when he had made a fervent prayer to God in thanksgiving for his martyrdom, he presented his neck to the executioner, and, losing his head, he rendered his soul to Him who had created it for His glory: which happened under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, on July 22, around the year 304.

The Christians, who were admirers of the constancy of Saint Platon, buried his body with all the reverence that the rigor of the persecution could allow, at the very place of his martyrdom, called the Field. Later, the Empe ror Justinian had a l'empereur Justinien Byzantine emperor who persecuted Pope Vigilius and Saint Datius. beautiful church built there which was dedicated in his name, as the historian Procopius assures us when speaking of the buildings of this prince: this basilica having been ruined in the course of time, the Emperor Basil, according to Cedrenus, had it restored.

Besides the Latin martyrologies and the Greek menologion, which make honorable mention of this generous soldier of Jesus Christ, he was spoken of with great esteem in the seventh General septième Concile général Council where the saint is mentioned. Council, which is the second of Nicaea: for a letter from Abbot Nilus to Heliodorus the Silentiary was read there, in which he reports that the barbarians having one day taken captive a monk from Mount Sinai, whose father was also a monk at the same monastery, both addressed themselves to Saint Platon, the father for the deliverance of his son, and the son for his own freedom, and, by a great miracle, the same day, an unknown horseman appeared in the camp of these enemies, and, having taken this young man, transported him in a moment, by an invisible path, into his father's cell; after which he disappeared. This gave reason to believe that it was Saint Platon who had shown himself favorable to these religious, who had invoked him with fervor.

The life of this Saint was written by Metaphrastes, and is reported by Surius on this day.