Saint Guryas

This caused Antonin Antoine Priest hidden near Pisa who baptized Tropez. us, governor of Edessa, who was one of the most passionate ministers of that emperor's cruelty, to have them arrested and thrown into a dark prison. Having subsequently recalled them to his tribunal, he employed all sorts of artifices to persuade them to obey the prince's edicts, but they replied courageously: "God forbid that we should ever abandon the true faith which will procure for us an eternal life, to worship the works of men!" The judge threatened them with the cruelest tortures and even death if they did not change their resolution; but they said to him: "You are mistaken, my lord, and you wish to deceive us; we would truly die if we obeyed you; but, by doing the will of God, we shall not die: on the contrary, we shall obtain a life that will never end." Upon this response, Antoninus sent them back to prison and reported everything that had happened to Diocletian.

This prince, relentless against the Christians, ordered Musonius, prefect of Antioch, to travel as soon as possible to Edessa and to put these glorious Confessors of the faith of Jesus Christ on trial. Musonius arrived there, called Gur ias a Gurie Martyr of Edessa in the 3rd century. nd S amonas Samonas Martyr companion of Saint Gurias. before him, and urged them for a long time to sacrifice to Jupiter. But all his efforts were in vain, and our generous athletes boldly replied that they would do no such thing. Then the judge ordered them to be suspended by one hand, and to have an extremely heavy stone attached to one foot. They remained in this state for five hours, enduring incredible pain; but they did not utter a single cry and did not say even a single word to complain; so that one would have said they were suffering such brief pains in a borrowed body, and that they were spectators rather than patients. The judge then had them thrown into a dungeon, which its stench and darkness made unbearable, with orders to give them nothing to eat for the first three days, and, for the rest of the time, to give them very little, in order to afflict them with continual hunger. They remained there quite content from the beginning of August until the end of their martyrdom. On November 10, they were interrogated again, and, as they appeared firmer and more unshakable than ever, the prefect, venting his fury on Samonas, who was of a much stronger constitution than Gurias, had one of his feet bent back with horrible violence and attached to his knee with an iron hoop; then, having had him suspended in the air by that same foot, he had an iron weight attached to the other that dislocated all his limbs. This torment seemed so cruel to the executioners themselves that they were moved to compassion, and they tearfully implored the holy Confessor to deliver himself from it by sacrificing to the gods; but the generous Martyr, despising their false compassion, did not deign to answer them. He addressed God, and asked Him for the strength to suffer until the end for His love. As for Gurias, he took no part in this torture; not that the prefect had pity on him, but, as he was very delicate, and hunger and previous torments had put him in a pitiful state, this barbarian feared that he would succumb in the hands of the executioners. Finally, on November 15, he had them appear for the last time before his tribunal, and, seeing that their constancy increased instead of weakening, he condemned them to be beheaded: which was carried out the same day, in the year of grace 299, according to Cardinal Baronius. Their bodies were buried by the Christians in Edessa, and God rendered cardinal Baronius Church historian who inserted the saint into the Roman Martyrology. them illustrious through great miracles.

This account is by Father Père Giry French hagiographer, author of the version of the narrative presented. Giry.

This account is by Father Giry.