The Ten Thousand Martyrs of Mount Ararat

In the time of the Emperor Ha l’empereur Adrien Abbot sent to England to restore monastic discipline. drian, who had succeeded Trajan, in the year 417, the Gadarenes and several other peoples who dwelt above the Euphrates, towards Greater Armenia, having revolted against the Romans, raised an army of more than one hundred thousand men to dispute their liberty and free themselves from the servitude under which the entire known world then groaned. Those who commanded for the Emperor in Armenia and the neighboring provinces armed themselves immediately to stem this torrent; but as the Roman troops were occupied elsewhere, they could only muster, despite all their diligence, an army corps of sixteen thousand men. However, trusting in the protection of their gods, whose idols they carried with them, and in the courage of these soldiers who were for the most part veteran troops and seasoned men, they did not hesitate to march with this small number against the rebels. But when they saw before their eyes the enemy camp, which outnumbered them by more than eighty-four thousand men, they lost heart; and, not daring to attack them, nor even to wait for them, they resolved to seek their safety and that of their army in flight. Six thousand of their soldiers followed them and escaped, through a shameful retreat, the danger they believed themselves to be in. But nine thousand, animated by the tribune Acacius, Garcere, maste r of the cam tribun Acace Tribune and principal leader of the soldier martyrs. p, and other captains, preferred to expose themselves to death by fighting generously for the glory of the Roman name, rather than to preserve their lives through an action unworthy of their rank and the high reputation they had acquired.

Before going into battle, they wished to perform the customary sacrifices to implore the protection of their gods and to encourage themselves further; but this worship, instead of strengthening their courage, broke it: previously they felt as courageous as lions; now they were trembling with fear and experienced a failure of heart that left them unable to withstand the shock of the enemy. While they were in this distress, an angel appeared to them in the form of a young man of majestic bearing and extraordinary beauty; he said to them: "You can recognize, by the timidity you feel after the immolation of the victims, that the idols and imaginary deities of paganism cannot make you victorious; but if you wish to follow my advice, if you wish to have recourse to the God of heaven and believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, according to the doctrine of the Christians, you will infallibly win the victory and return from the combat laden with glory and spoils." Such an advantageous promise made them open their eyes; they conferred together; and, as most of them, and especially Acacius and the other captains, were well disposed toward it, they concluded that they must embrace Christianity. At the same time, they raised their eyes and hands to heaven, and protested to God, the sovereign Master of all things, that they recognized no other God but him, and Jesus Christ his Son, and that it was from him alone that they expected all their help. After this confession, they were filled with such strength that, having gone at that very hour into battle, they entirely defeated the rebels, laid a great number of them on the field, wounded the others, and put the rest to flight, some of whom drowned in the neighboring lakes, and others perished miserably in the rocks and woods where they had fled.

Such a signal victory confirmed them even more in the faith and religion they had just embraced; they rendered a thousand thanksgivings to God, and protested to him that they would live and die in his service, without anything being capable of making them change their resolution. The angel who had appeared to them the first time showed himself to them again; and, after having praised them for having followed his advice, he led them himself to a high mountain called Ararat, distant about five hundred stadia from a city of that kingdom named Alexandria. When they had arr haute montagne appelée Ararath Site of the martyrdom and retreat of the soldiers. ived there, the heavens opened above them, and seven other blessed spirit s descende Alexandrie City in Armenia near Mount Ararat, distinct from Alexandria in Egypt. d, who also congratulated them on their conversion, and, joining the first angel, instructed them in the mysteries of our religion. After they were sufficiently instructed, they warned them of the violence that the generals of the army would use to make them return to the worship of idols, and of the torments that were prepared for them: they told them that, if they had fought until then for the princes of the earth by dealing death to their enemies, it was time that they fought for the King of heaven, by suffering death themselves as he had suffered it for their salvation. These Christian soldiers replied unanimously that they were ready for everything, that although strong enough to defend themselves by arms against the cruelty of the tyrants, they were nevertheless resolved not to use them, but to lay them down to be the peaceful victims of the glory of their Lord Jesus Christ. They remained then for some time on the same mountain, without needing any bodily food, because the spirit of God supplied it by the strength and interior vigor that he communicated to them.

The Roman generals, upon hearing of their victory and retreat, sent deputies to them, begging them to come down to the rest of the army to receive the reward and congratulations that their valor deserved; they replied to the envoys that a great change had taken place in them since their separation; that from idolaters they had become Christians, because it was by the virtue of Jesus Christ that they had defeated their enemies, and that thus they could no longer have any commerce with the emperor or their captains, who were continually defiling themselves by the impure sacrifices they offered to demons. This response having been carried to the generals, they were struck with great sorrow; and, as new troops had arrived for them, they resolved to force our Saints to join them and to worship the idols with the whole army. They marched therefore against them, as against enemies of their gods and of the empire. When the holy Martyrs saw them approaching, they did not put themselves in defense; but, knowing that Our Lord said that He "sent His disciples as lambs among wolves," after having implored His help and received assurance of it by a voice from heaven, they delivered themselves into the hands of their persecutors.

He who commanded for the emperor reproached them greatly for having abandoned the religion of the empire to worship an unknown God and a crucified Man, and warned them to change their resolution, if they did not wish to endure all kinds of torments and be condemned to death as criminals of divine and human high treason.

Acacius, the leader, and all the other captains replied with great courage: "That, far fr om being crimi Acace, le chef Tribune and principal leader of the soldier martyrs. nals of divine and human high treason, they were rendering to the true God the honor that belonged to Him, and to the emperor the service they owed him by praying for his conversion and for the prosperity of his State; that nevertheless they did not refuse either torments or death, and that it was with joy that they would hear the sentence of their condemnation." This freedom so embittered the whole army that a large part of the soldiers took stones to stone these generals who were confessors of the name of Jesus Christ; but, by a great miracle, the stones rebounded against those who threw them; and, far from wounding the Martyrs, they wounded those who wished to be their executioners.

This prodigy frightening the tyrant, he ordered them to stop stoning them, and made further great efforts to win them over by gentleness; but, as he saw that his words made no impression on their minds, and that they showed more and more an incredible ardor to suffer for their divine Master, he ordered them to be stripped, tied to trees, and to have their bodies torn with whips: "For it is thus," he said, "that the God they worship was treated by the Jews." This order was immediately executed, at least with regard to a part; but, the Saints having offered their prayers, the arms and hands of those who had armed themselves with rods or whips to strike them became withered, so that they could no longer do them any harm. Such a visible assistance from God opened the eyes of Theodore, one of the leaders of the imperial army; he recognized that justice and truth were on the side of the holy Martyrs, and that the Lord they wor shipped Théodore Eastern Roman Emperor (likely Theodosius II according to the historical context). was the true God, to whom sovereign worship was due. He spoke of it to a thousand soldiers he commanded, who, having entered into his sentiment, all cried out with great fervor that they were Christians, and joined the nine thousand who were being so cruelly mistreated for Jesus Christ. Thus, the troop of confessors was happily increased and became ten thousand men.

The tyrant was prodigiously irritated by this event; and, in his rage, he had a field twenty stades long covered with iron spikes, and commanded his army to force the Saints, with blows of sticks, to walk across it barefoot. But no force was needed for this: the Martyrs ran there of their own accord, and, regarding this path as the narrow way that leads to life, they entered it more willingly than they would have entered a place strewn with roses or covered with pleasant and precious carpets. Yet they received no wounds there: for angels, walking before them, gathered up all these spikes and put them in a heap to give them an easy passage without discomfort. The place to which they were led was the city of Alexandria of which we have already spoken, and whi ch must not be con ville d'Alexandrie City in Armenia near Mount Ararat, distinct from Alexandria in Egypt. fused with the famous Egyptian city. When they had arrived there, the tyrant, who still worked uselessly to shake them with his speeches, wanted to test against them all the kinds of tortures that the Jews had made the Son of God suffer: he had their heads covered with long thorns made in the shape of a crown, of which there was a great abundance in the neighboring forest; he had their sides pierced with small lances, which drew streams of blood from their bodies; he had them led in this state, with their hands behind their backs, through the whole city, and they were cruelly whipped before all the people; the following night, having had them brought back into the great courtyards and gardens of the palace, he abandoned them to all the insults and mistreatment of his soldiers; finally, he condemned them all to be crucified on Mount Ararat, where they had first retreated after their victory. They went there as if to a place of triumph, without a single one of this illustrious troop losing courage or growing weary of suffering. Even the youngest said wonders in praise of Jesus Christ and the Christian religion; and, when Acacius, their leader, represented to them with fiery words that their torment would soon end, but that the reward prepared for them in heaven would never end, they replied to him "that the only sorrow they had was not enduring enough torments for the glory of their divine Master." As blood flowed abundantly from their wounds, they filled their hands with it, and, casting it upon their heads, they prayed earnestly to Our Lord that this blood they were shedding for his love might serve as their baptism and wash them of all their past iniquities. A voice from heaven assured them of this grace: thus, it was with incredible joy that they stretched out their feet, hands, and whole bodies to thirty thousand soldiers of the army who had been ordered to crucify them. This torture, terrible as it is, did not prevent them from continuing to give praise to God and to proclaim his greatness: but, as the hour of death approached, the heavens opened, the angels descended visibly, and the voice of Our Lord was heard, saying to them: "Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world." At the same time, a great light surrounded them and hid them from the eyes of the infidels; and, in the midst of this splendor, they rendered their holy souls, which went to receive the reward of their battles and their sufferings for Jesus Christ. This was on June 22, at the same hour that Our Lord expired on the cross, at the beginning of the empire of Hadrian, that is to say around the year 120, although some authors defer their martyrdom until the end of his reign, which was in the year 138.

After their death, there was a great earthquake, which detached their bodies from the gallows where they had been attached or bound, and the angels buried them with their own hands, not in a common grave, but each in a particular sepulcher, causing celestial music to be heard, which rendered this ceremony more august than the most superb funerals of emperors and kings. The Church has, at all times, recognized and honored these admirable soldiers of Jesus Christ; and even formerly, in Rome, the day Rome Birthplace of Maximian. of their martyrdom was one of the feasts where no pleas were heard at the palace. Acta Sanctorum, t. v junii.