Library › Eusebius of Caesarea › History of the Martyrs in Palestine
History of the Martyrs in Palestine
Eusebius of Caesarea, tr. Cureton, 1861; longer recension
The Confession of Timotheus, in the City of Gaza
It was the second year of the persecution, and the hostility against us was more violent than the first; and Urbanus, who at that same time had superseded the governor Flavianus in his office, was governor over the people of Palestine. There came then again the second time edicts from the emperor,1 in addition to the former, threatening persecution to all persons. For, in the former, he had given orders respecting the rulers of the Church of God only, to compel them to sacrifice; but, in the second edicts there was a strict ordinance, which compelled all persons equally, that the entire population in every city, both men and women, should sacrifice to dead idols, and a law was imposed upon them to offer libations to devils; for such were the commands of the tyrants who, in their folly, desired to wage war against God, the king supreme. And when these commands of the emperor were put into effect, the blessed Timotheus,2 in the city of Gaza, was delivered up to Urbanus while he was there, and was unjustly bound in fetters, like a murderer, for indeed he was not bound in fetters on account of any thing deserving of blame, because he had been blameless in all his conduct, and during the whole of his life. When, therefore, he did not comply with the law as to the worship of idols, nor bow down to dead images without life, for he was a man perfect in every thing, and was in his soul acquainted with his God, and because of his piety and his conduct and his virtues, even before he was delivered up to the governor, he had already endured severe sufferings from the inhabitants of his own city, having lived there under insults and frequent blows and contumely, for the people of the city of Gaza were accursed in the heathenism;3 and when they were present in the judgment hall of the governor, this champion of righteousness came off victorious in all the excellence of his patience. And the judge cruelly employed against him severe tortures, and showered upon his body terrible scourgings without number, inflicting on his sides horrible lacerations, such as it is impossible to describe; but, under all these things this brave martyr of God sustained the conflict like a hero, and at last obtained the victory in the struggle, by enduring death by means of a slow fire: for it was a weak and slow fire by which he was burned, so that his soul could not easily make her escape from the body, and be at rest. And there was he tried like pure gold in the furnace of a slow fire, manifesting the perfection and the sincerity of his religion towards his God, and obtaining the crown of victory which belongs to the glorious conquerors of righteousness. And because he loved God, he received, as the meet recompense of his will, that perfect life which he longed for in the presence of God the sovereign of all. And together with this brave confessor, at the same time of the trial of his confession, and in the same city, the martyr Agapius, and the admirable Theckla (she of our days)4 were condemned by the governor to suffer punishment and to be devoured by wild beasts.
Notes
- “Edicts from the Emperors.” Respecting these Edicts Valesius has the following note on the Ecc. Hist. b. viii. c. vi. (e)—“By the first Edict of the Emperors against the Christians it was ordered that the churches should be ruined and the scriptures burnt, and that those who were honoured with any preferment (if they refused to sacrifice) should be deprived of their dignity. The meaner sort were to lose their liberty. See chap. 2. Another Edict soon followed this, that Bishops, Priests, and Deacons should be imprisoned, and by all ways compelled to sacrifice. The third Edict comprehended all sorts of Christians, as well those of the laity as the clergy; which Edict was proposed (says Eusebius in the chap. 3 of his book concerning the Martyrs of Palestine) in the second year of the Persecution. But this seems rather to have been the fourth Edict: for the second and third concerned the Presbyters only. By the second it was ordered they should be imprisoned, and by the third it was enjoined that they should by tortures be compelled to sacrifice.” Eng. Trans. p. 143.
- “Confession of Timotheus.” These Acts are also given in the other Syriac Translation by S. E. Assemani, Act. SS. Martt. p. ii. p. 184. See Surius, at the 19th of August, and Baillet, at the same day.
- “The people of the city of Gaza were accursed in their heathenism.” See the account given by Theodoretus, book iii. c. 6 and 7; and S. E. Assemani, Acta SS. Martt. p. ii. p. 186, note (4).
- “Theckla (she of our days).” There were several martyrs of this name. S. E. Assemani has published the Acts of two others. See Acta SS. Martt. vol. i. pp. 101, 123; but Eusebius seems especially to draw the distinction with reference to Theckla, the companion of St. Paul, so celebrated in the early ages of Christianity. See Grabe, Spicilegium, vol. i. p. 95 Jer. Jones, New and Full Method, vol. ii. p. 353; Tischendorf, Acta Apost. Apocr. Lips. 1851, p. 40. There are also antient copies in Syriac of the Acts of Theckla, brought from the Nitrian Convent, now in the British Museum. The account of Theckla is in one or two instances found in a volume containing also the Books of Ruth, Esther, and Judith, and called in Syriac “The Book of Women.” See Cod. Add. 12,174; 14,641; 14,652.