Passion of Montanus and Lucius

The Passion of Saints Montanus and Lucius.

We too have a contest before you, dearest brothers, since the servants of God and those dedicated to his Christ have nothing else to do but think of the multitude of the brothers. By this force and this reasoning, this love and this duty, we were moved to write this letter, to leave to the brothers who come after a faithful testimony to the greatness of God and a record of our labors and endurance for the Lord.

After the popular riot which the ferocious face of the governor stirred up to bloodshed, and after the very bitter persecution of the Christians on the following day, we were arrested by treacherous violence: Lucius, Montanus, Flavian, Julian, Victoricus, Primolus, Renus, and Donatian the catechumen, who was baptized in prison and at once gave up his spirit, hastening by a spotless road from the baptism of water to the crown of martyrdom. A like end of consummation also befell Primolus; for him too the confession he had made a few months before had served as baptism.

So, after we had been arrested and placed in custody with the district officers, we heard the soldiers report the governor's decision, that he had threatened the day before to burn our bodies. For, as we afterwards learned most truly, he intended to burn us alive. But the Lord, who alone can free his servants from fire, in whose hand are the words and the heart of the king, turned the governor's raging savagery away from us. And as we applied ourselves to constant prayer with all faith, we at once received what we asked: the fire kindled almost to the destruction of our flesh was put out, and the flame of the burning furnaces was quenched by the Lord's dew. Nor was it hard for believers to think that new things could match the examples of old, since the Lord promised through the Spirit that he who worked that glory in the three youths was conquering in us too.

Then, his purpose broken because the Lord opposed it, he ordered us to be sent to prison. We were led there by the soldiers, and we did not dread the foul gloom of the place; soon the dark prison shone with the light of the Spirit, and against the ugliness of darkness and the shroud of blind night the devotion of faith clothed us in white light like the day. And we climbed up to the highest place of punishment as though we were climbing to heaven. What days we spent there, what nights we passed, no words can tell; the torments of that prison cannot be grasped by any account, and we are not afraid to tell the horror of the place as it is. For the greater the temptation, the greater is he who conquers it in us. And it is no battle, since with the Lord protecting us there is victory. For to be killed is a light thing for the servants of God, and therefore death is nothing; the Lord has crushed its sting, overcome its strife, and triumphed through the trophy of the cross. Yet there is no need of arms except when a soldier must be armed, and he is not armed except when there is an engagement; and in our crowns there is a reward precisely because a contest has gone before, and the palm is not given until the engagement is completed. But for a few days we were refreshed by the visits of the brothers; for the comfort and joy of the day took away all the labor of the night.

Then Renus, who was with us, fell asleep, and it was shown to him that we were being brought out one by one, and as each came forth a lamp was carried before him; and whoever's lamp had not gone before him did not go forth himself. And when we had gone forth with our lamps, he awoke. When he told us, we rejoiced, trusting that we walk with Christ, who is a lamp to our feet and who is the Word—that is, of God.

After that night a cheerful day dawned for us. And immediately, that same day, we were suddenly hurried off to the procurator, who was carrying out the duties of the deceased proconsul. O happy day, glory of chains! O chain longed for in all our prayers! O iron more honorable and precious than the finest gold! O that clanking of iron as it was dragged over other iron! To speak of it was our comfort for what was to come; and, as if to make this delight last longer for us, we were led about this way and that through the whole forum by soldiers who did not know where the governor wished to hear us. Then he called us into his private chamber, because the hour of our passion had not yet come. So, with the devil overthrown, we returned to prison as victors and were kept for another victory. Defeated in this battle, the devil turned to other tricks, trying to tempt us with hunger and thirst; and he waged this battle of his most vigorously for many days, so that—which the adversary thought would serve him better—a host of sick people suffered from the fiscal ration and cold water.

But this labor, this want, this time of need was part of God's plan, dearest brothers. For he who willed that we be tempted also showed us that we should have consolation in the very temptation. For this was shown to Victor the presbyter, our fellow-martyr, who suffered immediately after this same vision: “I saw,” he said, “a boy come in here into the prison, whose face shone with a brightness beyond words. He led us through every part so that we might go out; yet we could not get out, and he said to me: You are laboring a little longer, because you are still held back now. But take courage, for I am with you. And he added: Tell them that you will have a more glorious crown; and also: The spirit hastens to its God, and the soul, now close to its passion, has sought its own dwelling.” For he asked this same Lord where paradise was. He said to him, “It is outside the world.” “Show it to me,” he said. And he said to him, “And where then will faith be?” And when, out of human weakness, he said, “I cannot keep what you command me; tell me a sign I may tell them,” the Lord answered him and said, “Tell them the sign of Jacob.” We must rejoice, dearest brothers, that we may be made equal to the patriarchs, if not in righteousness, at least in labors. But he who said, Call on me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you, and you will glorify me, moved for the sake of his own glory, remembered us after the prayers made to him, first announcing the gift of his mercy.

For he showed it to our sister Quartillosia, who was held here with us, whose husband and son had suffered three days before; she too, while staying here, swiftly followed her kin. She told what she saw in this way: “I saw,” she said, “my son, who suffered, come here to the prison; sitting on the rim of the water-trough he said: God has seen your distress and your labor. And after him a young man of wonderful stature came in, carrying two cups, one in each hand, full of milk, and he said: Be of good courage; God has remembered you. And from the cups he carried he gave all of us to drink, and the cups did not run dry. And suddenly the stone that divides the window in the middle was taken away, and the bright windows, with the middle removed, let in the open face of the sky. And the young man set down the cups he carried, one on the right and the other on the left, and said: See, you have been filled, and there is still more; and a third cup will yet come to you. And he went away.”

The day after this vision we were waiting for the hour when the fiscal allowance would be brought in—not food, but scarcity and want—for we had no food left, having gone without on the previous day too. But suddenly, as drink comes to the thirsty, food to the hungry, martyrdom to those who long for it, so the Lord gave refreshment for our labors through Lucian, dearest to us, who broke through the hardest barrier of chains and, as through the two cups, supplied unfailing nourishment to all by the hands of Herennian the subdeacon and Januarius the catechumen. This help sustained the sick and those laboring beyond measure; it also brought back from their sickness those who through the same labor—the hardship of the ration and cold water—had already fallen ill. For such glorious works we all give thanks before God.

Now, dearest brothers, something must also be said about the love we have for one another. We are not instructing you, but reminding you that, as we were together of one mind, so also with the Lord we live and pray as one. The concord of charity must be held fast; we must cling to the bonds of love. Then the devil is laid low; then whatever is asked is received from the Lord, as he himself promises, saying: If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask of my Father, it will be done for you. Nor can we receive eternal life and reign with Christ in any other way than by doing what he commands, who promised both life and the kingdom. Indeed, the Lord himself, by his own teaching, declares that those who keep peace with the brothers obtain the inheritance of God, saying: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Explaining this, the apostle says: We are sons of God; and if sons, then heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him. If no one can be an heir except a son, and no one is a son except a peacemaker, then he who breaks the peace of God cannot have the inheritance of God. And we do not say this as though you had ⟨not⟩ been warned, nor do we suggest it without a divine showing.

For when Montanus had had some words with Julian about the woman who had crept into our communion although she was not in communion, and after the rebuke he had heaped on him had remained in the very chill of discord, that same night this was shown to Montanus. “It seemed to me,” he said, “that centurions had come to us. And when they had led us along a long road, we came to an immense plain, where Cyprian and Leucius met us. And we came into a white place, and our garments became white, and our flesh was changed and became whiter than our white garments. Our flesh was so transparent that it let the sight of the eyes through to the inmost heart. And looking into my breast I saw certain stains; and in the vision I awoke. And Lucian met me, and I told him the vision and said to him, Do you know that those stains are this, that I did not at once make peace with Julian? And at this I awoke.” Therefore, dearest brothers, let us hold fast concord, peace, and unanimity with all our strength. Let us imitate here already what we shall be there. If the rewards promised to the just invite us, if the punishment foretold for the unjust frightens us, if we desire to be and reign with Christ, let us do what leads to Christ and to the kingdom. We wish you farewell.

All of them had written these things together from prison. But since it was necessary to set out the whole conduct of the blessed martyrs in a full account—because they themselves had said too little about themselves out of modesty, and Flavian too privately laid this task on us, that we should add whatever their letter lacked—we have added the rest that is needed. After they had been shut up for very many months and had borne the pains of prison and long suffered hunger and thirst, at last, late, they were ordered to be brought out and taken to the governor's praetorium. All confessed with glorious voice; but because a misguided love clamored for help for Flavian, denying that he was a deacon, sentence was pronounced on the others—Lucius, Montanus, Julian, and Victoricus—while Flavian was taken back again. Although he had every cause for grief, separated as he was from so good a company, yet by the faith and devotion by which he lived he believed that what God willed was being done, and the religion of wisdom tempered the sadness of his forsaken solitude. He also said, “Since the heart of the king is in the hand of God, what cause is there for grief, or why should I think I ought to be angry with a man who says what he is told to say?” But of Flavian more fully later.

Meanwhile the others were being led to the place of sacrifice. From every side there was a gathering of Gentiles and of all the brothers, who, although they had attended the other witnesses of God too out of the religion and faith they had learned under Cyprian's teaching, had now come with fuller devotion and in greater numbers. There one could see the martyrs of Christ testifying to the happiness of their glory by the cheerfulness of their faces, so that they could have spurred others to imitate their virtue even if they had kept silent. But there was no lack of abundant speech either; each of them strengthened the people with his exhortations. Lucius, besides his inborn gentleness and his upright and modest reserve, had been broken by serious illness and the hardship of prison; and so he went ahead alone with a few companions, so that the press of too great a crowd might not deprive him of the shedding of his blood. Yet he too did not keep silent, but instructed his companions as best he could. When the brothers said to him, “Remember us,” he said, “You remember me.” What humility in the martyr, not to presume on his glory even in the hour of his passion! Julian and Victoricus too, after long urging peace on the brothers and commending all the clergy, especially those who had visited them in the hunger of the prison, came to the place of passion with joy and without fear.

But Montanus, strong in body and mind, although before his martyrdom he had always spoken firmly and boldly whatever the truth demanded, without respect of persons, now grew still greater as his martyrdom drew near, and cried out with a prophetic voice: “Whoever sacrifices to gods, and not to the Lord alone, shall be rooted out.” And he repeated this often, impressing and driving home that it is not lawful to forsake God and go over to images and figures made by hand. He also beat down the pride and wicked stubbornness of the heretics, adjuring them that they should at least recognize from the abundance of martyrs the truth of the church, to which they ought to return. Then he put off the hasty haste of the lapsed, and their bargaining for peace, until full penance and the judgment of Christ, while exhorting those who had stood firm to guard their integrity: “Stand firm, brothers,” he said, “and fight steadfastly. You have examples; do not let the faithlessness of the lapsed bring you down to ruin, but rather let our endurance build you up to the crown.” He also admonished the virgins one by one to guard their holiness. He taught all in general to revere those set over them. To those set over them, too, he urged the concord of peace, saying that nothing was better than the unanimous will of the leaders; for then the people too could be called to obedience to the priests and quickened in the bond of love, if the rulers of the people kept peace. This, he said, is to suffer for Christ, to imitate Christ even by the example of one's words, and the greatest proof of faith. O great example of believing!

When the executioner was already at hand and the sword hung poised over his neck, he spread out his hands to heaven and prayed with a clear voice, so that the sound reached not only the ears of all the people but even the Gentiles themselves, asking and pleading that Flavian, who had been left behind from their company by the voice of the people, might follow on the third day. And to give proof of his prayer, he tore in two the cloth with which his eyes were to be bound, and ordered one half to be kept, with which Flavian's eyes might be bound the day after next. He also ordered a place to be kept in their midst, so that he might not be separated from them even in the fellowship of the grave. And there was fulfilled before our eyes what the Lord promised in his gospel, that whoever asks with all faith will obtain whatever he asks. For after two days, as had been requested, Flavian too was brought out and completed his glory by his passion. But since, as I said above, he himself charged us to add an account of the two days' delay, for the reasons mentioned, we had all the more need to do what it would have been right to do even without being told.

After those votes, after those cries by which a hostile friendship had risen up as though for his safety, Flavian was taken back to prison, robust in virtue, unconquered in mind, full of faith. The prospect of remaining behind had in no way maimed the vigor of his spirit; though it could have shaken him, his faith, which had embraced the coming passion with total devotion, trampled on these passing hindrances. His incomparable mother clung to his side, who, besides the faith by which she belonged to the patriarchs, proved herself a daughter of Abraham in this too, that she longed for her son to be killed and grieved with a glorious grief that he had meanwhile been left behind. O mother, religiously devoted! O mother to be numbered among the examples of old! O Maccabean mother! For the number of sons makes no difference, since she too, in her only child, gave over all her affections to the Lord. But he, praising his mother's spirit so that she would not grieve over his delay, said, “You know, mother, rightly most dear, how I have always tried, if it fell to me to confess, to enjoy my martyrdom, to be seen often in chains, and often to be put off. If, then, what I desired has come to pass, it is a cause for glorying rather than for grief.”

When they came to the prison door, it seemed to open much harder and more slowly than usual, the doorkeepers' attendants even straining against it, so that it seemed to be held fast by some spirit resisting and testifying that it was unworthy for him, for whom a heavenly dwelling was being prepared, to be defiled by the filth of the prison. Yet because the divine purpose had worthy reasons for the delay of his crown, the prison unwillingly admitted a man who now belonged to heaven and to God. What a mind he had there during those two days, what hope, what confidence, when the martyr's spirit both relied on his colleagues' petition and believed of itself that his passion would come! I will say what I feel: that third day after the two was awaited not as the day of a passion, but as the day of a resurrection. And the crowd of Gentiles who had heard Montanus's petition was indeed full of wonder.

After he was ordered to be brought out on the third day, when the rumor had spread, unbelievers and the faithless flocked together to test the martyr's faith. The witness of God came out of the prison, never to return to prison. There was great joy shared by all; but he himself held more firmly in his mind that his own faith and the petition of those who had gone before him would wring the sentence from the governor, even against his will and though the people cried out against it. So to the brothers who met him and wished to greet him he promised, with all faith, that at the Fuscianum he would give the peace to them all. O great confidence, true faith! Then, entering the praetorium, he stood in the place for those in custody, to the wonder of all, waiting to be called.

There we were stationed at his side, pressed close and clinging to him, so that we held hands, showing the martyr honor and the love of comradeship. There his fellow-students urged him, even with tears, to lay aside his obstinacy and sacrifice for the moment, and afterward to do whatever he wished, and not to fear that uncertain second death more than the present one. These are the words of Gentiles, who said that it was the height of madness to fear the evils of death more than to want to live. But he thanked them that out of friendship they wished to give him counsel, as far as lay in their power; yet he did not keep silent about faith and the divine, saying that it was far better, first, as far as the freedom of integrity was concerned, to be killed than to worship stones; then, that there is a supreme God who made all things by his command, and therefore he alone must be worshipped; adding also what the Gentiles find harder to believe, even when they agree about the divine: that we live even when we are killed, and are not conquered by death but conquer it; and that they too, if they wished to come to the knowledge of the truth, ought to become Christians.

Rebuffed and refuted by this, when they could gain nothing by persuasion, they turned to a crueler mercy, sure that he could be moved from his resolve at least by torture. When he was ordered to be brought forward and was asked by the governor why he falsely claimed to be a deacon when he was not, he denied that he was lying. And when the centenarius said that a report had been given him stating that he was pretending, he answered, “Is it likely that I am lying, and that he who gave in a false report is telling the truth?” And when, as the people shouted, “You are lying,” the governor asked him again whether he was really lying, he answered, “What would I gain by lying?” At this the people, exasperated, demanded with repeated shouts that he be tortured. But the Lord, who already fully knew his servant's faith from the pains of the prison, did not allow the body of his proven martyr to be struck by any torture, not even a slight laceration. For he at once turned the heart of the king to the sentence, and crowned his witness, faithful unto death, with his course finished and his contest completed.

From then on, rejoicing because by the sentence given he was certain of his passion, he even enjoyed pleasant conversation. And so it came about that he ordered these things to be written and added to the martyrs' own words. He wished his visions too to be added, part of which concerned the two days' delay. “When only our bishop had yet suffered,” he said, “this was shown to me: it was as though I asked Cyprian himself whether the stroke of the passion hurt—I, a future martyr, seeking counsel about enduring the passion. He answered me and said: It is other flesh that suffers when the soul is in heaven. The body does not feel this at all when the whole mind has devoted itself to God.” Words of a martyr encouraging a martyr! He denied that there is pain in the stroke of the passion, so that one who also had to be killed might be the more steadfastly encouraged, fearing not even the slightest sense of pain in that stroke. “Later,” he said, “when many were suffering, I was saddened in a vision at night that I had, as it were, been left behind by my colleagues. And a man appeared to me saying, Why are you sad? When I told him the cause of my sadness, he said: You are sad? Twice you are a confessor; the third time you will be a martyr by the sword.” And what had been shown was fulfilled. For he confessed first in the private chamber, and second in public with the people shouting against him; ordered to be shut up again, he was left behind by his company, according to his vision; and brought out after two confessions, the third time he completed his passion. “Then,” he said, “when Successus and Paul with their companions had been crowned, and I was recovering from an illness, I saw that Bishop Successus had come to my house, with face and dress so bright that his likeness could hardly be recognized, because he dazzled fleshly eyes with angelic splendor. When I barely recognized him, he said to me: I have been sent to tell you that you are to suffer. And at his word two soldiers came at once to take me away. They took me to a certain place where a multitude of the brotherhood was gathered. And when I had been brought before the governor, I was ordered to be led out. And suddenly my mother appeared in the midst of the people, saying: Praise him, praise him, for no one has carried off martyrdom like this.” And truly no one like this. For—to pass over his singular abstinence in prison, how, when the others took even the little food that was supplied from the squalor of the fiscal penury, he alone refrained even from that little, counting it worth so much to be wearied by many lawful fasts, provided he could feed others with his own food—

—to come to this: that he alone, that in such a way, that with such honor he was escorted; that, accompanied by so many priests, with all his disciples drawn up in order, he deserved to be led like a general. So the whole dignity of the procession expressed that he would reign with God as a martyr, already reigning in spirit and mind. Nor was testimony from heaven lacking. A heavy and gentle rain came down like tempered dew, serving many purposes: first, so that the onset of rain might check the eagerly curious Gentiles; then, so that an occasion might be given to withdraw, and no profane onlooker might be present at the sacraments of the lawful peace; and, as Flavian himself said with his own lips, it rained so that, after the example of the Lord's passion, water might be joined to blood.

So, when he had finished with all the brothers and the peace had been given, he went out from the stable that adjoins the Fuscianum nearby. There, when he had climbed a raised place suitable for speaking, he made silence with his hand and spoke words like these: “You have peace with us, dearest brothers, if you hold to the peace of the church and keep the unity of love. And do not think that what I have said is a small thing, since our Lord Jesus Christ, close to his passion, said this last of all: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” And he added that final charge and sealed it, like a testament, with the last pledge of his words: with the fullest commendation he spoke of Lucian the presbyter and, as far as lay with him, designated him for the episcopate. And not without reason; for it was not hard for one whose spirit was already drawing near to heaven and to Christ to know such things. Then, having finished speaking, he went down to the place of sacrifice; and with his eyes bound with the half that Montanus had ordered to be kept two days before, his knees set as if for prayer, he ended his passion in prayer. O glorious lessons of the martyrs! O splendid proofs of the witnesses of God, rightly written down for the memory of those who come after, so that, just as we take examples from the old scriptures as we learn, we may also learn something from the new!