Глава IV. О мученике Апфиане

As soon as Caesar Maximin received supreme power, he immediately, showing everyone signs of his innate hatred of God and atheism, raised a stronger persecution against us than that raised by his predecessors. And while, worried by no small embarrassment, everyone scattered in different directions, everyone tried to avoid danger, and everywhere there was a disastrous movement - do we have enough words to adequately describe that divine love, that bold confession of God, with which the blessed and truly blameless lamb, the martyr Apphian, glorified himself, before the gates of Caesarea, who showed everyone a wondrous example of faith in one God? According to his physical age, he was not yet twenty years old. Having descended, as they say in the world, from extremely wealthy parents, in order to receive a secular Greek education, he first spent a very long time in Berita and - strangely, in such a city, he stood above all youthful passions. Without being carried away either by the flourishing state of his body or by the friendship of young people, he maintained chastity, behaved modestly, decently, piously, and was governed in life by the rules of Christianity. And if it is necessary to mention his fatherland, and extol with praise the city that was the birthplace of such a courageous ascetic of piety, we will gladly do this too. This young man came, if anyone knows, from the important Lycian city of Pagov. Having completed his education in Berita, and not paying attention to the fact that his father occupied the first place in the fatherland, he was not able to live either with him or with his relatives, because life according to the rules of piety did not seem like life to them - but, as if possessed by the Spirit of God and under the influence of natural, and even more spiritual and true wisdom, raising his thoughts above the imaginary glory of the age and bodily pleasures, he secretly fled from parental home. Filled with hope and faith in God, he did not think about the daily means of subsistence and, led by the Spirit of God, came to the city of Caesarea, where the crown of martyrdom for piety was prepared for him. Addressing us here and in a short time, strengthened as much as possible by the word of God, he received the determination to courageously enter the field of proper exploits and achieved his desired death. Who, seeing him, was not struck with amazement? or who, hearing about him, was not surprised at his courage, daring, firmness, and especially his determination and enterprise, which served as a sign of zeal for piety and evidence of a truly superior human spirit? When, in the third year of the persecution inflicted on us, Maximin declared war on us for the second time and for the first time sent out decrees so that the care and concern of the city rulers would dispose everyone without exception to make sacrifices; when the heralds, walking throughout Caesarea, in the name of the prefect, called husbands, wives and children to the idol churches, and when, moreover, the captain named each one according to the list - in this stormy time of unspeakable and accumulating disasters from everywhere, the mentioned young man, without announcing his intention to anyone, hiding even from us, who lived with him in the same house, and hiding from the military guards surrounding the prefect, he fearlessly approaches Urban, who was then pouring out a libation, and fearlessly taking him by the hand, immediately stops the action of the sacrifice. Moreover, he, with the air of some kind of divine representation, prudently exhorts the prefect to reject the error; because it is not good, leaving the one true God, to offer sacrifices to idols and demons. The young man did this, in all likelihood, prompted by the power of God, which through this act almost clearly proclaimed that true Christians, who have once been worthy to receive into themselves the Spirit of piety and the love of God of all kinds, are very far from changeability, that they not only stand above threats and the torments that follow, but through threats and torments they are even more excited to noble and fearlessly free speech, so that, if possible, even the persecutors themselves exhorted to abandon their ignorance and recognize the one true God. Following this, the young man in question, who surrounded the prefect with warriors like wild animals, was immediately captured and, for his daring act, courageously suffering thousands of blows from them, was immediately imprisoned. After sitting here for about a day with his legs stretched out on the wooden instrument of execution, the next day he was brought before the judge. Here they forced him to make a sacrifice; but, despite the pain and terrible torment, he showed all possible firmness. Not once, not twice, but many times they planed his sides down to the very bones and entrails; and they beat him in the face and neck until his face was swollen, and people to whom he was known very well now could not recognize him. But despite all this, the martyr did not give up. Then the torturers, by order of the judge, tied oil-soaked rags around his legs and set them on fire. What kind of suffering the blessed young man endured from this - it seems impossible to explain in any word. Having consumed his flesh, the fire reached his bones; so that the moisture of his body melted and appeared in drops like wax. However, the sufferer did not yield even here, but since the opponents themselves were already defeated, and despite his superhuman patience, they retreated, he was again imprisoned. Finally brought before the judge for the third time, he again made the same confession and was already half-dead drowned in the sea. What happened immediately after this? Of course, those who have not seen the events with their own eyes will not believe the words. But, no matter how completely I know this, I cannot resist not fully announcing the incident, especially since it was witnessed, simply to say, by all the inhabitants of Caesarea; This wondrous sight has not escaped any age. As soon as this truly holy and blessed youth was taken out into the middle of the sea and thrown, it seemed, to its very bottom, suddenly both the sea and the air shook with extraordinary confusion and trembling; so from this phenomenon both the earth and the whole city shook, and at the moment of this wondrous, unexpected earthquake, the sea, as if it could not carry the dead body of the divine martyr, threw him out before the gates of the city. This death of blessed Apthianus happened on the second day of the month of Xanthicus, four days before the April Nonnes, on Friday. You might be interested in: