Страдание святого священномученика Патрикия и с ним трех пресвитеров: Акакия, Менандра и Полиена

The episcopal see of Saint Patrick was in the city of Prusse in Bithynia 3296. One day he began to openly expose the errors of the pagans and preach the faith of Christ; his preaching converted many pagans to Christ; for this he was taken by the pagans along with three presbyters - Acacius, Menander and Polyenus, and was brought for questioning to the Bithynian hegemon Julius, the most zealous servant of idols. This latter, going at that time to the warm springs 3297, ordered the Christian bishop and his presbyters, enclosed in iron chains, to follow him. Arriving at the springs and washing in them, Julius made sacrifices to his unclean god Asklipius 3298 and the vile goddess Sotiria 3299. Then, sitting down in the judgment seat and calling Saint Patrick with the elders, Julius said to him: - A madman who calls on Christ and believes empty fables! Look how great is the omnipotence of our gods. Look what healing power they gave to these sources for our benefit. And first of all, understand how great the power and how great the mercy of our father Asclepius! If you want to avoid bonds and torment and live peacefully in your fatherland, then, having fallen, bow to him with humble prayer and make a sacrifice to him. Saint Patrick answered him: - Oh, how much evil you uttered in your short speech, hegemon! The hegemon said to him with anger: - What did I say that was criminal? What can you accuse me of, you damned one! You yourself must admit what is obvious without any deception or cunning: don’t you see with your own eyes the healings bestowed from warm springs by the power of our almighty gods? - Most luminous hegemon! If you want to know the truth about the origin, flow and healing power of the source of these warm waters, then I will tell you about all this, if you deign to listen to me with meekness. “Although I don’t think I’ll hear anything else from you other than a fable filled with fiction, speak anyway, let me hear what you want to say.” – It’s not fiction, but I want to tell you the truth. - What other source of the power of warm waters can you point out, besides the power of our gods? – I am a Christian, and everyone who professes this shrine of Christianity and worships the one true God can know the mysteries of God with his mind; therefore, although I am a sinner, confessing myself to be a servant of Christ, I know and can tell you the truth regarding these waters. - Will you really be so impudent and reckless as to consider yourself smarter than our philosophers? – “The wisdom of this world is foolishness in the sight of God, as it is written: It catches the wise in their craftiness” (1 Cor. 3:19). Christ our Lord, glorifying His Father, said: “I glorify You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes” (Luke 10:21). And the Apostle says: they did not understand the truth: “for if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8). -You are saying something that is incomprehensible. Better yet, tell me, according to whose strength and structure do these warm healing waters flow? As for me, I attribute this to the industry of our gods, who wanted to help people in this way. Answering this, Saint Patrick of Christ said to the hegemon: - Before I speak, order, hegemon, to remove the fence 3300 so that everyone can hear my words. By order of the hegemon, the fence was removed and the people filled the entire place around. Then the saint began to speak loudly as follows: – Fire and water were created out of nothing by His Only Begotten Son by the same omnipotent and eternal God, Who is the Creator of the human race. From fire He, by His word, created light, the sun and other luminaries and appointed them to shine day and night: His omnipotent power extended to the extent that it pleased Him. He formed the firmament from water and established the earth on water. By His Providence, which provided for everything, He arranged in heaven and on earth everything that man, whom He also created, could not live without. Seeing that the people He created would anger Him, God their Creator, and, abandoning the veneration of the true God, would create soulless idols for themselves and worship them, He, for this reason, prepared two places where people would move after their earthly life. He enlightened the first place with eternal light and filled it with abundant and unspeakable blessings, while He filled the other with hopeless darkness, unquenchable fire and eternal torment; those who, fulfilling His commandments, will please Him will move to a bright place; those who, through their wicked lives, anger their Creator and thereby earn punishment for themselves will be thrown into a dark place. And so those who are settled in a bright place will live an immortal life in unceasing and endless joy, and those who are in a dark place will be incessantly tormented for endless centuries. Having separated fire from water and light from darkness, the Creator formed each of them separately and assigned each to its place. Fire and water are found both above the firmament of heaven and under the earth; that water that is visible on the earth, collected in its containers, is called the sea (Gen. 1:10), and that which is under the earth is called the abyss; from this abyss, for the benefit of people living on earth, and in general for the benefit of all living things, waters are sent to heights through the bowels of the earth, as if through water pipes; emerging on the surface of the earth, they form either springs, or wells, or rivers. Those of the waters that flow underground, pass near the fire, flow out to the surface warm, and those that flow far from the fire come to the surface of the earth cold. That is why these waters are warm, since during their flow they come close to the underground fire; In other places there are very cold waters that freeze into ice, since they are far away from the fire. So, the underground fire is appointed for the torment of wicked souls; the water of the underworld, turned into ice, is called Tartarus 3301, in which your gods and those who worship them will receive endless torment, just as one of your poets sang, saying: “the finite limits of the earth and the sea are nothing other than the extreme limits, where Iapetus and Saturn 3302 (these are the names of these your gods) do not delight in any the shine of the bright sun, nor the cool winds"; in other words: your gods, who dwell in darkness and in Tartarus, are not illuminated or warmed by the light of the sun, and those who dwell in fire are not cooled by the wind. - Tartarus is placed underground as much deeper than all other abysses as the sky is higher than all the heights of the earth. And that fire is prepared underground for the wicked, this is confirmed by the boiling springs that in Sicily 3303 come out of the underground 3304. After listening to these words of the saint, the hegemon asked him: - This means that your Christ is the Creator of all those things that you spoke about. – Truly Christ, and no one else, is the Creator of all creation; for it is written: “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:3). And again: “For all the gods of the nations are nothing, but the Lord created the heavens” (1 Chronicles 16:26). The hegemon again asked the saint: – Do you call Christ the Creator of heaven? “I call Christ the Creator of all creation, because it is written: “When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, at the moon and the stars that You have set” (Psalm 8:4). - And if I throw you into these hot waters, the Creator of which you call Christ, and not our gods, then will Christ keep you unharmed from their fire? – I know the power of my Christ; I know that He can keep me safe and sound from these waters if He wishes: but I myself would like, through those waters, to free myself from this temporary life, in order to live forever with Christ; nevertheless, let not my, but His holy will be done over me, without which not a single hair will fall from a human head, without which not a single bird will fall into the net. But let everyone listening to my words now know that those who worship the insensible stone as a god with you will face eternal torment in the underground unquenchable fire and the underworld of tartarus. Hearing this, the hegemon fell into great anger and immediately ordered the saint, stripped, to be thrown into the very place of the source from which the boiling water was gushing. The saint, being thrown, cried out to God, saying: – Lord Jesus Christ, help me, Your servant! When the saint was thrown into the water, the drops of water that splashed from the source were hotter than fiery sparks and, reaching those standing around, caused them severe burns. And Saint Patrick remained unharmed in those waters, as if in a cool place, and, rejoicing, praised Christ God. Seeing this, the tormentors became even more furious. The hegemon ordered the soldiers to take the saint out of the water and cut off his head with an ax, along with three presbyters. Having prepared for beheading, the martyr and confessor of Christ raised his hands to heaven and said: - God, the King of all and the Lord, who contains in His power all creation, visible and invisible, who inclines Your ear to all who truly call on You, who created these waters for the salvation of the righteous and for the punishment of the wicked! Appear now to me, who is dying, as a testimony for the confession of Your faith! Having finished his prayer, the saint bowed his holy head for beheading and died a martyr. Three of his holy presbyters were beheaded with him: Acacius, Menander and Polyenus, and all together they appeared before Christ God in the glory of the saints. Saint Patrick was killed with his servants in the month of May on the nineteenth day of 3305 and received the crown of victorious honors from Christ Jesus, our Lord, to whom due, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, honor and glory, now, and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. As you are radiant with the kindness of the priesthood, and adorned with the torment of blood, with those who suffered with you, the Patricks, standing before Christ, remember us, as an honest sufferer. Hegemon Julius went to warm springs for medicinal purposes. These springs actually had healing properties due to the admixture of various minerals in their waters. Many such sources were known in ancient times in Italy on the island of Sicily. Asklipius or Aesculapius is a Greco-Roman god who was considered the patron of the medical art. Sotiria from Greek. - savior - the general name of goddesses who healed diseases, according to pagans. Usually this name was given to the goddesses Athena or Aphrodite. Usually the place where the hegemon sat and judged Christians was fenced off, since in most cases the trial of Christians took place in the open air. Discussing about tartarus, Saint Patrick applies to the understanding of the pagans around him and sets out to them their own view of tartarus. – According to ancient Greek mythology, Tartarus is a dark abyss, as far from the surface of the earth as the sky is from the earth. According to the Greeks, Tartarus was surrounded by a triple layer of darkness and an iron wall; it served as a place of imprisonment for the overthrown gods. Iapetus is one of the Titans - the children of Uranus (sky) and Gaia (earth). According to Greek mythology, Iapetus (along with Cronus) rebelled against the supreme god Zeus, for which he was imprisoned by the latter in Tartarus. – Saturn is an ancient Roman god, considered the patron of the earth and crops. According to Greek mythology, Saturn, like Iapetus, was cast down from heaven by Zeus and imprisoned for a time in Tartarus. Sicily is one of the large islands of the Mediterranean Sea, now part of the Kingdom of Italy. The island of Sicily, due to the large number of cracks and depressions in the limestone mountains covering it, had many hot springs. The time of their death is unknown with certainty; it is believed that it occurred in the middle of the 4th century. You might be interested in: