Acta Sanctorum Martyrum

The Acts of Saint Warnaharius, Bishop of Langres, concerning the Holy Martyrs the Triplets Speusippus, Eleusippus, and Meleusippus. (From the Bollandist *Acta Sanctorum*, January, vol. II.) Prologue of the Author. To the holy man whom I must name from the summit of the pontifical office, Lord Papa a Ceraunio, Warnaharius sends greetings. Never ceasing to be constantly equalled in merits to the most eminent persons of the most blessed bishops, hastening daily to be adorned with holy religion in every conduct of the priesthood, you have traversed all the doctrines of the study of reading divine letters. Now you devoutly intend to gather together, for the increase of your praise, the deeds of the holy martyrs, out of love for religion, in the city of Paris. Wherefore you are to be equalled to the holy Eusebius of Caesarea in the zeal of emulation, and are to be remembered perpetually with an equal gift of glory. Grant pardon to my lack of skill, since we are not sufficient to praise you as much as you deserve to be set forth in the heart, if eloquence were to come to our aid. The deeds of the holy twins, who in the suburb of the city of Langres obtained the precious consummation of martyrdom, or of the most blessed martyr and bishop of that same city, Desiderius, just as you commanded by the zeal of devotion, so may you most eagerly recognize them by the obedience of my service.

CHAPTER ONE. The Arrival of Saint Benignus at Langres. We are compelled, with Christ as our author, to unfold more diligently the glorious struggles of the martyrs, in whose love of faith we confess without doubt that these deeds were performed. Therefore, it is most fitting, with the fullest reason, to explain rather than to pass over with what great rewards the three holy twin brothers, Speusippus, Eleusippus, and Meleusippus, attained the dignity of martyrdom. It is sufficiently admirable and to be extolled in many ways by the predestination of Almighty God. Therefore, following the order of this matter, and more carefully weighing the benefits of the bestower of graces, let us set forth the beginning. Finally, Saint Polycarp, bishop of the city of Ephesus, perfectly instructed in the teaching of the most blessed John, apostle and evangelist, and filled with the Holy Spirit, desiring to extend the soldiery of Christ under the guidance of faith, sent his disciples to various parts of the world to preach the word of our Lord Jesus Christ confidently to the nations.

When Aurelian the emperor, after the departure of the impious persecutor Severus, was heard to have revived again the most cruel persecution, and that a prince worse than the evil one had succeeded to the throne, and had promulgated an edict before himself and his governors, and generally among all the people subject to him, and had decreed that Christians should be punished with various torments of every kind, the blessed Polycarp sent the holy priests of God, that is, Andochius and Benignus, presbyters, and Thyrsus, a deacon, thither for the purpose of preaching—men, that is, most outstanding in virtues, overflowing in the love of God, eager for the contest of struggle, wholly devoted to undertaking the labors of journeys for the name of Christ, not slow to endure the perils of the sea, cheerfully seeking out foreign travels and gladly leaving behind their parents for the sake of the religion of Christ, desiring rather than fearing the torments of punishments or the passion of a blessed death.

These three men, obedient to the holy admonitions, boarded a small boat, and the holy Polycarp, bidding them a holy farewell, gave them this command: "Go, brave men, fighting bravely in the strength of Christ, acquire many fellow soldiers for the holy confession of Christ, with whom, triumphing in victory, you may obtain the eternal glory of name and dignity. Let the fruits of your labor be heaped with manifold abundance; let the seats of the righteous in paradise rejoice greatly through you in the acquisition of holy souls." With these and many other prayers, the holy Polycarp accompanied them. But they, sailing favorably, under divine guidance arrived more swiftly at the shores of Massilia; and having disembarked onto land, with an angel of God preceding them, they made a prosperous journey and entered the city of Aedua; and there, by the Lord's providence, having found Faustus, a man of the most noble family, conspicuous for senatorial rank and elevated by praetorian fasces, they were most graciously received by him into hospitality. When he discovered that they were presbyters, he humbly requested that they make his friends or his family Christians through the washing of baptism. For he, on account of the fierce persecution, worshipped Christ in secret. He also offered his son, the youth Symphorianus, who by the saints' preaching and divine predestination was to become a glorious martyr in later times.

And entrusting them to the holy hands, so that they might be baptized by the holy Benignus and received from the sacred font by the holy Andochius, he earnestly entreated. They, eagerly carrying out the work for which they had come and obeying the prayers of such a man, satisfied the desires of their will in all things through the grace of baptism. After this, when the aforementioned Faustus had more diligently investigated the reason for the petition through the exchange of discourses of the holy priests, divine piety led his sister and nephews back into memory. Then he said to them: "I have a full sister, named Leonilla, a distinguished matron, a citizen of the city of Lingonae; she has nephews from her son, three twin brothers born together in one birth, educated in the liberal arts, yet still living in the error of their ancestral pagan tradition; their mother desires to enlist them in the service of Christ. Help, most holy priests, their devotions, and the family most noble in nobility, which you have begun." When these words were spoken, the holy men, more earnestly considering the matter for which they had come, a plan pleased both parties: that the holy Benignus should hasten to the territory of Lingonae to illuminate it, according to the judgment of God. The holy Andochius and Thyrsus, however, greatly increasing the town of Augustodunum in divine preachings, were crowned with a happy martyrdom not long after, under the prince Aurelian.

Therefore, the aforementioned Faustus sent the holy Benignus to his sister as a divine gift, just as he was, immediately. She received him, indeed, like manna descending from heaven, with all reverence. Chapter II. The Triplets, Admonished by Their Grandmother and Invited to the Faith through Dreams. On that same day, her aforementioned grandsons, in a field called Palmasius, were offering profane sacrifices to an image of the goddess Nemesis according to the customary rite, and they had set aside remnants of the superstitious offerings for their grandmother. Inviting her to the feast, they presented the preserved portions. But she, throwing everything to the dogs, rejected it as dung.

Then, approaching them from a distance with the holy Benignus, he began to produce such words: "Dearest nephews, recognize our Lord Jesus Christ as true God, to whom angels and every creature offer just servitude, who established the whole world and composed all the matter of things, balanced, by the sudden disposition of the word; who extended the height of the heavens by the same vision; who spread the manifold spaces of the lands far and wide; who ordained by a momentary decree that the immense sea of the abyss be gathered and confined to shores; who painted the sky with stars and, establishing two principal lights, decreed that they should adorn all that he had made by their successive alternation and, clothed in light, reveal everything; who granted the entire sea to the habitation of fishes to roam before; who clothed the whole earth with various trees and plants; who created all things that are in the world, whether growing or living, by the same constitution.

Finally, He formed man in His own image and likeness, whom He enriched with a singular gift of wisdom and understanding for this purpose: that he might more diligently examine such a vast structure of the world, or all that He has accomplished, so as to discern good from evil, lest through the negligence of ignorance he disregard the Author, but so that he should not only refrain from offering the worship of veneration to idols made by human hands from various metals, lacking sense and bereft of all vital breath, shaped by diabolical invention for human deception, but also that he should flee from them as unclean, despising them in every abuse. For the perverse invention of the same one who deceived Adam, the first man placed in paradise, through transgression, fashioned idols in this world. Therefore, abandon, dearest nephews, all idols consecrated to demons, and confess our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of all things, without any hesitation. Believe that this holy man Benignus, whom you see standing before you, was sent to you from a distant region by divine piety. So attend to the words of his mouth: for the precepts that proceed from his mouth are God's; learn from him a doctrine more abundant than any gift and, above all, opportune for your salvation.

While the most salutary discourses of the holy Leonilla with the holy Benignus were being preached to her grandchildren, and the divinely inspired grace already breathed into their hearts was growing stronger, they stood equally amazed, transfixed with wonder, and looking at one another, considering all that had been said to them, they turned to their grandmother and said with one voice unanimously: Why have you kept such a great and so excellent a matter hidden in silence for so long? Why have you concealed from us the path of truth and the bright light for so many ages? To which she, responding with gentle speech, raising her eyes and spreading her hands to the heavens, giving thanks to God, began: My son, your father, persevered in such great hardness of heart that, sunk in a Tartarean abode, overshadowed by the darkness of his sins, bereft of all wisdom and understanding, blinded by the counsel of perversity, he neither believed in Christ the Lord nor ever wished to confess Him. What could divine speech avail him, whose inner heart was wholly possessed by the malice of unbelief, and who could not see the true light, surrounded as he was by the darkness of idols? He himself compelled me to keep the silence of taciturnity until now, while I feared that by his hostile persuasion he might make you deviate perpetually from the straight path. For by the will of God, with him failing, all obstacles have been removed. Behold, now is the acceptable time.

Open therefore the eyes of your heart and of your body, gazing rather upon heaven; the worship of idols, hostile to your salvation, filled with the grace of the Lord Christ, tear out by the roots from your souls, so that you may be able to attain to eternal joys. When the blessed Leonilla, together with holy Benignus, had related these and many other things to her grandchildren, so that divine piety might reveal signs of belief in them, they recalled the visions which they had seen the previous night. Speusippus spoke first: I saw in a vision of the past night, in the bosom of my grandmother, who, pouring her breast full of milk upon my lips, said: Speusippus, drink milk, because when you come to the struggle and contest, the more you drink, the more strongly and swiftly you will conquer. And when Speusippus had said this, Eleusippus said: Believe that I too saw a vision of this kind: I saw in heaven, upon a great throne, one seated, as if of electrum and gems, radiant with the power of majesty, whose immense splendor overshadowed my sight, and from excessive stupor the terror of my heart confounded my understanding. Then he, with a serene countenance, calling me to him, said: Do not fear, you will earn the crown of victory. In the third place, Meleusippus set forth his vision: I too saw some great king, holding singular scepters.

Here he was summoning the three of us equally to his service, girding us with splendid belts, redeeming us at great price from the bond of captivity, inscribing the rewards of our perpetual freedom in golden letters, and at the same time rewarding us with inexhaustible gifts. In addition to these things, urging me on, he said: “Meleusippus, I have decided to place you three brothers in my palace and to crown you with eternal rewards. Your grandmother pours forth suppliant prayers day and night for your salvation, so that, walking on the straight path, freed from the dark mist, you may be able to contemplate the true light, and from condemnation to death you may come to eternal life.” These and many other words of exhortation the king, whom I have mentioned, related to me in a vision. O how wondrous, how concordant and pointing to the same thing, and to be held in perpetual memory, while still placed in the darkness of night, already illuminated by predestination through the grace of the Holy Spirit, the three twin brothers deserved to see visions! To these three boys, through the intercession of their grandmother, the Trinity was revealed by grace before they received the full discipline of Christ. They saw the Lord God with eyes partially illuminated before they more fully knew the Savior through the confession of the mouth.

CHAPTER III With the idols overthrown, they publicly professed the faith. Finally, pondering within themselves the concordances of the visions of Saint Geminus, and ceaselessly instructed by the preachings of Saint Benignus and the prayers of blessed Leonilla, they considered more intently what they should undertake to do; desiring also that, with the fog wiped away, the pure light of clarity might be visibly contemplated in the sight of light, and that they might know the living and true God without any doubt. Then they said to their grandmother: "Tell us what we should do, so that your preaching, with all errors put to flight, may avail for our salvation." At these words, blessed Leonilla, rejoicing at the holy confession of her grandsons and giving thanks to God, said to them together with Saint Benignus: "Therefore keep all the divine precepts, and believe without doubt that Christ, the King of kings, is God; separate yourselves from the abominable idols; offer yourselves to your Creator, God." Moreover, Saint Benignus taught them all holy doctrine, and, when they were perfect in the faith of Christ, he consecrated them with the grace of baptism itself, having recognized that they had received the true and manifest confession of belief through the infusion of the Holy Spirit. Then Saint Benignus sought the fortress of Dijon, where, gathering many fruits of his labor, not long afterward he merited the worthy crown of martyrdom for his many merits.

The holy twin brothers, confirmed in all belief in Christ, ordered their servants to shatter the statue of Nemesis and to raze to the ground the twelve temples which had been established in their house; they also commanded that the very statues of the idols, reduced together to fragments, be immediately scattered. And the servants did everything that had been ordered by their masters. Meanwhile, swift rumor, coursing through all the districts of the city of Lingonae, spread abroad, announcing that the three twin brothers, grandsons of the blessed Leonilla, born of illustrious lineage, had most manifestly turned to the worship of Christ with zeal of devotion, and that, trusting in the omnipotence of Jesus Christ, they held the statues of the gods as nothing and despised them in every abuse, and had ordered them to be overturned from their foundations together with the idols themselves. A vast uproar grew among the people; the chief men, judges, and priests of the idols were roused to wrath, and, inflamed with excessive fury, they gathered from all sides against the boys of God; and assembled together, the chief men said to them: "What rashness has so suddenly seized you? Who persuaded you to abandon the worship of our gods, which our ancestors and yours are known to have venerated from ancient times, overturning the decrees of the princes? Christ, whom you adore as God, the Jews themselves nailed to the cross in condemnation to death.

Then the saints, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "O madmen, sunk in deep darkness, shrouded in perpetual shadows, and weighed down by an excessive mass of sins, condemned to eternal death by unending punishments, deceived by the error of the ancient enemy, why do you compel us to adore stones and other metals, shaped into human likenesses by men, which seem to have no breath of life? They are nothing, they feel nothing, they are worshipped for nothing by fools altogether. The true and living God is Father and Son and Holy Spirit, one in the Trinity of divinity and to be believed as threefold in the unity of majesty. Our Lord Jesus Christ is Himself God from God, Light from light, Splendor proceeding from splendor, who always is and always was, and will always remain Himself without end. He Himself made all things that are in this world." Then the leading men of the people and the judges and the priests, who had come to the spectacle, were stirred up in excessive wrath against the holy servants of God. But Quadratus, filled with anger, rose up and struck Speusippus and Eleusippus with his fist in the face, because only those two had spoken. Meleusippus, grieving, cried out, saying: "Why have you not made me a participant in that gift of striking along with my brothers? In them you have shown a desirable beginning of passion, but me, as if honoring me for your unbelieving deeds, you have separated from the holy fellowship.

We are of one mind in the confession of Christ, and we equally rejoice in the reward of Christ on account of your faithlessness. Quadratus said: Today we intend to punish you with various tortures for your contempt of our gods. Eleusippus said: The greater the torments you prepare for us, the more you strengthen us with the grace of God. Palmatius said: Unless we cut out their tongues by the roots, they will not cease to speak injury against us or our gods. Speusippus said: If your cruelty cuts off our fleshly tongues, we will proclaim the mighty deeds of God in our inner selves, and your malice will never separate us from the holy faith of Christ. Again Palmatius and Hermogenes say: Wretches, you hasten with one accord to the destruction of your death. Speusippus said: To die for the name of Christ is glorious; from there we will more quickly reach eternal life, where there is no sadness, but joys that are never ended.

CHAPTER IV. Tortured in various ways, they are crowned. And when Palmatius, Quadratus, and Hermogenes saw that they persevered steadfastly in the confession of Christ, they considered more intently what they should do, or with what most grievous punishments they should be afflicted, or by what kind of death, on account of the merit of those who had come, they should be condemned most cruelly. While they were deliberating these matters more carefully, they order the blessed Leonilla to be summoned to them privately, if perhaps by her flatteries and parental persuasions she might be able to recall them to the worship of the gods, so that they might deny the majesty and divinity of Christ in all things. And when the blessed Leonilla had come to them, the judges said to her: Go to your grandsons, and if you desire to save them and to free them from the torments of punishments or from destruction by death, persuade them to restore the temples which they destroyed, and, adoring our gods, to offer the customary sacrifices. Saying these and many other things, the blessed Leonilla said to them: I will go and persuade them of all things that are suitable for their salvation.

Finally, the blessed Leonilla, coming to her grandchildren, when she learned that they were persevering in the holy confession, was filled with great exultation and joy, offering them all sweet kisses, weeping for joy, and pouring forth many prayers to almighty God, and giving thanks to Christ, she said to her grandchildren: No one of your lineage is found nobler, no one richer, no one more pleasing than you in Christ. You have perpetually illuminated your entire ancestry by the glorious confession of Christ. Placed in tender youth, you have surpassed all the elders of your origin in wisdom. You have acquired an immense treasure, more abundant than any price, through the service of Christ. Therefore, be manfully persevering in the holy religion of Christ. Let no adversity break you, let no threats, no tortures of punishments terrify your minds, strongly armed in the faith of Christ. The kingdoms of this world, which are seen and end temporally with life, are nothing: for to desire the invisible and everlasting kingdom of God is the perpetual and perfect fullness of wisdom, opportune above all things. Through these temporal labors and swiftly passing punishments, you will arrive at eternal joys. Seeing them, therefore, full of the grace of Christ, remaining in their stability and faithfully keeping their promised faith, commending her grandchildren with complete devotion to God, she departed from them.

When they were asked by the judges whether they wished to consent to them and to confess the public images of the gods with a loud voice, since they persisted with stubborn resolve in the love of Christ and had in no way wished to give assent to those asking, they were suspended from a tree, with their hands bound above and their feet below, stretched by such an invention of torments that they were almost thought to be separated from the very joining of their limbs. Yet, strengthened by Christ, as the endurance of virtue was divinely ministered within, they remained manfully in the confession and belief of Christ; and in those very torments, Meleusippus, hanging with his brothers, insulted the judges, saying: “Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, fastened with nails, to be worshipped in the Trinity, hung on the holy wood for our redemption, whence we have merited to obtain the sign of the cross. We also, his three servants, hanging on this one trunk for his name, become glorious martyrs. O blessed fruit of that tree, which bore three martyrs, consecrated by the name of the Trinity!

And when the judges saw that they were strengthened, not saddened, by the torments, they said to them: "You will not die on that tree as you claim, but you will perish by avenging fire." Meleusippus, answering again, said to them: "Greater will be our increase of blessedness if, tested by fire, we pass through to God, and from darkness through this fire we come to everlasting light." Then finally the judges, on account of the fear of the peoples who were present, brought forth wood and the other things that usually provide fuel for fires, and a great fire was kindled. With hands and feet bound, the holy Twins were thrown into the fire. Christ the Savior was present in the midst, and with the bonds broken, the holy martyrs rejoiced in the fire, and no fire touched them. O blessed fire, which purged so great an original sin and inflicted no loss by burning on the limbs of the saints! The fire rather helped the saints, through which the enemy wished to harm but could not. The fire was more fiercely kindled by the unbelievers, so that the bodies of the saints might be burned without delay; but divine mercy, turned to the better, prepared from it an inextinguishable light for the saints. The burning flames were raised higher; but, serving the work of Christ, they concealed the preeminent glory of the saints, which had been prepared ruinously by the persecutors.

The fire could not use its own strength to consume the limbs of the wounded, because the power of God tempered the heat of the flame out of devotion to His saints. The impious and wicked persecutors saw the holy Twins rejoicing amid the immense flames and remaining unharmed, whom they thought they would see suddenly consumed by such a great conflagration. The freedom to walk in the fire was granted to the saints by Christ, so that greater sorrow from confusion might increase for the unbelievers who beheld the divine mysteries. And so the wood and all the fuel for the fires gave out. The holy Twins, however, standing in the midst of the failing flames, mocked the malice of the persecutors, saying: "Power has been given to us, if we wish, to depart from the present to Christ; and if we still desired it, it is granted to us, living in this age, to insult your madness. For it is better for us to hasten to His banquet, where the bounty of the giver does not fail." After the fire was quenched, when the unbelievers approached the holy Twins of God from a distance, though they looked carefully, they could see no scars from the fire on the limbs of the saints.

But so that there might be no greater delay for those desiring the martyrdom, and so that they might at last receive from Christ the rewarder the unfading crowns long prepared, seeing the choirs of angels standing ready to receive them and before their eyes; then, immediately bending their knees on the ground, prostrate in prayer, invited by the blessed summons of Christ, breathing forth the Holy Spirit together, they are known to have passed at the same time to the heavens. Their bodies, however, were carried and buried by the devout in the second mile from the city of Lingonae, in a village which is called Urbatus, where two very great roads join and others from a different side connect before these: so that there both the ready devotion of the will, and a sufficiently convenient gathering for travelers, is always frequented by the people, and a throng to their thresholds from all sides for prayer. And there also whatever they devoutly pray for, through the intercession of the holy twins, is daily granted by God: aids of healings are diligently ministered there through them to the sick: comfort and consolation are granted without delay to the grieving, and special devotion and abundance of wealth around their basilica are always increased, and the largesse from the devout is daily amplified for the better.

CHAPTER V. Avia and Other Companions in Martyrdom. It is also fitting and reasonable to add what is known to pertain to the increase of the praise of the holy Twins or to the cultivation of religion; for through their holy acquisition the number of martyrs was, with God inspiring it, enlarged. Finally, a certain woman named Jonilla, seeing so precious a consummation of the martyrdom of the holy Twins, spurning her marital union, abandoning the sweet embrace of her only little son, while the unbelieving crowds were still stirred up in the heat of persecution, hastening with swift step, cried out, saying: “I too am a handmaid of Christ; I proclaim Christ, the living and true God, without any doubt; I despise your shameful and utterly vain idols, refusing to worship them.” Having said these words, she was immediately seized, and, because of the fear of the surrounding peoples, she was suspended by her hair and afflicted with many tortures; and when she was forced to deny Christ but was in no way willing, she was led together with the blessed Avia, the grandmother of the saints, to the place of martyrdom, and at the aforementioned vicus Urbatum they were both slain by the sword by the persecutors.

Neon also, the recorder and writer of this account, handing over the codex to Turbo, entered the intervening crowds of persecutors, desiring to be joined to the most blessed military service of the holy Twins, and confessed the name of Christ. He was immediately afflicted by the persecutors with various tortures, and, stripped of temporal life, merited to be honored by continuous martyrdom. Turbo as well, after much time, fully instructed by the teaching of the most blessed Twins, was captured by the persecutors and himself enriched with the reward of martyrdom. These things were done under the prince Aurelian, with Palmatius, Quadratus, and Hermogenes as governors, on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of February. The discovery of the holy bodies of the Twins, or the dedication of the basilica of the holy Twins, is to be celebrated on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of October, Christ our God reigning forever and ever. Amen.