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E06570: Aldhelm, in his prose On Virginity, names *Julianus/Ioulianos (martyr of Egypt and/or Antioch with his wife Basilissa, S01341), as an exemplary virgin. Written in Latin in southern Britain, for the nuns at the monastery at Barking (south-east Britain), c. 675/686.

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posted on 2018-09-21, 00:00 authored by bsavill
Aldhelm, prose On Virginity, 36

Porro virginalem Iuliani martiris gloriam sub clandistino taciturnitatis latibulo delitescere non patiar, qui temporibus Dioclitiani et Maximiani nobili prosapia oriundus fuit. Quem cum parentes in primaevo pueritiae rudimento florentem tam dialecticae artis compotem quam rethoricae artis participem fecissent, pedagogis quoque et didasculis traditum multimodis philosophorum disciplinis imbuissent et iam in tenero pubertatis rudimento adultum [parentes] animadverterent eumque amatorem catholicae fidei sacrisque ecclesiae liminibus adhaerentem necnon ergastula confessorum crebro frequentantem comperissent, pertimescebant magnopere, ut, si unicum pignus ob religionis praerogativam et sanctae conversationis habitum ab illorum stirpe privaretur, ipsi, ut ait patriarcha lacrimabilem depromens querimoniam, canos suos cum dolore ducentes ad inferos optatae generationis heredibus et futuris nepotum nepotibus funditus fraudarentur. Idcirco puberem subnixis precibus et inauditis blandimentorum hortamentis inflectere nitebantur, ut ad thalami taedas et copulae consortium ferreos iuvenculi affectus immo adamante duriores iuclinarent. Ad argumentum etiam hortandae suasionis apostolicis utuntur oraculis, quibus ait: Volo iuvenes nubere, [patres familias esse], filios procreare nullam dantes occasionem maligno. Quibus ita respondisse scribitur: Nec voluntatis nec aetatis est tempus, ut faciam, quae hortamini; item, cum perseverarent pertinaciter in precibus, ait: Nec promittendi mihi est facultas nec negandi potestas; quod hortamini, Dei mei potestati committo et reliqua. Unius tamen ebdomadis indutias parentibus poposcit, ut nutum supernae maiestatis argumentis evidentibus experiretur. Qua peracta intercapidine somno sopitus et sopore depressus vidit Christum in oromate dixisse: Exurge! ne timeas nec suasiones a verborum vel voluntatem parentum horrescas! Accipies enim coniugem, quae te non polluendo a me separet, sed per te virgo perseveret; et infra: Multi iuvenes et virgines per vestram doctrinam vel vitam caelestis exercitus probabuntur et reliqua. Suscipitur itaque de thalamo beata virgo vocabuli praesagio Basilissa, hoc est regina, formosa frontis effigie, sed formosior cordis castitate, venusta, inquam, liniamentis membratim corporalibus, sed plus venusta suatim cicladibus compta spiritalibus.

O quanta caterva credentium in utroque sexu fetidas facinorum cloacas calcitrans et putida vitiorum volutabra abominans illorum magisterio ad fidem catholicam conversa cum martirii tropeo triumphans agonizavit, siquidem plura monachorum ergasteria in celeberrimo Antiochiae municipio, quae est metropolis Aegipti, opitulante Christo construxere, in quibus militum Christi circiter X milia sub distincto Iuliani regimine conversantia et nequaquam a sanctae religionis tramite per obliquos anfractus dextra laevaque declinantia regulariter vixerunt. Basilissa vero Deo dicatabis quingentenos sanctae messis manipulos evangelicae praedicationis falce metens in area tortoris triturandos et horreis caelestibus condendos invexit. Postremo cum effera persecutorum rabies sacrosanctos ecclesiae tirones feralibus edictis et ferocibus tormentorum cruciatibus truciter ingruens grassaretur et catholicae fidei propugnaculum saecularis argumenti ballista quassatum atrocisque machinae arietibus subrutum funditus evertere moliretur, quis ubertim angusto stili textu effari valeat, quanta idem Iulianus cum ceteris commanipularibus et eiusdem propositi sodalibus martirizando perpessus sit? Marciano praeside in alto tribunalis culmine vel theatri pulpito contionante nodosis fustibus et cruentis mastigiis sine respectu pietatis flagellatus a a cultura Christi flecti nequivit . Quinimmo pupillam percussoris evulsam , qui sibi crudeliter flagrorum vibices irrogabat, quamvis ut magus putenti lotio umectaretur, incolomem restituit. Insuper nefandas simulacrorum effigies plus quam quingentas, quibus pontifices delubrorum libamina litantes bachantum ritu turificabant, ad solum diruit, quassavit, evertit.

Item Iulianus cum iuvenculo filio praesidis, ut effebo hircitallo, qui neofitus et nuper ad fidem conversus fuerat, in fundum ergastuli profundum retrusus, ubi fetida damnatorum cadavera diuturno temporis intervallo horrida vermium examina ebulliebant, squaloris nausiam perpetitur, sed versa vice pietas divina, quae suorum semper reminiscitur militum , pro fetenti sterquilinio olfactum ambrosiae et nectaris flagrantiam carceris illuviem et latebras tolerantibus cum luce limpida clementer contulit. Haec tanta prodigia milites ad excubias confessorum deputati cernentes spreta fanaticae superstitionis cultura orthodoxorum falangibus agglomerantur. Interea defuncti cadaver prolixis fasciarum ambagibus conexum nondum in sarcofagi theca humatum flagitante praeside fusis ad polum precibus suscitavit; qui omnem istinc eundi tragoediam et illinc redeundi clementiam attonitis spectatoribus resurgens de tartari profundo patefecit.

Igitur urgente imperatorum decreto sancti martires in circi spectaculo ter denis cuparum gremiis includuntur, quae intrinsecus atrae picis massa et bituminis fomite sulfurisque fetore farciuntur et extrinsecus suppositis crepitantis rogi torribus et sarmentorum faculis conflagrantibus succenduntur intantum, ut flammantis pyrae cacumina minacem obolisci proceritatem et rotundum sperae apicem XXX cubitis inconum praecellerent. Sed tamen de torrente incendio superna potestate compresso triumphabiles viri velut obrizum rutilans spectante circi caterva in publicum processere. Exin reciproca tortoris nefandi ferocitas, quae semper insontum poenis pascitur et fuso sanguine saginatur, anthletis et agonithetis Christi macta martirii merita cumulavit, dum liciis olei liquore delibutis digitorum articulos et palmarum pollices obvolverent simulque pedum alloces truciter adnecterent; sed liciorum filis flamma combustis anthletas Dei in scammate mundi ritu palestrico agonizantes sine fumigabundis flammarum globis immunes divina tutela protexit. Verum hac confessorum Christi victoria confutatus in amfitheatrum sanctos ferreis collariis conexos cruentus carnifex imperat duci, quatenus patefactis cavearum clustellis et apertis clatrorum obstaculis ursorum genuinis carperentur et leonum rictibus roderentur. Sic stolida praesidis praecordia Deoque invisa spes pascebant inanes, dum furibunda ferarum rabies et gulosa beluarum ingluvies caelesti nutu compressa oblatam praedam lurcare non audens hiuleas faucium gurguliones opilavit, ut poeta de profeta dicit

Et didicere truces praedam servare leones.

Ad ultimum beatus Iulianus cum ceteris commilitonibus stricta machera crudeliter percussus et rubicundo cruoris rivo perfusus feliciter occubuit; ad quorum venerabiles sarcofagos cum X leprosi venissent, quos dira cutis callositas elefantino tabo deturpans non particulatim, sed membratim maculaverat, ilico et secundae nativitatis gratia in baptisterio regenerati, qui in sabanis et in sindonibus baiolabantur aegroti, sanctorum meritis sospites et voti compotes abscedunt.


'Moreover, I shall not allow the virginal glory of the martyr JULIAN to lie hidden in the secret recesses of silence. Julian was born in the time of Diocletian and Maximian of a noble stock. When his parents, while he was still blooming in the first stages of childhood, had arranged for him to be master of the dialectic art as well as to be a participant in the arts of rhetoric, they gave him over to tutors and teachers to have him instructed in the various disciplines of philosophy; and already in the tender beginning of boyhood, his parents observed the grown man (that he was to be), having discovered him (to be) a lover of the catholic faith, hanging round the sacred portals of the church and also visiting often the prisons of confessors, (and) they feared greatly that, if their only child were to be deprived of offspring because of his choice of religion or the practice of a holy way of life, they would – as the patriarch said, pouring out a tearful lament, "bring down his grey hairs with sorrow unto hell" [Gen. 64:20] – to be completely deprived of heirs for their hoped-for succession and of children to come to their children. Therefore, they attempted to influence the youth with earnest prayers and unheard-of incitements of flattery, so that they might incline the young man's disposition – which was not so much iron, as harder than adamant – to wedding-festivities and the companionship of marriage. For this argument of urgent persuasion, they even use the pronouncements of the apostle in which he says: "I will, therefore, that the younger should marry, bear children, be parents of families, give no occasion to the adversary to speak evil" [I Tim. 5:14], To whom he is reported to have replied, "It is not the appropriate time according to my will nor to my age that I should do these things which you urge"; likewise, when they persevered obstinately in their entreaties, he said: "I have not the capacity to promise, nor have I the power to refuse; what you urge, I commit to the power of my God," and so on. However, he asked from his parents a respite of one week so that he might discover the will of the heavenly majesty by divine proofs. When this interval was up, and he was laid in sleep and sunk in slumber, he saw Christ say to him in a vision: "Arise! Do not fear the persuasions of words nor shudder at your parents' wish! For you shall take a wife who shall not separate you from me by fleshly pollution, but through you shall remain a virgin," and thereafter, "Many young men and women through your teaching shall be recruited into the life of the heavenly army," and so forth. Accordingly, a blessed virgin named prophetically Basilissa, that is "queen," is accepted in marriage, beautiful in the features of her face, yet more beautiful in the chastity of her heart; lovely, I say, in each and every one of her physical fea

History

Evidence ID

E06570

Saint Name

Ioulianos and Basilissa, martyrs of Egypt : S01341

Saint Name in Source

Iulianus, Basilissa

Type of Evidence

Literary - Other

Language

  • Latin

Evidence not before

675

Evidence not after

686

Activity not before

305

Activity not after

686

Place of Evidence - Region

Britain and Ireland

Place of evidence - City name in other Language(s)

St Albans St Albans Verulamium

Major author/Major anonymous work

Aldhelm

Cult activities - Places

Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave

Cult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs

Composing and translating saint-related texts

Cult Activities - Miracles

Apparition, vision, dream, revelation Miracle at martyrdom and death Healing diseases and disabilities Miracle during lifetime Power over life and death Assumption/otherworldly journey Miracle with animals and plants

Cult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Ecclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits Women Relatives of the saint Aristocrats Torturers/Executioners Pagans Children Soldiers Animals The socially marginal (beggars, prostitutes, thieves)

Source

Aldhelm’s prose treatise On Virginity (De Virginitate), for Abbess Hildelith and the nuns of Barking (south-east Britain), survives in twenty manuscripts, the earliest of which are 9th c. Together with its later, poetic counterpart, it forms what Bede described in 731 as a ‘twinned work’ (opus geminatum), although there is a notable difference between the content and style of the two sections, the second part constituting more than a straightforward ‘versification’ of the first (see E06659). Aldhelm (ob. 709/10) appears to have been a son of Centwine, king of the Gewisse or West Saxons (south-west Britain) from 676 until 682/5, when he abdicated and retired to a monastery. We do not know when Aldhelm himself took religious vows, but he definitely attended, perhaps for many years, Archbishop Theodore and Abbot Hadrian’s school at Canterbury (from shortly after 670?), and possibly studied at the Irish foundation of Iona, off the coast of north-west Britain (perhaps in the 660s?). Around 682/6 he became abbot of the West Saxon monastery of Malmesbury, and in 689 probably accompanied King Cædwalla on his pilgrimage to Rome (see E05710 and E06661). In 705/6 he was appointed ‘bishop west of the wood’ in his home kingdom (later identifiable with the diocese of Sherborne). (For all aspects of Aldhelm’s career see now Lapidge, 2007.) At the core of On Virginity is a lengthy catalogue of exemplary virgins, first men (Old Testament prophets; New Testament figures; martyrs and other saints of the Roman Empire), then women (Mary; martyrs and other saints of the Empire), followed by some remarks on a group of non-virginal, Old Testament sancti who in some sense prefigured Christ. As with Bede in his Marytrology (725/31), Aldhelm makes good use of Roman Martyrdoms and Acts in his accounts of many post-Biblical saints. Although he does not seem to have had the same range of hagiographical material at hand as Bede later would at the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow (north-east Britain), his use of the texts is more creative, and he extensively reworks them in his characteristically florid prose style. The prose On Virginity presents difficulties with dating, but the author’s reference to himself in its preface as only a ‘servant’ (bernaculus) of the Church would seem to place it before his abbacy in 682/6 (ibid., 67-9). Meanwhile – if the twelfth-century chronicler John of Worcester is correct – Aldhelm’s chief dedicatee Hildelith only appears to have taken control over Barking in 675, thus allowing us to date the work cautiously to somewhere within 675/86. This is significant, since it suggests that the many Martyrdoms which Aldhelm used among his sources (including several translated from the Greek) were available to him in southern Britain before his probable visit to Rome in 689.

Discussion

Aldhelm's main source for this passage is the Latin translation of the Martyrdom of Ioulianos and Basilissa (E07135) (Lapidge and Herren, 1979, 177).

Bibliography

Edition: Ehwald, R., Aldhelmi opera (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi 15; Berlin, 1919). Translation: Lapidge, M., and Herren, M., Aldhelm, The Prose Works (Cambridge, 1979). Further reading: Lapidge, M., "The Career of Aldhelm," Anglo-Saxon England 36 (2007), 15-69.

Continued Description

tures but more beautiful inwardly through the adornment of spiritual robes.Oh, what a crowd of believers of either sex, treading down the fetid sewers of sin and abominating the stinking mire of vice, rejoicingly attained to the trophy of martyrdom, having been converted to the catholic faith by the instruction of Julian and Basilissa, since indeed they constructed through Christ's assistance many monastic workhouses in the celebrated town of Antioch, which is the capital of Egypt [sic]. In these establishments approximately ten thousand soldiers of Christ practised a regular monastic life, living under the rule of Julian alone and in no way deviating to right or left on crooked by-ways from the (straight) path of holy religion. And Basilissa, (equally) dedicated to God, reaping one thousand sheaves of the holy harvest with the scythe of gospel preaching, took them to be threshed on threshing-floor of the executioner and to be stored in celestial granaries. Ultimately, when the savage insanity of persecutors went on the rampage, attacking violently the holy soldiers of the Church by means of deadly edicts and ferocious instruments of torture, and was striving to destroy completely the fortress of catholic faith, rocked by the missile of worldly reason and weakened by the battering rams of dreadful conspiracy, who could eloquently express within the restricted style of (literary) composition how much Julian suffered being martyred together with his other comrades and fellows in the same resolve? With Martianus presiding on the raised platform of the tribunal or haranguing in the orator's pulpit, Julian – flayed with knotted cudgels and bloody scourges without any consideration of mercy – could not be deflected from the worship of Christ. What is more, he restored to health the eye of one of his torturers, who was cruelly inflicting on him the lashes of the whip – and even though he was drenched in stinking urine as (being) a sorcerer! Furthermore, he threw to the ground, shattered and overturned more than five hundred impious status of idols, to which the temple-priests were offering incense, offering up libations like dervishes.Likewise, Julian, together with a young son of the governor – a youth on the threshold of puberty who was a neophyte and recently converted to the faith – was thrown into the remote depths of prison, where the fetid corpses of the damned, due to the long interval of time, were bubbling over with horrid swarms of worms, and where (Julian) suffers the nausea of filth; but with a reversal of events divine compassion, which always remembers its champions, mercifully bestowed on those suffering the filth and darkness of the dungeon the sweet smell of ambrosia, and the fragrance of nectar in place of the reeking dung-heap, and clear light as well. When the soldiers who were deployed in guarding these confessors saw these great miracles, they scorned their worship of fanatical superstition and are added to the ranks of the faithful. Meanwhile, Julian, at the insistence of the governor, by pouring out prayers to heaven, resuscitated the corpse of a dead man which was wrapped up in the lengthy windings of bandages but not yet buried in the enclosure of the tomb. This man, rising from the depths of hell, revealed to the astonished onlookers all the misery of departure and all the tranquillity of returning hither.Therefore, under the pressure of the emperor's decree, the holy martyrs are placed, in full view of the circus, within thirty vats which were filled up with masses of black pitch and the kindling of bitumen and the stench of sulphur; and on the outside they are set alight by torches and crackling fire beneath and by flaming firebrands of brushwood to such an extent, that the summits of the flaming pyre exceeded the threatening height of an obelisk, and the rounded top of its ball (which was) thirty cubits to the cone. But nevertheless the burning conflagration was suppressed through heavenly power and the triumphant men walked out into the open like burnished gold (from the fiery forge) in full view of the circus-crowd. Thereupon the renewed ferocity of the abominable torturer, which is always fed by the pains of the guiltless and nourished by the spilling of blood, increased the glorious merits of martyrdom for (these) champions and contestants of Christ; they wrapped the thumbs of their hands and the joins of their fingers with strings soaked in oil and at the same time they harshly tied up the toes of their feet. But, when the threads of the strings were ignited, divine protection safeguarded these champions of God struggling in the arena of the world like wrestlers, (keeping them) immune from the smoking ball of fire. So the bloodthirsty executioner, confounded by the victory of the soldiers of Christ, orders the saints to be led into the amphitheatre bound up with iron neck-chains, so that they might be devoured by the teeth of bears and gnawed by the jaws of lions once the gates of the dens were opened and the bars of the cages were removed. Thus the stupid mind of the governor, hateful to God, is fed by vain hopes, while the raging fury of beasts and the gluttonous voracity of wild animals was constrained by heavenly command, (and), not daring to devour the prey offered to it, closed up the gaping entrance of its gullet; just as the poet [i.e. Caelius Sedulius] said of the prophet,And they taught fierce lions to protect their prey. [Carm. Pasch. I. 203]In the end, Julian together with his other fellow-combatants, was ruthlessly struck down by a drawn sword and died blessedly, pouring out the ruby river of blood. When ten lepers came to the venerable tombs (of Julian and his companions), lepers whom the rough callousness of skin, defiling (them) with an elephantine disfigurement, had blotched not in a few places, but on every limb, having been in that very place reborn in baptism by the grace of a second nativity, they who when they were diseased were wrapped in linen and muslin are restored to health through the merits of the saints and depart, having obtained their wishes.'Text: Ehwald 1919, 280-84. Translation: Lapidge and Herren 1979, 99-102.

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