Besides
this he promised him a government, and other great offices, if he would
suffer himself to be initiated in the rites of the sun. The saint
replied that he could not answer the reproaches of Christ at the last
day, if he should prefer gold, or a whole empire, to his holy law; and
that he was ready to die. He received his crown by the sword, with his
companions, on the 14th of January, in the year 346, and of the reign of
king Sapor II. the thirty-seventh, at Ledan, in the province of the
Huzites. St. Maruthas, the author of his acts, adds, that Sapor,
resolving to extinguish utterly the Christian name in his empire,
published a new terrible edict, whereby he commanded every one to be
tortured and put to death who should refuse to adore the sun, to worship
fire and water, and to feed on the blood of living creatures.[1] The see
of Seleucia remained vacant twenty years, and innumerable martyrs
watered all the provinces of Persia with their blood. St. Maruthas was
not able to recover their names, but has left us a copious panegyric on
then heroic deeds, accompanied with the warmest sentiments of devotion,
and desires to be speedily united with them in glory. See Acta Mart.
Orient. per Steph. Assemani, t. 1, p. 3.

Footnotes:
1. The Christians observed for several ages, especially in the East,
the apostolic temporary precept of abstaining from blood. Acts, xv.
20. See Nat. Alexander Hist. Saec. 1, dissert 9.

{151}

JANUARY XV.

ST. PAUL, THE FIRST HERMIT.

From his life, compiled by St. Jerom, in 365. Pope Gelasius I., in his
learned Roman council, in 494, commends this authentic history. St. Paul
is also mentioned by Cassian, St. Fulgentius, Sulpitius Severus,
Sidonius, Paulinus, in the life of St. Ambrose, &c. St. Jerom received
this account from two disciples of St. Antony, Amathas and Macariux. St.
Athanasius says, that he only wrote what he had heard from St. Antony's
own mouth, or from his disciples; and desires others to add what they
know concerning his actions. On the various readings and MS. copies of
this life, see the disquisition of P. Jem{} de Prato, an oratorian of
Verona, in his new edition of the works of Sulpitius Severus, t. l, app.
2, p. 403. The Greek history of St. Paul the hermit, which Bollandus
imagines St. Jerom to have followed, is evidently posterior; and borrows
from him, as Jos. Assemani shows. Comm. In Calend. Univ. t. 6, p. 92.
See Gudij Epistolae, p. 278.

A.D. 34