Homily XIX. is on the Forty Soldier Martyrs of Sebaste, who were ordered by the officers of Licinius, a.d. 320, to offer sacrifice to the heathen idols, and, at their refusal, were plunged for a whole night into a frozen pond in the city, in sight of a hot bath on the brink. One man’s faith and fortitude failed him. He rushed to the relief of the shore, plunged into the hot water, and died on the spot. One of the executioners had stood warming himself and watching the strange scene. He had seemed to see angels coming down from heaven and distributing gifts to all the band but one. When the sacred number of forty was for the moment broken the officer flung off his clothes, and sprang into the freezing pond with the cry, “I am a Christian.” Judas departed. Matthias took his place.…
What trouble wouldst thou not have taken to find one to pray for thee to the Lord! Here are forty, praying with one voice. Where two or three are gathered together in the name of the Lord, there is He in the midst. Who doubts His presence in the midst of forty? The afflicted flees to the Forty; the joyous hurries to them; the former, that he may find relief from his troubles; the latter, that his blessings may be preserved. Here a pious woman is found beseeching for her children; she begs for the return of her absent husband, or for his health if he be sick. Let your supplications be made with the martyrs. Let young men imitate their fellows. Let fathers pray to be fathers of like sons. Let mothers learn from a good mother. The mother of one of these saints saw the rest overcome by the cold, and her son, from his strength or his constancy, yet alive. The executioners had left him, on the chance of his having changed his mind. She herself lifted him in her arms, and placed him on the car in which the rest were being drawn to the pyre, a veritable martyr’s mother.
The last of the Panegyrical Homilies (XXIII.) is on Saint Mamas, commemorated on September 2 by the Greeks, and on August 17 by the Latins. He is said to have been a shepherd martyred at Cæsarea in 274 in the persecution of Aurelian. Sozomen (v. 2) relates that when the young princes Julian and Gallus were at the castle of Macellum they were engaged in building a church in the martyr’s honour, and that Julian’s share in the work never prospered. The homily narrates no details concerning the saint, and none seem to be known. It does contain a more direct mention of a practice of invocation. There is a charge to all who have enjoyed the martyr in dreams to remember him; to all who have met with him in the church, and have found him a helper in their prayers; to all those whom he has aided in their doings, when called on by name. The conclusion contains a summary of the Catholic doctrine concerning the Son. “You have been told before, and now you are being told again, ‘In the beginning was the Word,’ to prevent your supposing that the Son was a being generated after the manner of men, from His having come forth out of the non-existent. ‘Word’ is said to you, because of His impassibility. ‘Was’ is said because of His being beyond time. He says ‘beginning’ to conjoin the Begotten with His Father. You have seen how the obedient sheep hears a master’s voice. ‘In the beginning,’ and ‘was,’ and ‘Word.’ Do not go on to say, ‘How was He?’ and ‘If He was, He was not begotten;’ and ‘If He was begotten, He was not.’ It is not a sheep who says these things. The skin is a sheep’s; but the speaker within is a wolf. Let him be recognised as an enemy. ‘My sheep hear my voice.’ You have heard the Son. Understand His likeness to His Father. I say likeness because of the weakness of the stronger bodies: In truth, and I am not afraid of approaching the truth, I am no ready deceiver: I say identity, always preserving the distinct existence of Son and Father. In the hypostasis of Son understand the Father’s Form, that you may hold the exact doctrine of this Image,—that you may understand consistently with true religion the words, ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me.’ Understand not confusion of essences, but identity of characters.”