Ælfric's Lives of Saints/Of Abdon and Sennes

by Ælfric

XXIV.

JULY 30. ABDON AND SENNES, KINGS.

In the days of Decius the diabolic emperor

there were two kings, Abdon and Sennes,

believing in Christ with true faith.

Then their fame reached the bloodthirsty emperor

who then ruled alone over the whole earth;

and all other kings kneeled to him,

and their dominion continued as he alone willed.

Then sent Decius to the aforesaid kings,

and bade that they should be brought in bonds to him,

desiring to turn them from God's service

to his errors and to his idolatries.

So then the executioners bound the kings,

and brought them in iron chains to the wicked [Decius],

for the faith of Christ, unto deadly tortures.

Then Decius bade the holy kings

to sacrifice to his gods, but they answered thus:

' We offer our sacrifices to the living God,

Jesus Christ, and we hope in Him;

do thou thyself sacrifice to thy shameful gods.'

Then said Decius, the devil's worshipper;

'For these men must be prepared the sharpest punishments.'

Abdon and Sennes answered him thus,

' For what waitest thou, Emperor? declare what thou wilt,

that thou mayest know of a truth that we are without care

through our Saviour Christ, who hath the power

utterly to overthrow thy counsels and thyself,

and to destroy [thee] for ever.'

Then on the second day the emperor Decius bade men

let loose lions and bears against the believing kings,

that they might devour them unless they would submit to his gods,

and committed this duty to the cruel Valerian,

Then spake Valerian to the kings thus,

' Preserve your rank, and submit to our gods,

and offer them sacrifice that ye may live;

if ye will not do this, beasts shall devour you.'

Abdon and Sennes said to the wicked man,

'We pray to the Lord with bowed limbs,

and we will never bow down to the shameful images

of men's handiwork, which ye have for gods.*

Then Valerian bade men unclothe the saints,

and bring them thus naked to the image of the sun,

because they worshipped the sun as God;

and commanded his soldiers to compel the Christian kings,

by awful tortures, to offer the sacrifice.

Then spake the kings to the executioner thus;

'Do that thou wilt do.' And the judge bade him

to scourge the saints very furiously

with leaden whips, and he led them afterwards

to the amphitheatre where the beasts abode,

bears and Lions, who were to devour them;

and bade men let loose upon them two lions

and four bears within the theatre.

Then ran the beasts, awfully roaring,

to the Saints' feet, as if they prayed for protection,

and would not go away; but they protected them rather,

so that no man durst, by reason of the beasts' guard,

approach the Saints or go into the arena.

Then spake Valerian to the soldiers thus,

'Their sorcery is manifestly seen in this.'

And he was very wrath on account of the beasts' guardianship,

and at last bade the heathen executioners

go in with swords and slay the Saints.

When this was done, the judge bade men draw

the Saints' bodies to the idol,

that the Christians might behold

and take warning by them, and bow to the gods,

lest they should be as cruelly killed.

Then after three days came a certain deacon to that place,

called Quirinus, and he took the holy bodies

by night, and brought them to his house,

and laid them secretly in a leaden coffin,

with great reverence, and there they lay,

concealed from men, for a long time, until Constantine,

the Christian emperor, afterwards succeeded to the kingdom;

and they were then found through Christ's revelation.

Ye have now heard how the holy kings

renounced their kingdom for the faith of Christ,

and gave up their own lives for Him.

Take you example thereby that ye turn not from Christ

for any hardness, that ye may have the eternal life.

The letter of Cheist to Abgarus.

Now we are speaking about kings, we will lengthen this discourse,

and tell you yet about a certain king, who was named Abgarus,

a certain blessed king in the Syrian land.

He lay bedridden at the very time

when our Saviour Christ was in this life.

He had enquired concerning our Saviour's miracles,

and sent thereupon speedily to him this letter:

'Abgarus greeteth humbly the good Saviour

who hath come to men amid the Jewish people.

I have heard concerning Thee how Thou healest the sick,

blind, and halt, and raisest the bedridden,

[how] Thou cleanest lepers, and puttest to flight unclean spirits

out of men possessed, and awakest the dead.

Now I said in my mind that Thou art Almighty God,

or God's Son, who Thyself hast come to men,

that Thou mayest work these wonders, and I would pray Thee

that Thou wouldst vouchsafe Thyself to journey to me

and heal my infirmity, because I am evilly afflicted.

It is also told me that the Jewish people lay snares,

and conspire among themselves how they may dispossess Thee;

and I have a city which will suffice for us both.'

Then the Saviour Himself wrote this letter,

and sent it to the king, thus saying to him;

' Beatus es qui credidisti in me, cum ipse me non uideris,

Scrictum est enim de me, quia hii qui me uident non credent

in me, et qui non uident me, ijpsi credent et uiuent.

De eo autem quod scrijysisti mihi, ut ueniam ad te,

oportet me omnia propter quae missus sum hie explere;

et postea quam connpleuero, recipi me ad eum a quo missus sum.

Cum ergo fuero assum,ptus, mittam tihi aliquem,

ex discipulis meis, ut curet cegritudinem tuam,

et uitam tihi atque his qui tecum sunt prestet.

That is, in the English language, ' Blessed art thou, Abgar,

thou who believedst on Me when thou hadst not seen Me.

It is written concerning Me in the books of prophecy,

that they who see Me will not believe in Me,

and they who see Me not will believe and live.

Concerning that which thou has written to Me that I should come to thee,

I must first fulfil the things for which I am sent,

and I must afterward be taken to the same who sent Me;

and I will send to thee after I am taken up

one of my disciples who shall heal thy infirmity,

and prepare [eternal] life for thee and those that believe with thee.'

Then this letter came straightway to the king,

and the Saviour provided, after He had ascended to Heaven,

that He should send to the king, as He had before spoken,

one of the seventy whom He had chosen to preach,

who was called Thaddeus, that he might heal the king.

He came then, by God's commission, to the aforesaid city,

and healed the afflicted king in the Saviour's might,

so that the citizens greatly wondered thereat.

Then the king remembered what Christ had before promised him,

and bade men fetch to him the aforesaid Thaddeus,

who was also called by a second name, Judas.

And when he entered, then arose the king

and fell at his feet before his thanes,

because he saw a shining brightness

on the face of Judas through God's revelation,

and said that he was verily Christ's disciple

sent to heal him, even as He himself had promised.

Then Thaddeus answered the venerable king thus,

'Because thou hast rightly believed on Him who sent me,

therefore am I sent to thee that thou mayest be whole;

and, if thou continuest in His faith. He will grant thee

thy heart's desires besides thy health.'

Abgarus answered him steadfastly, and said,

'To that degree I believe on the living Saviour

that I would slay, if so it might be,

those who fastened Him on the gibbet of the cross.'

Then Thaddeus said to him, 'Christ our Saviour desired

to fulfil His Father's will, and again to go to Him.'

Abgarus said to him again, 'I know all about that,

and I believe in Him, and in His holy Father.'

Thaddeus said yet again to the sick king,

'Therefore I lay my hand in the name of Jesus

upon thee, sick man.' And he [moreover] did so,

and the king was healed, as soon as he touched him,

from all his sicknesses which he had before suffered.

Abgarus then marvelled, that he had been healed

without medicine through the Saviour's word,

even as He had before promised him by His letter.

Thaddeus likewise healed afterwards a certain man

of a great disease in his feet, and healed many other men

in that city, and preached the faith to them.

Then said Abgarus to him, 'In Christ's might

thou workest these great wonders, and we all marvel thereat.

Tell me, I pray thee, truly concerning the Saviour

how He came to men and departed from the world.'

Thaddeus answered Abgarus and said,

'I am sent to preach; bid thy citizens come

all together at early morning

that I may declare to them all Christ's advent,

and [speak] concerning His wonders which He wrought in life.'

Then the king bade the men of his city come,

and Thaddeus preached to them boldly concerning Christ,

and told all of them the true faith,

and the redemption of mankind through the mild Saviour;

that He had willed to give Himself to death,

and to descend into hell to help Adam,

and likewise His elect of Adam's kin,

and how He afterward ascended to His righteous Father,

and shall come again to judge every man according to his deeds.

After this preaching the king offered the preacher

a good portion of gold and of silver as a gift,

but he would take nothing as meed

for his wonderful power, or his mighty preaching;

and said to the king; 'We have forsaken our possessions

and have abandoned our own, why should we take those of another man?'

This was thus accomplished, and thereafter the true faith

ever continued in that nation,

to the praise of the Saviour who liveth ever in eternity. Amen.