20 January 286 A.D. Saintly Sebastian Shot Through With Arrows: St. Sebastian Reads Tweets from Joel Osteen
Graves, Dan. “Saintly Sebastian Shot Through
With Arrows.” Christianity.com. May
2007. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1-300/saintly-sebastian-shot-full-of-arrows-11629629.html. Accessed 9 Jul 2014.
If you have taken a course in art history, or even
just flipped through a picture encyclopedia of famous paintings, chances are
you've seen the picture of a handsome young man bound to a stake and shot full
of arrows. That is Sebastian, who is commemorated on this
day, January 20, in various church calendars. Artists like Holbien,
Mantegna, Ribera and Veronese were fascinated with him. His was a rare case--he
was martyred twice.
Why was Sebastian treated so
cruelly? As with so many of the early saints, we have barely more than legend
to go on. The earliest accounts say that he was a respected soldier in the
armies of the Roman Emperor--perhaps even an officer in the Praetorian guard.
(The artists are misleading when they make him appear so young.) Although he
was not a clergyman, Sebastian used his many contacts to spread the story of
Jesus. When the army persecuted Christians, he secretly encouraged the converts to stand firm. Two of the
prisoners that he helped in this way were the twin brothers Marcus and
Marcellinus. Under torture, they were about to give in to the pleas of their
families and deny their faith when Sebastian urged them to stand fast and die
for Christ.
In 286, Roman persecution of
Christians grew severe. The bishop of Rome and many leading Christians went
into hiding, protected by a court officer who had become a Christian. A traitor
betrayed Sebastian to the emperor. Diocletian ordered his Mauretanian archers
to kill the bold soldier. They shot Sebastian many times and left him for dead.
A holy widow named Irene, whose
husband had been martyred earlier, came to bury Sebastian. She detected faint
breathing and took him home to nurse him. Sebastian recovered.
Most men would have seen all
they wanted of the cruel emperor. But Sebastian realized that Diocletian needed
to be warned of his soul's peril. Bravely he placed himself near a stairway
where he knew the emperor must pass. When Diocletian appeared, Sebastian called
to him, charging him with wrongdoing toward Christians.
Diocletian was startled at
seeing Sebastian still alive. For a moment he could not speak. Then, recovering
himself, he ordered the Christian soldier beaten to death. This time
Sebastian's body did not survive. He was thrown into a sewer. A Christian lady
named Lucina recovered the corpse and buried it in the catacombs. Damasus, who
became bishop of Rome in 366, less than a century later, built a church at the
site in Sebastian's honor.
Bibliography:
Butler, Alban. Lives of the Saints.
Loffler, Klemens. "St. Sebastian." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1914.
"Sebastian, St." The Oxford
Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by F. L. Cross and E. A.
Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
"St. Sebastian, M."
http://www.cin.org/saints/sebastn.html
Various other encyclopedia and internet articles.
Last updated May,
2007.
No comments:
Post a Comment