Saint Julien d'Antioche
Martyr en Cilicie (4ème s.)
Il appartenait à une famille sénatoriale et vivait en Cilicie. Il avait dix-sept ans quand il refusa de sacrifier aux faux dieux et, pour avoir confessé la Vérité du Christ, il fut enfermé dans un sac plein de vipères et de scorpions et jeté à la mer.Saint Jean Chrysostomeprononça son panégyrique.
Fils d'un sénateur païen et d'une mère chrétienne, il fut élevé chrétiennement. Pendant la persécution de Dioclétien, il fut arrêté et refusa de renier Jésus-Christ. Durant son transfert à Anazarbe en Cilicie, il fut frappé tout au long du chemin puis enfermé dans un sac rempli de sable, de vipères et de scorpions, puis jeté à la mer devant le temple d'Asclepios. Saint Jean Chrysostome prononça en son honneur une admirable homélie.
À Anazarbe en Cilicie, au IVe siècle, saint Julien, martyr. Sous le préfet Marcien, il fut longtemps torturé; à la fin on l’enferma dans un sac avec des serpents et on le jeta à la mer.
Martyrologe romain
Julian of Antioch M (RM)
(also known as Julian of Anazarbus)
Born in Anazarbus, Cilicia; date unknown though some say c. 302. Saint Julian was a Christian of senatorial rank, who suffered under Diocletian. According to unreliable reports, Julian was subjected to brutal punishments, paraded daily for a whole year through various cities of Cilicia, then sewn up in a sack half-filled with scorpions and vipers, and cast into the sea to drown at an unknown location.
Antioch claimed to have recovered and enshrined his relics in the basilica, and Saint John Chrysostom preached a homily there in his honor. Chrysostom eloquently tells how much these sacred relics were honored, affirms that no devil could stand their presence, and that men were cured of physical and spiritual ills by them. The people of his time celebrated Saint Julian's feast with special devotion at Antioch (Attwater, Attwater2, Benedictines, Encyclopedia, Husenbeth).
Saint Julian is portrayed as being cast into the sea in a sack full of serpents and scorpions. He may also be shown (1) as his coffin floats with four angels seated on it or (2) led bound on a dromedary (Roeder).
March 16
St. Julian of Cilicia, Martyr
From the panegyric of St. Chrysostom, t. 2. p. 671. Ed. Ben. Tillem. t. 5. p. 573
THIS saint was a Cilician, of a senatorian family in Anazarbus, and a minister of the gospel. In the persecution of Dioclesian he fell into the hands of a judge, who, by his brutal behaviour, resembled more a wild beast than a man. The president, seeing his constancy proof against the sharpest torments, hoped to overcome him by the long continuance of his martyrdom. He caused him to be brought before his tribunal every day; sometimes he caressed him; at other times threatened him with a thousand tortures. For a whole year together he caused him to be dragged as a malefactor through all the towns of Cilicia, imagining that this shame and confusion might vanquish him: but it served only to increase the martyr’s glory, and gave him an opportunity of encouraging in the faith all the Christians of Cilicia by his example and exhortations. He suffered every kind of torture. The bloody executioners had torn his flesh, furrowed his sides, laid his bones bare, and exposed his very bowels to view. Scourges, fire, and the sword, were employed various ways to torment him with the utmost cruelty. The judge saw that to torment him longer was labouring to shake a rock, and was forced at length to own himself conquered by condemning him to death: in which, however, he studied to surpass his former cruelty. He was then at Ægea, a town on the sea-coast; and he caused the martyr to be sewed up in a sack with scorpions, serpents, and vipers, and so thrown into the sea. This was the Roman punishment for parricides, the worst of malefactors, yet seldom executed on them. Eusebius mentions, that St. Ulpian of Tyre suffered a like martyrdom, being thrown into the sea in a leather sack, together with a dog and an aspick. The sea gave back the body of our holy martyr, which the faithful conveyed to Alexandria of Cilicia, and afterwards to Antioch, where Saint Chrysostom pronounced his panegyric before his shrine. He eloquently sets forth how much these sacred relics were honoured; and affirms, that no devil could stand their presence, and that men by them found a remedy for their bodily distempers, and the cure of the evils of the soul.
The martyrs lost with joy their worldly honours, dignity, estates, friends, liberty, and lives, rather than forfeit for one moment their fidelity to God. They courageously bade defiance to pleasures and torments, to prosperity and adversity, to life and death, saying, with the apostle: “Who shall separate us from the love of Jesus Christ?” Crowns, sceptres, worldly riches, and pleasures, you have no charms which shall ever tempt me to depart in the least tittle from the allegiance which I owe to God. Alarming fears of the most dreadful evils, prisons, racks, fire, and death, in every shape of cruelty, you shall never shake my constancy. Nothing shall ever separate me from the love of Christ. This must be the sincere disposition of every Christian. Lying protestations of fidelity to God cost us nothing: but he sounds the heart. Is our constancy such as to bear evidence to our sincerity, that rather than to fail in the least duty to God we are ready to resist to blood? and that we are always upon our guard to keep our ears shut to the voices of those syrens who never cease to lay snares to our senses?
Rev. Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume III: March. The Lives of the Saints. 1866.
Saint Julian of Anazarbus
Also known as
- Julian of Antioch
- Julian of Tarsus
- Julian of Cilicia
- Giuliano….
Profile
Prominent citizen of senatorial rank. Arrested for his faith during the persecutions of Diocletian, he was tortured then put on display for abuse for a year in cities all over Cilicia, being led around behind a camel. Martyr. Praised by SaintJohn Chrysostom in a homily during the enshrinementof his relics.
Born
- Anazarbus, Cilicia (in modern Turkey)
- sewn into a sack full of vipers and scorpions, and thrown into the sea to drown c.302
- relics enshrined in Antioch
- man being thrown into the sea in a sack
- man in a coffin which is floating into shore and on which sits four angels
- man bound on a camel being led through the streets
Martyr Julian of Tarsus, in Cilicia
The Holy Martyr Julian of Tarsus was born in the Asia Minor province of Cilicia. He was the son of a pagan senator, but his mother was a Christian. After the death of her husband the mother of St Julian moved to Tarsus, where her son was baptized and raised in Christian piety. When Julian reached age 18, a persecution against Christians began under the emperor Diocletian (284-305). Among those arrested was St Julian. They brought him before the governor Marcian for trial, and for a long time they urged him to renounce Christ. Neither tortures nor threats, nor promises of gifts and honors could convince the pious youth to offer pagan sacrifice and deny Christ. The holy confessor remained steadfast in his firm faith.
For a whole year they led the martyr through the cities of Cilicia, everywhere subjecting him to interrogation and tortures, after which they threw him in prison. St Julian’s mother followed after her son and prayed that the Lord would strengthen him. In the city of Aegea, she besought the governor to permit her to visit the prison, ostensibly to persuade her son to offer sacrifice to idols. She spent three days in prison with St Julian, exhorting him to be strong until the end.
St Julian was again brought to stand before the governor. Thinking that the mother had persuaded her son to submit to the imperial decree, the governor began to praise her prudence. But suddenly she boldly confessed Jesus Christ, and even more fearlessly and boldly denounced polytheism. The governor then gave orders to cut off her feet, since she had accompanied her son from Tarsus. They tied the Martyr Julian into a sack, filled with sand and poisonous snakes, and threw it into the sea. The body of the sufferer was carried by the waves to the shores of Alexandria, and with reverence was buried by a certain pious Christian. The martyr’s death occurred in about the year 305. Afterwards his relics were transferred to Antioch. St John Chrysostom honored the holy Martyr Julian with an encomium.