The Passion of Montanus and Lucius

1Dearest brothers, our struggle lies before you, so that you say the servants of God and his Christ have nothing else to do but think of the multitude of the brothers. That love and that duty have driven us, by their own force and reason, to write this letter, so that for the brothers who come after us we may leave a faithful testimony to the greatness of God and a remembrance of our labors and our endurance for the Lord.

After the mob uproar that the governor's fierce face stirred toward killing, and after the bitter persecution of Christians on the following day, crooked violence seized us: Lucius, Montanus, Flavian, Julian, Victoricus, Primolus, Renus, and Donatian, a person preparing for baptism. Baptized in prison, Donatian immediately gave up his spirit, hastening by an unstained path from the baptism of water to the crown of martyrdom. A like completion met Primolus as well, for the testimony he had given a few months earlier had baptized him.

2Once we had been seized and placed in custody under guard, we heard soldiers announce the governor's sentence, that yesterday he threatened to burn our bodies. For as we later learned with complete certainty, he had meant to burn us alive. But the Lord, who alone can rescue his servants from the fire (Daniel 3), in whose hand are the words and the hearts of the king, turned the governor's raging cruelty away from us. We gave ourselves to constant prayer with total faith, and we received at once what we asked: the fire kindled almost to destroy our flesh was extinguished, and the flame of the burning furnaces was lulled to sleep by the dew of the Lord. To believers it was not hard to trust that new wonders could reach back to the ancient examples, since the Lord promises through the Spirit that he who worked this wonder in the three young men would win his victory in us too.

Then, broken as the Lord stood against his purpose, he ordered us to be sent to prison. Soldiers led us there, and we did not fear the foul darkness of that place. Soon the dark prison shone bright as the Spirit shone through it, and against the ugliness of the gloom and the blind night wrapped around us, faithful devotion clothed us in white light like day. We were climbing to the highest place of punishment as if we were climbing into heaven. What days we spent there, what nights we endured, no words can describe. No account can capture the torments of prison, yet we do not hesitate to call that place cruel as it truly is. For where trial is great, greater still is he who conquers it in us. There is no battle, because with the Lord protecting us there is victory. Even to be killed is a light thing for the servants of God, and so death is nothing, for the Lord crushed its stings and defeated its assault and triumphed through the trophy of the cross. There is also no call for arms except when a soldier must be armed, and he is armed only when an encounter comes. So too our crowns hold reward because struggle came first, and no palm is given unless the encounter is fought to the end. After a few days we were refreshed by a visit from the brothers, for the comfort and joy of daytime took away every hardship of the night.

3Then Renus, who was with us, fell asleep, and in his sleep he was shown each of us being led out one by one, with a single lamp carried before each person as he came forward; if no lamp went before someone, he did not come forward either. When we ourselves came forward with our lamps, Renus woke up. When he told us what he had seen, we rejoiced, because we trusted that we walk with Christ, who is a lamp to our feet (Psalm 119:105 (LXX 118:105)) and who is the Word of God.

After that night we spent a bright and joyful day. That same day we were suddenly seized and brought before the procurator, who was administering the place of the dead proconsul. O happy day, O glory of chains! O chain longed for with every prayer! O iron more honorable and more precious than the finest gold! O clatter of iron as it rang while iron dragged against iron! Our talking together was a comfort for what lay ahead, and so that we would not enjoy this delight too slowly, soldiers who did not know where the governor wanted to hear us marched us back and forth all through the forum. Then he called us into the private chamber, because the hour of our suffering had not yet come. So with the devil thrown down, we returned to prison as victors, kept back for another victory.

Defeated in that battle, the devil turned to other tricks and tried to wear us down with hunger and thirst, and for many days he fought this battle of his with all his force, so that, which is just what the Adversary expected to accomplish, a crowd of the sick was left struggling on the bare state ration and cold water.

4Yet this toil, this lack, this time of need reached to God, dearest brothers. For the One who willed us to be tested Himself showed that we should have encouragement in the very testing. For this was shown to Victor the presbyter, our fellow martyr, who suffered immediately after this same vision. Victor says, "I saw a boy come in here to the prison, whose face shone bright beyond unspeakable splendor. He was leading us through every place so that we could go out, yet we could not leave."

The boy said to Victor, "You still toil a little, because now you are held back. But take courage, for I am with you." He also added, "Tell them: You will have a more glorious crown." He also said, "To his God the spirit hastens, and the soul now close to suffering has sought out its own dwelling." For Victor asked this same Lord where paradise is. The Lord said to him, "It is outside the world." Victor said, "Show it to me." And the Lord said to him, "And where will faith be?" When Victor said this from littleness of human weakness, "What you bid me hold I cannot hold, tell me a sign I may tell them," the Lord answered him and said, "Tell them the sign of Jacob." We must rejoice, dearest brothers, that we can be made equal to the patriarchs, if not in righteousness, at least in toils.

But He who said, "Call on me in the day of hardship, and I will rescue you, and you will glorify me" (Psalm 50:15 (LXX 49:15)), turned toward His own glorification, and after the prayers made to Him He remembered us, first announcing the gift of His mercy. For concerning this He showed it to our sister Quartillosia, who is placed here with us, whose husband and son had suffered three days earlier. She also, remaining here, swiftly followed her kin. She set out what she saw in this way. Quartillosia says, "I saw my son, who suffered, come here to the prison. He sat on the rim of the water basin and said, 'God has seen your hardship and your toil.'"

Quartillosia says that after him a youth of wondrous size came in, carrying two bowls full of milk, one in each hand, and said, "Be of good courage, God has remembered you." From the bowls he carried he gave them all to drink, and the bowls did not run dry. And suddenly the middle stone that divided the window was taken away, and with the middle removed the bright windows admitted the open face of the sky. And that youth set down the bowls he carried, one to the right and the other to the left, and said, "See, you are filled and there is abundance, and a third bowl will still come to you." And he departed.

5The next day after this vision we waited for the hour when the prison allowance would be carried in, and it was no food but want and need. We had no food left at all, for we had gone without eating the day before as well.

But as drink comes to the thirsty, food to the hungry, and martyrdom to those who long for it, so the Lord gave relief to our toils through our dearest Lucian. He broke through the hardest barrier of chains and, as if through two bowls, served unfailing nourishment to us all through Herennian the subdeacon and Januarius, a person preparing for baptism. That help held up the sick and those utterly worn out, and it even called back from weakness those who had already fallen ill through that same hardship, that is through the misery of the bare floor and the cold water. For his most glorious works we all give thanks before God.

6Now, dearest brothers, something must also be said about the love we have for one another. We are not instructing you but reminding you, for as we were of one mind together, so we also live as one before the Lord and pray as one. The unity of love must be held fast, and we must cling to the bonds of love. Then the devil is thrown to the ground, and then whatever we ask is received from the Lord, for he himself promises and says, "If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask from my Father, it will be yours" (Matthew 18:19).

Nor can we receive eternal life and reign with Christ in any other way, unless we do what he commanded to be done, he who promised both life and the kingdom. The Lord himself declares by his own teaching that those who have kept peace with their brothers attain the inheritance of God, when he says, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God" (Matthew 5:9). The apostle explains this when he says, "We are children of God, and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified together with him" (Romans 8:16-17).

So if no one can be an heir except as a child, and no one is a child except as a peacemaker, whoever breaks the peace of God will not be able to hold the inheritance of God. And we do not say this as people who have not been warned, nor do we urge it without a divine showing.

7Montanus had already had several conversations with Julian about the woman who had crept secretly into our communion and who was not communicating. Even after the rebuke Montanus had heaped upon him, Julian had remained in that very cold of discord. That same night this was shown to Montanus.

Montanus tells it this way: "Centurions came to us, and as they led us along a long road we reached an immense plain. There Cyprian and Leucius met us. Then we reached a shining white place. Our garments were made white, and our flesh was changed to something whiter than our white garments. Our flesh became so translucent that the eye could see into the depths of the heart. When I looked at my own breast, I saw some stains, and I woke within the vision. Then Lucian met me. I told him the vision and said to him, 'Do you know that those stains mean that I did not come to unity with Julian at once?' And at that I woke."

So, dearest brothers, let us hold unity, peace, and unanimity with all our strength. Let us already imitate here what we are to be there. If the rewards promised to the righteous invite us, if the punishment foretold for the unrighteous terrifies us, and if we desire to be with Christ and to reign with him, let us do the things that lead to Christ and to the kingdom. We wish you well.

8They all wrote this together from prison. But the whole record of the blessed martyrs had to be set out fully. They themselves had said too little about themselves out of modesty, and Flavian had also laid this task on us in private, to add whatever was missing from their letter. So we have added below the rest that was needed.

They had been shut up for many months and had borne the pains of prison, suffering hunger and thirst for a long time. Then at last, late in the day, they were ordered to be led out and brought to the governor's court. All of them gave testimony with a glorious voice. But Flavian's assistant protested out of a perverse love, denying that Flavian was a deacon, though he made the same testimony as the others, that is Lucius, Montanus, Julian, and Victoricus. Sentence was pronounced, and Flavian was received back again.

Flavian had every reason for grief, since he had been separated from so good a company. Yet in the faith and devotion he had lived by, he believed that what was happening was what God willed, and wise devotion tempered the sorrow of his lonely abandonment. As he put it, "The king's heart is in the hand of God (Proverbs 21:1), so what reason is there for grief, or why should I be angry with a man who says only what he is commanded to say?" But we will tell more about Flavian later.

9Meanwhile the rest were led to the place of the sacrifice. People streamed together from every side, outsiders as well as all the brothers. Although they were already devoted to the other witnesses of God, for the sake of the religion and faith they had learned when Cyprian taught them, they now gathered with fuller service and in greater numbers. There you could see the martyrs of Christ, the brightness of their faces testifying to the joy of their glory. Even if they had said nothing, they could have called the rest to follow their courage. But words were not lacking either, for each of them strengthened the people with his urging. Lucius, besides his inborn gentleness and his upright and modest reserve, had also been broken by serious illness and the hardship of prison. So he went ahead alone with fewer companions, lest the crush of too great a crowd hinder the shedding of blood. Yet he too did not keep silent, but taught his companions as best he could. When the brothers said to him, "Remember us," Lucius says, "You remember me." What humility in a martyr, to claim nothing for his own glory even in the very moment of suffering! Julian and Victoricus also, after long urging peace upon the brothers and commending all the clergy, especially those who had visited them in the hunger of prison, came to the place of suffering with joy and without fear.

10But Montanus was strong in body and mind. Even before his martyrdom he had won glory, for he always said whatever the truth demanded, firmly and boldly, without favoring any person. Now he grew greater as his martyrdom drew near, and he cried out with a prophetic voice: "He who sacrifices to gods will be rooted out unless to the Lord alone" (Exodus 22:20). He repeated this again and again, pressing and driving home that once God is abandoned, no one is permitted to turn to images and figures made by hands.

He also beat back the pride and shameless defiance of breakaway Christians, calling on them to recognize from the very number of martyrs the truth of the Church, to which they ought to return. Then he checked the headlong haste of those who gave in under pressure. He put off their bargaining for peace until full repentance and the judgment of Christ. He also urged those who still stood whole to guard their wholeness. "Stand firm, brothers, and serve steadfastly as soldiers," he said. "You have examples before you. Do not let the treachery of those who gave in under pressure drag you down to ruin, but let our endurance build you up toward the crown."

He urged each virgin separately to guard her holiness. As a rule he taught everyone to honor their leaders. To the leaders themselves he pressed the unity of peace, saying nothing is better than leaders of one mind. Only then, he said, could the people be stirred to obey the priests and be quickened into the bond of love, if the rulers of the people kept peace. This is what it means to suffer for Christ, to imitate Christ even by the example of speech, and it is the greatest proof of faith. O great example for belief!