How Did Saint Mark Become the Patron of Venice?

Detail from the central lunette of the Basilica of Saint Mark in Venice showing
the translation of Saint Mark's relics, ca. 13th century AD.

April 25 is the feast day of Saint Mark the Evangelist, a well-known figure in Apostolic times who is mentioned throughout the New Testament. An excellent summary of these numerous mentions may be found in the Catholic Encyclopedia entry for Saint Mark. He is perhaps best known as a companion and interpreter of Saint Peter while the latter was in Rome, and it is theorized that his Gospel account represents the viewpoint of Peter with regard to the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. He is mentioned by name by Saint Peter in his first letter. [1 Peter 5:13].

A somewhat later tradition, bolstered by the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius and On Illustrious Men of Saint Jerome, makes Saint Mark the founder of the Church in Alexandria, the second great metropolis of the Roman Empire. In the legendary Acts of Saint Mark, probably written in the mid-4th century AD, he is portrayed as a martyr for the faith. Following is an excerpt from this work which also supplies us with the date of his death:

It happened [that] our blessed feast of Passover fell on the holy Sunday, Pharmouthi 29th, from the eighth Kalend of May, i.e., April 24th, which coincided with the festive procession of Serapis. Finding such an opportune moment, [the pagans] deployed spies. They fell upon [Saint Mark] saying prayers of the divine offering. And seizing him, they threw a mooring rope around his neck and dragged him, saying, “Let us drag the antelope to [the places of the] Boukalou.”

But while the holy Mark was being dragged along, he offered up thankgiving to the savior Christ, saying, “I thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, that I have been counted worthy to suffer these things on behalf of your name.” And his flesh was falling to the ground, and the stones were stained with his blood.

This painting by Jacopo Tintoretto is identified
as the bringing of St. Mark's Body to Venice.
But it may in fact be a representation of the
rescue of his body after his martyrdom.

Badly injured, he was thrown in prison. There, Mark experienced a vision of an angel and later of Jesus himself, who said to him: “Peace to you, our own Mark, my evangelist.” Mark replied: “Peace to you, my Lord Jesus Christ.” The next day, the multitude of pagans returned and completed the saint’s martyrdom, apparently dragging his body through the city until he perished. The mob then attempted to burn the remains, but a great storm arose and they were forced to abandon the corpse which was then taken up by the Christians and buried. They laid him in a tomb “in the eastern section” of Alexandria, and subsequently valued him as the “first treasure in Alexandria.”

The full account may be read at Roger Pearse’s blog here. It may be noted that this type of mob violence was apparently not abnormal behavior in ancient Alexandria.

The Doge of Venice kneels before a
winged lion—the symbol of St. Mark. 

About eight hundred years later, the remains of Saint Mark were removed from Alexandria and sent to their present resting place in Venice, Italy. This event is described in a Medieval source of questionable authenticity known as the Traslatio Sancti Marci. Here we read that two Venetian merchants, Bonus and Rusticus, arrived in Alexandria and found out that the Church of Saint Mark had been condemned by the Islamic Arab overlords of the country so that its columns and décor might be used in the construction of a new palace. The Greek priests in charge, Stauricius and Theodorus, were in despair at the expectation that their church would be destroyed and the relics of their saint along with it. The two Venetians suggested an alternative. Why not transfer the relics of Saint Mark to the safety of Venice where he had preached at nearby Aquileia when in the flesh? When the Greeks balked, the Venetians offered them safe passage back to Venice so that they might remain as guardians of Saint Mark’s relics.

Getting the relics out of Alexandria was tricky business, however. Not only would the Christian community be outraged, but the Muslim lords had absolutely forbidden the removal of relics from the city. To get around the first problem, the conspirators replaced the body of Saint Mark with that of Saint Claudia which was apparently nearby. To get by the inspectors at the port, they concealed the corpse under slabs of pork—a meat considered unclean to Muslims.

Muslim customs officials are repulsed at the sight and smell of pork in this mosaic
from one of the lunettes on the facade of St. Mark's Basilica, Venice.

The conspirators then embarked upon the long and dangerous voyage home, experiencing miracles along the way. When approaching Venice, they worried that the Doge would punish them for visiting Alexandria illegally. Not surprisingly, the Doge was delighted with their arrival when he learned that they had secured the relics of a saint as eminent as the evangelist Mark. Shortly thereafter, Saint Mark would become the patron of the city with a magnificent, glittering basilica built by wealthy Venice as a fitting shrine for his relics.

[The above account was summarized from Geary: Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages - Revised Edition]

"They seized her and knocked out all her teeth" ~ The martyrdom of Saint Apollonia and the persecution of Decius in Alexandria

The Martyrdom of Saint Apollonia, taken from Shea's Pictorial Lives of the Saints.

Apollonia was an elderly matron who lived in Roman Alexandria. She is remembered nearly 1, 800 years after her death because she was one of the victims of mob attacks on Christians in Alexandria which immediately preceded the empire-wide persecution under the emperor Decius in AD 250. Her memory is commemorated by Catholics and Orthodox Christians on her feast day—February 9.

The Roman Emperor Decius reigned for two years from AD 249 through 251. A would-be reformer, Decius attempted to reinstitute pagan piety throughout the empire as a means of restoring political order and unity. To accomplish this, Decius issued an edict that enjoined all citizens of the empire to offer sacrifice to the pagan pantheon. Once a citizen had offered this obligatory sacrifice, they would be issued a document known as a libellus to certify that they had done so.

A marble bust of Decius.

Examples of libelli from this period have survived antiquity. Following is one from Roman Egypt:

To the commissioners of the village of Alexandrou-Nesos, elected to superintend the sacrifices. From Aurelius Diogenes, son of Satabos, of the village of Alexandrou-Nesos, aged seventy-two years, with a scar on his right eyebrow.

I have at all times offered sacrifices to the gods, and now again in accordance with the edict in your presence I have again made sacrifice and libations and partaken of the sacred offerings, and I request you certify this statement. May you prosper. I, Aurelius Diogenes, have presented this application.

I, Aurelius Syros, have witnessed your sacrifice.

The first year of the Emperor Cæsar Gaius Messius Quintus Trajanus Decius, pious and prosperous, Augustus, on the second of the month Epiphi.

Clearly, a Christian could not do what was necessary to receive such a certificate. The result was the outbreak of the first empire-wide persecution of Christians. This persecution was apparently prosecuted with great vigor in Alexandria, a city with a long history of moral corruption as Saint Clement of Alexandria opined in a previous post. Alexandria was also well known in antiquity for outbreaks of political and religious violence, as per the observations of Ammianus Marcellinus, Socrates Scholasticus and Hermias Sozomen.

For the Decian persecution as it relates to Alexandria, we have an amazing first-hand account from Saint Dionysius, patriarch of Alexandria (AD 248-264) in the form of a letter to his colleague Fabian, bishop of Antioch, saved for posterity by Eusebius Pamphilus in his Ecclesiastical History. It is within this account that we find a brief notice of the martyrdom of Saint Apollonia.

Engraving of St. Dionysius
of Alexandria.

Dionysius’s description begins with a note indicating that attacks against the Christians actually anticipated the arrival of the imperial edict:

The persecution did not begin amongst us with the Imperial edict, for it anticipated that by a whole year. And the prophet and poet of evil to this city, whoever he was, was beforehand in moving and exciting the heathen crowds against us, rekindling their zeal for the national superstitions. So they being aroused by him and availing themselves of all lawful authority for their unholy doings conceived that the only piety, the proper worship of their gods was this—to thirst for our blood.

Dionysius then goes on to record a litany of outrages committed against Christians whose only crime was refusing to deny Christ and worship the pagan gods:

First, then they carried off an old man, Metras, and bade him utter impious words, and when he refused they beat his body with sticks and stabbed his face and eyes with sharp bulrushes as they led him into the outskirts of the city and there stoned him.

Then they led a believer named Quinta to the idol-house and tried to make her kneel down, and when she turned away in disgust, they bound her by the feet and hauled her right through the city over the rough pavement, the big stones bruising her poor body, and at the same time beat her till they reached the same spot, and there stoned her.

Thereupon they all with one consent made a rush on the houses of the believers, and falling each upon those whom they recognized as neighbors, plundered, harried and despoiled them, setting aside the more valuable of their possessions and casting out into the streets and burning the cheaper things and such as were made of wood, till they produced the appearance of a city devastated by the enemy.

We then get to the case of Saint Apollonia. The events of her martyrdom would later be embellished with legendary elements, but given that Dionysius is a contemporary, we may trust that his account represents the bare facts:

Another notable case was that of the aged virgin Apollonia, whom they seized and knocked out all her teeth, striking her on the jaws. Then they made a pyre before the city and threatened to burn her alive if she would not join them in uttering blasphemies. But she asked for a brief respite, and being let go, suddenly leapt into the fire and was devoured by the flames.

Subsequent political unrest in the city caused the Christian community to be forgotten for a short time. However, when the imperial edict of Decius finally arrived, the persecution broke out again in Alexandria with renewed ferocity. The imperial imprimatur on the actions of the persecutors apparently convinced numerous Christians to become apostate. Dionysius continues:

The edict arrived, which was itself almost to be compared with that foretold by the Lord, well-nigh the most terrible of all, so as to cause, if possible, even the elect to stumble. Nevertheless all were panic-stricken, and numbers at once of those who were in higher positions, some came forward in fear, and some who held public posts were led by their official duties. Others, again, were brought in by those about them and when their names were called, approached the impure and unholy sacrifices, pale and trembling in some cases as if they were not going to sacrifice but themselves become sacrifices and victims to the idols, so that they incurred ridicule from the large crowd that stood by and proved themselves to be utter cowards both in regard to death and in regard to sacrificing, whilst others ran readily up to the altar, making it plain by their forwardness that they had not been Christians even before.

However, there were still plenty of stout souls who resisted the imperial will with admirable fortitude. Here Dionysius offers another litany of those who suffered martyrdom, including the following:

But the steadfast and blessed pillars of the Lord, being strengthened by Him and receiving due and proportionate power and endurance for the mighty Faith that was in them, proved themselves admirable witnesses of His Kingdom. Foremost among them was Julian, a sufferer from gout, unable to stand or walk. He was brought up with two others who carried him, of whom the one straightway denied the Faith. The other, Cronion by name, but surnamed Eunous (well-disposed) and the old man Julian himself confessed the Lord and were conveyed on camel’s back and scourged as they rode right through the city—big though it be, as ye know—and at last were burnt with fire unquenchable, whilst all the people stood round. And a soldier who stood by as they were carried along and protested against those who insulted them was denounced and brought up, to wit God’s brave warrior Besas, and after heroic conduct in the great war of piety, was beheaded.

And yet another, a Libyan by race, who rightly and happily was named Mauar (happy), though the judge urged him strongly to renounce the Faith, would not give in and so was burnt alive. After them Epimachus and Alexander, when they had remained a long time in bonds and had endured endless tortures from the “claws” and scourges, were also consumed with fire unquenchable. And with them four women: Ammonarion, a holy virgin, though the judge tortured her vigorously for a long time because she had declared beforehand that she would say nothing that he bade her, kept true to her promise and was led off to punishment. And of the rest there was the aged and reverend Mercuria and Dionysia who, though she had many children, did not love them above the Lord. These the Prefect was ashamed to go on torturing in vain and be beaten by women, and so they died by the sword without further tortures, for the brave Ammonarion had exhausted all their devices.

Dionysius goes on to describe several more martyrdoms in similar detail. Finishing up his account, he makes it clear that these are only a fraction of those who perished in Alexandria during the persecution:

And these things I have described at length, brother, not without purpose, but in order that thou mightest know how many terrible things have taken place amongst us, of which those who have had more experience will know of more cases than I do.

Dionysius himself was pursued by the prefect Sabinus. He was eventually captured, imprisoned and sent into exile. He would later be released from captivity by the emperor Gallienus who came to the throne in AD 253.

As for Decius, his short and violent reign came to a fitting end as he was defeated and slain by the Goths at the Battle of Abritus in AD 251. Writing about 60 years later, the Christian apologist Lactantius describes Decius’s death in his work entitled, On the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died:

Click for more info.

[Decius] was suddenly surrounded by the barbarians and slain, together with a great part of his army. Nor could he be honored with the rites of sepulture, but stripped and naked, he lay to be devoured by wild beasts and birds—a fit end for the enemy of God.”

All of the above excerpts (including the libellus, excerpts from Dionysius and Lactantius) were taken from I Am a Christian: Authentic Accounts of Christian Martyrdom and Persecution from the Ancient Sources which is a collection of some of the best ancient sources on the persecution of the early Church. This book includes additional details from the letter of Dionysius as well as other accounts related to the persecution of Decius, and is well worth reading if you are interested in the early Christian martyrs.

"Luxury has deranged all things" ~ Saint Clement of Alexandria on living as a Christian in a decadent culture

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“The man who would be beautiful must adorn that which is the most beautiful thing in man—his mind—which every day he ought to exhibit in greater comeliness. He should pluck out not hairs, but lusts.” 

~Saint Clement of Alexandria

Today, December 4, is the feast of Saint Clement of Alexandria who, though little remembered today, was lauded in antiquity for his combination of erudition and sanctity. Theodoret, the Christian historian of the mid-5th century, deemed Clement a man who, "surpassed all others and was a holy man." Saint Jerome included Clement in his work, On Illustrious Men, saying, "he is the author of notable volumes, full of eloquence and learning, both in sacred Scripture and in secular literature."

The life of Clement, whose full name was Titus Flavius Clemens, straddled the late 2nd and early 3rd century AD. He was a pagan philosopher in his younger days, but like his near contemporary, Justin Martyr, he converted to Christianity and was soon recognized for his brilliance. He became the head of the Christian school in Alexandria where several of his pupils would go on to have noteworthy careers as churchmen and Christian apologists. Origen is, perhaps, the foremost among Clement's students. For more detail on Clement's life and his writings, click here.

The above quote comes from one of the surviving works of Saint Clement of Alexandria entitled The Paedagogus (otherwise, The Tutor). In this work, Clement provides a manual for the newly converted on how to live a proper Christian life in the morally squalid culture of the Roman-Egyptian east. Here is the quote, which comes from a chapter entitled, "On men who embellish themselves," with some additional context:

"No one who entertains right sentiments would wish to appear a fornicator, were he not the victim of that vice, and study to defame the beauty of his form. No one would, I say, voluntarily choose to do this. For if God foreknew those who are called, according to His purpose, to be conformed to the image of His Son, for whose sake, according to the blessed apostle, 'He has appointed Him to be the first-born among many brethren,' [Romans 8:28-29] are they not godless who treat with indignity the body which is of like form with the Lord?

"The man, who would be beautiful, must adorn that which is the most beautiful thing in man, his mind, which every day he ought to exhibit in greater comeliness; and should pluck out not hairs, but lusts. I pity the boys possessed by the slave-dealers, that are decked for dishonor. But they are not treated with ignominy by themselves, but by command the wretches are adorned for base gain. But how disgusting are those who willingly practice the things to which, if compelled, they would if they were men die rather than do?

"But life has reached this pitch of licentiousness through the wantonness of wickedness, and lasciviousness is diffused over the cities, having become law. Beside them women stand in the stews, offering their own flesh for hire for lewd pleasure, and boys, taught to deny their sex, act the part of women.

"Luxury has deranged all things; it has disgraced man. A luxurious niceness seeks everything, attempts everything, forces everything, coerces nature. Men play the part of women, and women that of men, contrary to nature. Women are at once wives and husbands: no passage is closed against libidinousness, and their promiscuous lechery is a public institution, and luxury is domesticated. O miserable spectacle! Horrible conduct! Such are the trophies of your social licentiousness which are exhibited: the evidence of these deeds are the prostitutes. Alas for such wickedness! Besides, the wretches know not how many tragedies the uncertainty of intercourse produces. For fathers, unmindful of children of theirs that have been exposed, often without their knowledge, have intercourse with a son that has debauched himself, and daughters that are prostitutes; and licence in lust shows them to be the men that have begotten them.

"These things your wise laws allow. People may sin legally, and the execrable indulgence in pleasure they call a thing indifferent. They who commit adultery against nature think themselves free from adultery. Avenging justice follows their audacious deeds, and, dragging on themselves inevitable calamity, they purchase death for a small sum of money. The miserable dealers in these wares sail, bringing a cargo of fornication, like wine or oil. And others, far more wretched, traffic in pleasures as they do in bread and sauce, not heeding the words of Moses, 'Do not prostitute your daughter, to cause her to be a whore, lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness.'" [Leviticus 19:29]

Clement of Alexandria, The Paedagogus, Book III, Chapter III: On Men Who Embellish Themselves

For the non-religiously-inclined reader, Clement's words provide a window into the type of society that existed in Alexandria, the great Greco-Roman metropolis of Egypt, in the early third century AD. But such a reader should not ascribe Clement's fulmination against what he sees as the moral degeneracy of society to purely ignorant religious bigotry. Far from it.

Recall that Clement is not merely a fundamentalist Christian providing a prudish, exaggerated polemic against perceived moral evils. As a brilliantly-educated convert from paganism, and a man who had traveled all over the Roman Empire, Clement was qualified beyond most others to make such observations. In Clement's words we see clearly the zeal of the converted. We may even hear the ringing denunciation of a repentant man for his former life of wickedness.

To read The Paedagogus in full, visit Tertullian.org.

"Martyrs Neither Ignoble Nor Few" ~ The death of Hypatia and mob violence against Christians during the reign of Julian the Apostate

Detail from Triumph of Faith by Eugene Thirion.

There is a longstanding romantic attachment to the story of Hypatia, a learned pagan woman who was lamentably murdered and torn to pieces by a Christian mob in Alexandria in the early 5th century AD. Thanks in large part to the animus of Edward Gibbon toward Christianity, Hypatia has morphed in modern times into a rationalist martyr who died for the advance of science, reason and feminism against bloody, fundamentalist mouth-breathers seeking to install a perpetual dark-age patriarchy on all of humanity. If this narrative sounds like a naked attempt to co-opt an ancient event to promote a modern ideology, that's because it is.

As usual, the truth is considerably more complicated than the modern myth-builders would allow you believe. Cherry-picking stories like the murder of Hypatia without acknowledging the historical context only succeeds in setting up a false narrative that is both historically shallow and overtly disingenuous.

Let's start off in Alexandria. According to the historical accounts, Hypatia was killed in AD 415. But what was life like in that city during her days and the those immediately preceding them? Was it Christianity that drove the Alexandrians so wild with bloodlust that they would commit such an atrocity? Writing in the mid-5th century, the ecclesiastical historian Socrates Scholasticus says: "The Alexandrian public is more delighted with tumult than any other people: and if at any time it should find a pretext, breaks forth into the most intolerable excesses; for it never ceases from its turbulence without bloodshed."

But don't just take his word for it. The pagan historian Ammianus Marcellinus, writing about 50 years earlier, describes the great metropolis of Roman Egypt, Alexandria, as "a city which from its own impulses, and without any special cause, is continually agitated by seditious tumults." This is Ammianus's prelude to an act every bit as violent and gruesome as the death of Hypatia, but without the modern cult of admirers, myth-builders and movie-makers.

Following is Ammianus's account of the murder of of George, the Arian Archbishop of Alexandria in AD 361. George was a figure unloved by both pagans and orthodox Christians. He was also a functionary of the Arian emperor Constantius II to whom he owed his office. Apparently, when George suggested that a specific pagan temple be torn down (perhaps the tomb of Alexander the Great himself), the pagans had had enough:

On hearing this, many were struck as if by a thunderbolt, and fearing that he might try to overthrow even that building, they devised secret plots to destroy him in whatever way they could. And lo! on the sudden arrival of the glad news that told of the death of Artemius [the Roman dux of Egypt], all the populace, transported by this unlooked-for joy, grinding their teeth and uttering fearful outcries, made for Georgius and seized him, maltreating him in divers ways and trampling upon him; then they dragged him about spread-eagle fashion, and killed him. And with him Dracontius, superintendent of the mint, and one Diodorus, who had the honorary rank of count, were dragged about with ropes fastened to their legs and both killed....Not content with this, the inhuman mob loaded the mutilated bodies of the slain men upon camels and carried them to the shore; there they burned them on a fire and threw the ashes into the sea, fearing (as they shouted) that their relics might be collected and a church built for them, as for others who, when urged to abandon their religion, endured terrible tortures, even going so far as to meet a glorious death with unsullied faith; whence they are now called martyrs." [Taken from Roman Antiquities by Ammianus Marcellinus, Book XXII, Chapter XI.]

Unlike the murder of Hypatia, however, the killing of George, Dracontius and Diodorus was not a singular event. With the death of Constantius II and the advent of Julian the Apostate, the pagan population in numerous cities assumed that a return to the gory glory days of persecuting the Christians was at hand. Though Julian had strategically taken a less overtly hostile position regarding Christianity, some of the more militant pagans decided to take the Apis bull by the horns.

Here are two accounts from the Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, an orthodox Christian historian of the mid-5th century, detailing the brutal killings of several Christians by pagans in the early days of the reign of Julian:

I deem it right to relate some particulars concerning the death of the three brethren, Eusebius, Nestabus, and Zeno. The inhabitants of Gaza, being inflamed with rage against them, dragged them from their house, in which they had concealed themselves and cast them into prison, and beat them. They then assembled in the theater, and cried out loudly against them, declaring that they had committed sacrilege in their temple, and had used the past opportunity for the injury and insult of paganism. By these shouts and by instigating one another to the murder of the brethren, they were filled with fury; and when they had been mutually incited, as a crowd in revolt is wont to do, they rushed to the prison. They handled the men very cruelly; sometimes with the face and sometimes with the back upon the ground, the victims were dragged along, and were dashed to pieces by the pavement. I have been told that even women quitted their distaffs and pierced them with the weaving-spindles, and that the cooks in the markets snatched from their stands the boiling pots foaming with hot water and poured it over the victims, or perforated them with spits. When they had torn the flesh from them and crushed in their skulls, so that the brain ran out on the ground, their bodies were dragged out of the city and flung on the spot generally used as a receptacle for the carcasses of beasts; then a large fire was lighted, and they burned the bodies; the remnant of the bones not consumed by the fire was mixed with those of camels and asses, that they might not be found easily. [Taken from the Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, Book V, Chapter IX]

Next, we move onto Heliopolis in Lebanon where an act of unbelievable barbarity is recorded:

The inhabitants of Gaza and of Alexandria were not the only citizens who exercised such atrocities against the Christians as those I have described. The inhabitants of Heliopolis, near Mount Libanus, and of Arethusa in Syria, seem to have surpassed them in excess of cruelty. The former were guilty of an act of barbarity which could scarcely be credited, had it not been corroborated by the testimony of those who witnessed it. They stripped the holy virgins, who had never been looked upon by the multitude, of their garments, and exposed them in a state of nudity as a public spectacle and objects of insult. After numerous other inflictions they at last shaved them, ripped them open, and concealed in their viscera the food usually given to pigs; and since the swine could not distinguish, but were impelled by the need of their customary food, they also tore in pieces the human flesh. I am convinced that the citizens of Heliopolis perpetrated this barbarity against the holy virgins on account of the prohibition of the ancient custom of yielding up virgins to prostitution with any chance comer before being united in marriage to their betrothed. This custom was prohibited by a law enacted by Constantine, after he had destroyed the temple of Venus at Heliopolis, and erected a church upon its ruins. [Taken from the Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, Book V, Chapter X]

Detail from the Brescia casket, late 4th century AD.

And finally, we find the brutal torture of the aged Mark, bishop of Arethusa in Syria. The pagans of that town held a longstanding grudge against Mark because he had demolished a "sacred and magnificent temple" during the reign of Constantine. With the accession of Julian as emperor, an edict was sent out requiring those bishops who had demolished pagan temples to rebuild them at their own expense. Faced with this intolerable mandate, Mark fled. However, the Christians remaining in Arethusa were put to persecution and upon hearing this, Mark returned. Sozomen describes what happened to him:

The entire people, instead of admiring him the more as having manifested a deed befitting a philosopher, conceived that he was actuated by contempt towards them, and rushed upon him, dragged him through the streets, pressing and plucking and beating whatever member each one happened upon. People of each sex and of all ages joined with alacrity and fury in this atrocious proceeding. His ears were severed by fine ropes; the boys who frequented the schools made game of him by tossing him aloft and rolling him over and over, sending him forward, catching him up, and unsparingly piercing him with their styles. 

When his whole body was covered with wounds, and he nevertheless was still breathing, they anointed him with honey and a certain mixture, and placing him in a fish-basket made of woven rushes, raised him up on an eminence. It is said that while he was in this position, and the wasps and bees lit upon him and consumed his flesh, he told the inhabitants of Arethusa that he was raised up above them, and could look down upon them below him, and that this reminded him of the difference that would exist between them in the life to come. [Taken from the Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, Book V, Chapter X]

According to a parallel account in the history of Theodoret, the pagans of Arethusa were so impressed with Mark's constancy and fortitude that they eventually released him and absolved him of the demand to rebuild the temple.

Though obviously sympathetic toward Christianity, Sozomen is an even-handed source who didn't flinch from criticizing his coreligionists when they deserved it. After describing several additional examples of brutal mob-martyrdom of Christians by pagans, Sozomen is quick to point out that Julian did not order these killings, even if he was subsequently lax in punishing the perpetrators. He wraps up this section saying:

"Even if these cruelties were perpetrated contrary to the will of the emperor, yet they serve to prove that his reign was signalized by martyrs neither ignoble nor few." [Taken from the Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, Book V, Chapter XI]

When put into this context, the dreadful murder of Hypatia does not seem at all out of keeping with the brutal mob vengeance that was meted out in a typical Roman city, particularly in the east. What makes it shocking nonetheless is that the murder was perpetrated by those who professed to be Christians and it is likely that the event was recorded by Christian historians for precisely this reason. Furthermore, this crime was roundly condemned by other Christians, including the Church historian, Socrates Scholasticus, who writing some 20 years after the event, said:

"This affair brought opprobrium, not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole Alexandrian church. And surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort." [Taken from the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus Book VII, Chapter XV]

Thus, the murder of Hypatia seems to be less the rule than the exception for the Christian population—a case where the Alexandrian church cast off its Christian garments and reverted to their pagan lust for mob justice.

For a more detailed examination of the extant sources on Hypatia, visit this post: Hypatia -- What Do We Really Know?