"Art thou not Sebastian whom I before commanded to be slain with arrows?" ~ A few interesting points about Saint Sebastian's ancient Passio.

The Burial of Saint Sebastian (1877) by Alejandro Ferrant y Fischermans. Click to enlarge.

Saint Sebastian is one of the great ancient martyrs of the Roman Catholic Church as well as one of the saints most frequently depicted in artwork down through the centuries. The image of Sebastian tied to a stake, his body riddled with arrows, is one of the most immediately recognizable and jarring images of the ancient martyrs.

As with many of the martyrs from the days prior to Constantine, his story has become somewhat muddled. He is mentioned in a homily of Saint Ambrose (On Psalm 118) as having come from Milan. Most of the rest of his biography comes from a Passio of dubious provenance. Scholars of the previous era ascribed this work to Saint Ambrose himself, though more modern scholars tend to dismiss this attribution. Few doubt the antiquity of the Passio, however, and the existing work is commonly dated to the early fifth century—or about a century after the events recorded therein.

As with many of the ancient martyrdom accounts, the Passio has not been translated into English. It does, however, exist excerpted in numerous other works, including a detailed synopsis which may be found at The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity site, sponsored by Oxford University. 

A different type of synopsis of the Passio may be found in the Homilies of Aelfric of Eynsham, a late 10th century Anglo Saxon abbot who transcribed the Latin tale into Old English for the edification of his monks. Here is the ancient story of Sebastian’s martyrdom as told in part with excerpts from Aelfric’s work. The entirety of the account may be found here: Skeat: Aelfric's Lives of Saints, p. 117 and following.

The Passion of Saint Sebastian, Martyr, January 20

There was a holy servant of God, called Sebastian, who was a long time in the city of Milan for education, and was baptized into Christ with full faith. He was a very prudent man, truthful in word, righteous in judgment, in counsel foreseeing, trusty in need, a prevailing intercessor, shining in goodness, and in all his ways honorable. 

Daily he fulfilled his Lord's service zealously, but he concealed, nevertheless, his deeds from the emperor Diocletian who was the devil's worshipper. Diocletian loved the holy man, notwithstanding, and knew not that he believed in the living God. He set him as prefect over a cohort, and bade that he should always be in his presence; and all the household held him as a father, and honored him with love, because God loved him. He followed the emperor, unknown to him, however, not as if he durst not suffer for his Lord, but he desired to encourage those whom the heathen emperor daily killed for their faith in Christ.

Diocletian, as we know, reigned from AD 284 through AD 305 when he abdicated and retired to a fortified palace on the Dalmatian coast. The notion that secret Christians may have existed in the court of Diocletian is in no way surprising and jives well with the account of Lactantius in On the Deaths of the Persecutors. Indeed, it is possible that Diocletian’s own wife, Prisca, and daughter, Valeria, were secret Christians. 

Sebastian was able to use his position in the court to console the brothers Marcus and Marcellianus who were imprisoned as Christians by Chromatius, the Prefect of Rome, and condemned to death unless they offered sacrifice to the pagan divinities. These brothers were from an aristocratic family and both wavered as their family members attempted to convince them to save their lives by abjuring the Christian faith. Due to the stature of their families, Chromatius offered a thirty day reprieve for the martyrs to consider their position.

During this time, however, Sebastian convinced the family of Marcus and Marcellianus to accept Christ. When the thirty days expired, Tranquillinus, the father of the young men, came before Chromatius and professed his own faith in Christ, mentioning that his gout had been cured following his baptism. As it turns out, Chromatius suffered from the same ailment and would later secretly summon Sebastian and the priest Polycarp so that they might also heal him. In order to effect the healing, Sebastian and Polycarp endured a three day fast, after which they returned to Chromatius and enjoined him to allow them to destroy all the pagan idols in his house. Chromatius agreed, and the two Christians proceeded to burn, smash, or melt down all of the 200 images of the pagan divinities in the house. 

What happens next is very strange indeed, as it seems to tie this ancient Christian literary source to one of the most fascinating archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.

When Chromatius failed to recover after his house was cleansed, Sebastian and Polycarp then deduced that something evil must yet remain in his house. At this point, Chromatius reveals something interesting: 

“I have in my treasure-chest a wonderful instrument, for my information, according to the position of the stars as they stand in the heavens. On that instrument Tarquinius, my father, spent of red gold alone more than two hundred pounds.”

Previously in the same narrative, this instrument is described as follows: 

An excellent work of mechanical contrivance, of glass, and gold, and of glistening crystal. This instrument was designed to show with certainty by the stars what should happen to every man in the course of his life; but it was so formed according to the heathen error.

The remains of the so-called Antikythera Mechanism, believed to be an
ancient machine used to compute the movement of the stars and planets.

Does this sound familiar? If you are at all aware of Mediterranean archaeology, it should. In 1901, some sponge divers found a strange ancient artifact in the waters off the Greek island of Antikythera. This item would become known as the Antikythera Mechanism, a type of ancient gear-driven computer used to predict the movements of the stars. It is tantalizing to think that this passage in the Passio of St. Sebastian is actually describing a similar type of machine. It may also be an indication that the Antikythera mechanism was not unique and that other similar devices were known even as late as the 5th century AD.

To get back to our narrative, Sebastian and Polycarp then discoursed to Chromatius upon the evils and vanity of astrology, indicating that the infernal machine must be disposed of. They even put their lives on the line, saying that if they broke the costly device and Chromatius did not recover from his illness, then they would submit to being thrown into a furnace and killed. Chromatius agreed. The device was broken. And Chromatius subsequently recovered. As a result, he and his son became Christians. 

Now, certainly there will be some who will latch onto this episode as an example of Christians being so "anti-science" that they even destroyed a precious ancient computing device. Before advancing this claim, however, it is well to keep in mind that the device itself, as expensive and finely crafted as it may have been, was not actually used for any scientific purpose. It was used for the superstitious purpose of attempting to predict the future via the movement of the stars.

Chromatius subsequently resigned his position as Prefect of the city of Rome and was replaced by a certain Fabianus, a man who was much more zealous in carrying out the persecutions mandated by Diocletian against Christians than Chromatius had been. This Fabianus soon laid hold of Marcus and Marcellianus, tortured them, and put them to death. Soon after, he denounced Sebastian to Diocletian as well. 

Given that Fabianus was, supposedly, the Prefect of Rome, it is reasonable to conjecture that the denunciation of Sebastian likely took place in AD 303 when Diocletian was in Rome for the celebration of his Vicennalia or 20th anniversary of his reign. This event was meant to be a great, two month long, triumphal festival commemorating the happy and prosperous reign of Diocletian and Maximian. There is evidence, however, that the event became tragic. The Chronography of AD 354 reports that during the event, 13,000 people were killed when the boxes at the circus collapsed. It is also possible that Pope Marcellinus was martyred during this time.  

Writing in On the Deaths of the Persecutors, Lactantius claimed that Diocletian was so perturbed during the celebrations at Rome that he departed the city prematurely before his consulship could even begin on January 1. He would subsequently become gravely ill on his journey back to Nicomedia.

Let us assume that the unhappy vicennalia celebration at Rome is the setting for the scene described below in Aelfric’s homily as the dramatic conclusion of St. Sebastian's Passio:

Then became Diocletian fiendishly angry, and commanded him to be led out in hard bonds, into a field, and there to be bound, and assailed with arrows until he gave up his life. Then the soldiers led away the servant of Christ, and set him for a mark, even as the wicked man commanded, and fastened their arrows into him before and behind, as thickly on every side as a hedgehog's bristles, and so left him alone, lying for dead.

Then came a certain widow, who was a martyr's relict, in the same night, where he lay sorely wounded, desiring to bury his body, and found him living. Then she brought him to her house alive, and within a few days entirely healed him. Then came the Christians, and urged the [Christian] warrior, that he ought to depart far away from the city.

But Sebastian commended himself to God, and went up to the staircase, which stood against the emperor's palace, and when the emperor came, thus cried to him:

“Your idol-priests who dwell in your temples tell you many lies concerning the Christians, saying that they are verily adversaries to your kingdom, and also to your people; but your kingdom prospereth through their good merits, because they pray for the Roman people and for your dominion, without ceasing.”

Then looked Diocletian, the fiendish murderer, towards the holy man, who stood there so loftily, and said haughtily, “Art not thou that Sebastian, whom I before commanded to be slain with arrows?

Sebastian said, “Christ raised me up again to the end that I might declare to thee before all the people your unrighteous persecution against the Christians.”

Then bade the emperor that the soldier of God should be beaten to death with clubs within his own city. Then the murderers did even as the emperor commanded, and by night hid his holy corpse in a foul sewer, saying amongst themselves, that at least the Christians should not get at his body, and make him into a martyr afterwards.

The most ancient extant image
of St. Sebastian, dating from the
mid-6th century AD, may be found in
Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna. 

Here again, we see a common theme—the desire of the persecutors to deny the martyr's body to the Christian community. 

But the Christians did find Sebastian’s remains. They were recovered by a widow named Lucina who claimed to have been visited by Sebastian in a dream. 

The relics of St. Sebastian would then take on a life of their own, being first deposited in the catacombs at Rome. A basilica would be built over the site in the mid-4th century AD—San Sebastiano fuori le Mura—which would become on one of the seven pilgrim churches of Rome. 

Some of his relics would eventually find their way to Soissons in France in the early 9th century where they would remain until they were plundered and thrown into a ditch by Calvinists in 1564.

It is said that a relic of the top of Sebastian’s cranium may be seen to this day in the church of St. Sebastian in Ebersberg, Bavaria.

A good summary of the remaining relics and their locations may be found in St. Sebastian's entry in Butler's Lives of the Saints.