39. But I say that in
fact they won the crown of struggle and martyrdom three times. First, because
they were killed for Christ, for if they were dwelling in this desert for
Christ, all the things that they suffered in it they clearly endured for him.
Second, because they handed themselves over for the sake of the lavra and its
preservation and those who were being saved in it, as has been shown above—for they
had the opportunity and occasion to flee, if they wanted, but they remembered
and suffered as it was said, “The zeal for your house consumed me.” For if Naboth
was stoned for not handing over the land that he inherited from his fathers, which
is in no way brought the salvation to his soul, how much more did these men who
contended for the house of God set themselves as praiseworthy and laudable?
Third, because they chose to die for their brothers and fathers—and the one who
dies for a fellow servant and slave, how would he not even more die ten thousand
times for his own master? And if only those contending for the faith can be
named martyrs, would John the Forerunner, who was beheaded because he would not
keep silent concerning one transgression of a single man, Herod, not be counted
and considered among the martyrs? For he was not killed for the faith. And
what of the Maccabees? Did they not hand themselves over to so many cruel tortures
and torments so that they would not transgress one of the least of the
commandments of the law? Why was it such a great evil to taste swine flesh,
since “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person?” And the
fathers honored by us today are in no way inferior to the holy fathers killed
on the mountain Sinai and in Raitho, who were unjustly slaughtered by the
barbarians for not handing over money that they did not have. . . . [41] And that
not only those who were slain but also those who were prepared and ready to
meet this fate have received the crown of martyrdom, and also that the one who
has been slain for the sake of lesser things is also a perfected martyr—both things
that I have said before—I will attempt to demonstrate from the words of Paul.
For when the blessed Paul began to enumerate those who were illustrious among
the ancestors—making a start with Abel and then continuing to Noah, Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha—he concluded
saying, ‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses’.
(“Passion
of the Twenty Martyrs of Mar Saba (d. 797),” trans. Stephen J. Shoemaker, in Three
Christian Martyrdoms from Early Islamic Palestine [Middle Eastern Texts Initiative;
Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2016], 125, 127, 131)
In terms of this work's
manuscript evidence, Shoemaker notes that it
[S]urvives in only a single manuscript—the tenth-century
Greek manuscript Coislin 303 (fols. 99v-125r), now in the Bibolthèque nationale—which
seems to have a Palestinian origin. (Ibid., xxx)