The Emperor Julian and the Passion of Sergius and Bacchus

Abstract

The passion of Sergius and Bacchus (BHG 1624) describes the deaths of two members of the imperial bodyguard under Galerius Maximianus, Bacchus at Barbalissus, and Sergius at Resapha. Although archaeology has proven that Resapha was the focus for an important cult of Sergius by c. 425 at latest, the passion has often been dismissed as a fiction. Others have argued that these martyrs were executed under Maximinus, not Maximianus. Yet the claim that Maximianus punished the martyrs by dressing them in women's clothing points towards the reign of Julian, the only emperor who ever inflicted such humiliating punishment upon his soldiers. Other elements within the passion reinforce this impression, that it relates to the sufferings of two confessors under Julian, such that it is clear that its author used a historical account of such confessors under Julian as the main source for his fiction.

The older Greek passion of Sergius and Bacchus (BHG 1624)¹ describes the trials and deaths of two military martyrs during the reign of the Roman emperor Galerius Maximianus (305–311). These martyrs enjoyed tremendous popularity throughout late antiquity, Sergius in particular. Sergius' shrine at Resapha lay in the late Roman province of Augusta Euphratensis, at the empire's eastern extreme about 23 kilometers south of the middle Euphrates, and enjoyed the patronage at various times of such notables as the Roman emperor Justinian I (527–65), the Ghassanid phylarch al-Mundhir (570–81), and the Persian king Khusrau II (590–628).² Excavations within the walls of Resapha have revealed a stone martyrium whose dedicatory inscription dates it to 518.³ It states that this new shrine replaced an earlier mud-brick construction, and excavations have proved this to be the case. Finds from this brick building date it no later than c. 425, and it has now been identified as that which bishop Alexander of Hierapolis subsidized shortly before the council of Ephesus in 431.⁴ There the matter must rest for the moment. There is no clear evidence for the cult of Sergius or Bacchus much before this date.⁵ The composition of their early passion even has been dated to the mid-fifth century on the basis that it describes the construction of a shrine to Sergius within Resafa as if this had occurred only a few years earlier, and that this is identifiable as the mud-brick construction built probably by bishop Alexander of Hierapolis.⁶ This leaves a gap of about 120 years between the alleged date of the martyrdom of Sergius and Bacchus and the first appearance of their cult, which naturally raises doubts concerning the origin of the same. The late fourth and early fifth centuries saw a rapid development in the cult of martyrs, and much traffic in relics.⁷ Military martyrs such as Sergius and Bacchus were especially popular. Fictions and inventions inevitably resulted.⁸ So did Sergius and Bacchus ever exist? How much trust can we place in their surviving passion? It is my intention now to answer these questions by offering a new explanation for the origin of their cult through a reexamination of this passion.

According to the passion, Sergius was a senior officer, the primicerius, within one of the imperial bodyguard units, the schola gentilium, in which Bacchus also served as one of his fellow officers, the secundocerius. They enjoyed the favor of the emperor Maximianus, and this aroused the envy of other members of the schola gentilium. These complained to Maximianus that Sergius and Bacchus were Christians, and persuaded others to become Christians also, contrary to the laws which required all to worship only the pagan gods. Maximianus did not believe the informers, but decided to set a test for Sergius and Bacchus. He ordered them to join his escort, and went to offer sacrifice at the temple of Zeus. His whole escort were feasting on the sacrificial offerings, when he noticed that Sergius and Bacchus were absent. They had remained outside the temple, refusing even to witness his sacrifice. He sent some guards to fetch them, but he could...