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Chapter 7 Small Details: The Cult of the Forty Martyrs During late antiquity perhaps the most popular saints in eastern Asia Minor were the Forty Martyrs, a band of soldiers who had reputedly been left to die of exposure on an icy lake for refusing to perform pagan sacrifices.Already during the later fourth century many legends about their martyrdom were in circulation, among them those recorded in an anonymous Passio (an account of the martyrs' "suffering"), a sermon by Basil, and three sermons by Gregory of Nyssa. Most of these accounts reproduced the same basic narrative plot for the martyrdom. They also included many similar episodes, among them the refusal of the martyrs to sacrifice to pagan deities, their confession of allegianceto Christianity, their abandonment on a frozen lake, and the tempting offer of survival in a nearby warm bathhouse if they would only renounce their perseverance. Despite similarities among the accounts in this collection of texts, the actual historicity of these forty saints and the events surrounding their deaths is certainly questionable, and the various extant versions clearly are not reliable sources for information about late Roman persecutions. Equally dubious is the assumption that it is possible to extract an original account of the suffering of the Forty Martyrs from the various versions that survive. Not only are the relationships among the extant written versions unclear and probably impossible to determine, and not only were there certainly even more oral versions in circulation; in addition, from the perspective of the audiences,whether listeners or readers, all of these versions were simultaneously correct. Ancient audiences certainly did not indulge in a higher criticism of resolving contradictions among texts. Basil claimed that the soldiers spent one night on the frozen lake, Gregory three nights. Basil tacked on a story about a woman who ensured that her son would be included among these martyrs as an afterthought at the end of his sermon, while Gregory featured the story in his narrative of the martyrs. Discrepancies such as these were essentially irrelevant. Since the meanings and the Chapter 7 Small Details: The Cult of the Forty Martyrs During late antiquity perhaps the most popular saints in eastern Asia Minor were the Forty Martyrs, a band of soldiers who had reputedly been left to die of exposure on an icy lake for refusing to perform pagan sacrifices. Already during the later fourth century many legends about their martyrdom were in circulation, among them those recorded in an anonymous Passio (an account of the martyrs' "suffering"), a sermon by Basil, and three sermons by Gregory of Nyssa. Most of these accounts reproduced the same basic narrative plot for the martyrdom. They also included many similar episodes, among them the refusal of the martyrs to sacrifice to pagan deities, their confession of allegiance to Christianity, their abandonment on a frozen lake, and the tempting offer of survival in a nearby warm bathhouse if they would only renounce their perseverance. Despite similarities among the accounts in this collection of texts, the actual historicity of these forty saints and the events surrounding their deaths is certainly questionable, and the various extant versions clearly are not reliable sources for information about late Roman persecutions. Equally dubious is the assumption that it is possible to extract an original account of the suffering of the Forty Martyrs from the various versions that survive. Not only are the relationships among the extant written versions unclear and probably impossible to determine, and not only were there certainly even more oral versions in circulation; in addition, from the perspective of the audiences, whether listeners or readers, all of these versions were simultaneously correct. Ancient audiences certainly did not indulge in a higher criticism of resolving contradictions among texts. Basil claimed that the soldiers spent one night on the frozen lake, Gregory three nights. Basil tacked on a story about a woman who ensured that her son would be included among these martyrs as an afterthought at the end of his sermon, while Gregory featured the story in his narrative of the martyrs. Discrepancies such as these were essentially irrelevant. Since the meanings and the The Cult of the Forty Martyrs 133 functions of these legends were contingent upon the needs and experiences of the preachers and their audiences, it is now misleading for modern scholars to insert notions of historicity or even plausibility into their analyses.' Rather than offering merely an excuse for analyzing differencesamong texts, the survival of several versions presents an...

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