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History of the Martyrs in Palestine

Eusebius of Caesarea, tr. Cureton, 1861; longer recension

The Confession of Peter, who was surnamed Absalom

On the tenth day of the month Canun the latter, Peter, who was called Absalom,1 appeared, a famous confessor of the kingdom of God; and so manfully did he behave in his struggle for the worship of God, and so victorious was he in the conflict of his martyrdom, that he even excited admiration in the judge himself, and made those who were standing by him wonder greatly. Much, therefore, did they strive to induce him to have pity upon himself, to spare his own person, and save himself from the evils which were hanging over him; but he disregarded in his mind all that they said. And those who surrounded him—not those only who knew him, but those also who were not acquainted with him—urged him, and intreated him one after another, and besought the blessed man as if it were for their own lives. But some of them confirmed his good resolution; others, again, by what they said, suggested irresolution, bidding him to regard with pity his own youth and person. Those of the same mind as himself called to his remembrance that hell fire which is to come, while others tried to make him afraid of the fire which was visible before him. Some endeavoured to terrify him by the mortal judge, while others reminded him of the Judge of all judges. Some called upon him to regard this transitory life, while others persuaded him to look to the kingdom of heaven. Those who belonged to the right hand invited him to turn towards them, while they who belonged to the left hand tried to persuade him to mind earthly things. But he was a young man, handsome in person, brave in mind, and active and able in body; and being such he proved his purity like gold in the furnace and the fire, and loved his confession in our Saviour better than the life of this time, which so soon passes away. And there was burned together with him in the same fire one who belonged to the heresy of Marcion,2 and called himself a bishop; and he gave himself up to this as in the zeal for righteousness, although he was not in true knowledge, and endured martyrdom by fire in company with this God’s martyr. And this holy martyr of whom we have spoken came from Aia (Gr. Anea), a village which is on the confines of Beth Gobrin;3 and he contended in the consummation which we have described, and obtained in the conflict the crown of the glorious victory of the martyrs of Christ.

Notes

  1. “Peter, who was surnamed Absalom.” In the Greek he is called Πετρος ασκητης, ο και Αψελαμος. Valesius has this note: (b)—“Mention is made of this person in the Greek Menæa at the 14th of October, although Eusebius says he suffered on the 3d of the Ides of January. In the Menæum he is called Auselamus, but in the Menology Anselamus is, by a mistake, put for Auselamus or Abselamus. The import of the passage there is this:—‘On the same day is the commemoration of the holy Martyr Petrus Anselamus of Eleutheropolis, who, being in the flower of his age and of a vigorous mind, behaved himself most admirably in the conflicts he underwent for religion; and having despised earthly things, was by fire offered up as a victim well pleasing to God in the sixth year of Dioclesian’s and Maximian’s empire. In which passage this is observable, that the sixth year of Dioclesian’s empire is put for the sixth year of the Persecution.” See Eng. Trans. p. 166. Ruinart has published Passio Sancti Petri Balsami, who, although some have doubted the fact, can hardly be a different person from the one here described as “as Peter, who was surnamed Absalom.” See Acta Prim. Martt. p. 501. The account is given by Baillet in the Vies des Saints at the 3d of January.
  2. “One who belonged to the heresy of Marcion.” The Greek gives the name Asclepius, omitted here.
  3. “Aia, a village which is on the confines of Beth Gobrin.”—The Greek has ανεας, κωμης των ορων Ειλευθεροπολεως. The other Syriac version published by S. E. Assemani has ܐܢܝܐ which he renders—“Ex agro Eleutheropolitano in vico Anea,” Acta SS. Martt. P. ii. p. 207. See Van de Velde—Eleutheropolis: Betogabra (Ptolemy xvi. 4), Betogabri, Bethgebrim; also Geberin of the Crusaders, identified with great care by Robinson and Smith (Bib. Res. 404—420, 642, seq.), with the Modern Beit-Jibrin. Memoir to accompany the Map of the Holy Land, p. 309.

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