The Sixty Martyrs of Jerusalem Huxley, George Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Winter 1977; 18, 4; Periodicals Archive Online pg. 369

The Sixty Martyrs of Jerusalem 
George Huxley 

COISLIN 303, a tenth or eleventh-century manuscript of Pales­
tinian provenance now in Paris, includes Lives of Egyptian, 
Syrian and Palestinian saints. Amongst the Lives is a Passio 

in Greek of sixty Roman officers said to have been put to death in 
Palestine in the reign of Leo lIP The text states that the work was 
translated from Syriac at the prompting of a monk called John. who 
had read the original, as he himself remarks (CVptCTt av€yvwv, ch.12). 
The name of the translator is not given. Nor are we told the name of 
the original author. 

According to the Passio (ch.3) the Arab calif Suleiman son of Abdul­
malik invaded Romania with a mighty army (the literal rendering of 
his name as EoA0l-uJJV <> TOV 'AVUKT08ovAov is consistent with the claim 
of the Passio to be a translation into Greek). The army of the calif 
was opposed by the emperor Leo III (here is a confusion with one of 
the Saracen generals then called Suleiman, since the emperor Leo 
and the calif Suleiman never faced each other in battle).2 Leo sur­
rounded the invader with water diverted from springs near and far 
(ch.4):3 Suleiman is not said in the Passio to have commanded a navy 

1 Fol. 177-81, edited by A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus. Pravoslavnii Palestinskii Sbornik 12 
(1892) 1-7. There is a transcription of the Paris text by Papebroch in Brussels Ms Bib/. roy. 
18864-74 (see AnalBoll 13 [1894] 57). A Latin translation of the transcription is given in 
AA.sS. Oct. IX 360-362 (21 October). Coislin. 303 is described by R. Devreesse, Le Fonds 
Coislin (Paris 1945) 286-88. 

2 It is necessary to distinguish the calif from the Solomon or Suleiman who brought the 
Arab fleet to Constantinople in 717 and from the Solomon who commanded the Arab 
army before Amorion: see E. W. Brooks, .JHS 19 (1899) 26 n.l. on Theoph. 1.395,23 de 
Boor, and Nikephoros, Hist. p.53,16 de Boor (the naval commander), and Theoph. 1.386,28 

de Boor (the general in Asia Minor). 
3 According to S. Gero, By~antine Iconoclasm during the Reign of Leo III with Particular 

Attention to the Oriental Sources (Lollvain 1973) 86, the Passio states that Leo ordered water to 

be stored up (before the siege of Constantinople) when he heard news of the Arabs' ap­
proach, but the Greek cannot be interpreted in that sense: Leo surrounds the enemy with 
a flood, yvovc Sf & TfjC &dac p.vTjp.TJc AlwI' EKtA£vc£ 1Tal'Tc1.xofhl' 7fi E1TtX!5w TWI' tis&'TWI' EK TWI' 
1TOPPWTfPW Kat cw£yyvc E1Ttpp£OVCWI' KPTJI'WI' 1TOALopKficaL TiiI 1TA>/9n TWV ti8c1.TWI' TOl' 8£l)..aLOI' 
(p.2.31-3,3 P.-K.). Later the waters are withdrawn. Ton 8~ E1TLCXOI'T£C 1Tal'Taxo8£I' Ta ~SaTa 
TOl' T!5paVVOl' TfjC TWI' ·Pwp.alwI' xwpae a1TfAVeal' avw OXATJpae E1Tt8lc£wc Kat fJAa1TTLKfjc E1TL­

Xnp>/c£wc (p.3,23-25 P.-K.). 

.369 



370 THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM 

in addition to an army, and it is hard to connect this legend with any 
part of the sea and land campaigns of 717 to 718 at Constantinople; 
nor does the legend find a place in the complicated dealings of Leo 
as general of thema Anatolikon in Asia Minor with the Saracens at 
Amorion and elsewhere in 716. The dramatic date of the supposed 
encirclement by water must be before Suleiman's death on 22 Sep­
tember 717. 

In desperation Suleiman arranged for a subtle retainer, a eunuch, 
to negotiate with Leo. When a truce to last seven years had been 
arranged, the surrounding waters were checked, and the Saracen 
army withdrew. Thereafter merchants from both sides crossed the 
frontier, and pilgrims were able to come to the Holy Land "as deer 
run to springs of water" (ch.5). There is no other evidence for the 
alleged truce, but if the author of the Syriac original imagined the 
truce as beginning with the defeat of the Saracen expedition to 
Constantinople in 718 (later in fact than the death of Suleiman), he 
thought the peace to have lasted till about 725. During the years 718 
to 725 there was an attack by Hisam six years after the defeat, accord­
ing to Theophanes (1.403,27-28); and in Arab historians there is 
evidence of frequent campaigning after 718: Tabari, for example, 
mentions a raid in the year 102 (12 July 720 to 30 June 721) on the 
Romans in Arminya (i.e. (J£ILa 'ApIL£JlLaKoJl), another on the Romans in 
103, and another in 104.4 All of these campaigns come within the 
period of the supposed seven-year truce. The truce, then, has no 
historical reality: it is an invention of the hagiographer. 

In the seventh year seventy Roman officers (aPXOJlTEC) came under 
arms with a large bodyguard to Jerusalem. They visited the holy 
places, gave alms to the poor, and travelled to the monasteries of the 
wilderness, before setting out for home. They came to the spring of 
Koloneia three miles from the city, but unknown to them the period 
of the truce was complete (ch.6)-perhaps they were imagined to have 
had difficulty in reconciling the Arab and Roman calendars. 

Envious Arabs, says the hagiographer, pursued the pilgrims and 
dragged them off to prison in Jerusalem. When the governor of 
Palestine at Caesarea had been alerted, the captives were transferred 
to the prison there. News of the capture having been sent on to the 
7TPWTocvILf1ovAoc (here, as in Theophanes, the word means <calif), 
orders came that if the Roman officers apostatized, they were to lose 

4 See Brooks,JHS 18 (1898) 197-98. 



GEORGE HUXLEY 371 

only their weapons and horses; but if they kept their faith they were 
to be tortured and crucified (ch.7). 

Three of the Romans, George, John and Julian, asked to be killed 
in front of the gates of Jerusalem, near the tower of David. Fifteen 
nomismata from their possessions were paid to John, a pious man of 
Caesarea, who undertook to buy a plot of land at Jerusalem for the 
martyrs' burial (ch.9). Three of the seventy Romans died on the way 
from Caesarea. Seven apostatized, only to catch dysentery the same 
day; they were soon all dead (ch.IO). When the remaining sixty 
(including George, John and Julian) had died for their faith, John of 
Caesarea bought a plot near the Church of St Stephen outside the 
gates of Jerusalem. There, according to the Passio, the people of 
Jerusalem celebrated the martyrs' anniversary every 21 October 
(ch.ll). 

Their relics, venerated in the cemetery, effected cures. John, the 
humble monk who arranged for the translation of the Passio into 
Greek, had seen the relics and had spoken with persons who had 
been healed. Thus the martyrs were thought to possess the 'hagio­
graphical co-ordinates', as Pere Delehaye called them,5 of anniversary 
and of tomb-cult, which are distinguishing marks of sainthood. 

If there was a seven-year truce, it is odd that the pilgrims travelled 
so heavily armed. If, however, they were caught on a raiding expedi­
tion, there was no truce. In fact, as we have seen, there was no truce. 
The difficulty in the alleged truce was felt by a monk Symeon, the 
composer of the later, longer Passio of the Sixty-Three Martyrs.6 In 
the longer Passio no truce is mentioned: instead the officers take a 
convenient opportunity for their pilgrimage-Ev8lrov S€ KaLpov 

Spa~aJLEVOL (chA). The longer Passio offers nothing of historical 
significance. The placing of the Arab apX7JYoc in Egypt (ch.S) points 
to a time of composition long after the eighth century. The martyrs 
are said to come from Ikonion in the time of Leo III, who is castigated 
as an Iconoclast (ch.2). The alleged names of all the martyrs are sup­
plied (ch.29). Numerous miracles occur before their deaths. The 
anniversary 21 October is mentioned.7 

If the truce is a fiction, is the multiple martyrdom also unhistorical? 

5 See P. Peeters, "Le R. P. Hippolyte Delehaye" at p. xxvi in H. Delehaye, Les Ugendes 
hagiographiques4 (Brussels 1955). 

sA. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Pravoslavnii Palestinskii Sbornik 19 (1907) 136-63. 
7 For a comparison of the two martyria see Chr. Loparev, VizVrem 19 (1912) 1-10. 



372 THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM 

None of the historical sources notes such a massacre of Byzantine 
apxovT€c ca 726, as Gero remarked.s Having dismissed the possibility 
that the shorter Passio in Greek is a Byzantine pseudograph, he argued, 
with evident correctness, that the work was written originally in 
Syriac in a Palestinian milieu by a Christian. This dhimmi was full of 
hatred towards the Saracens and their "tyrant" Suleiman. In con­
trast he admired Leo III intensely for being "a godloving and pious 
emperor" who ruled over a "most Christian people." He was "of 
holy memory"-words which cannot have been written or trans­
lated before Leo Ill's death. The author revealed no hostility towards 
imperial Iconoclasm; he wrote as a subject of the Saracens, but his 
loyalty was directed towards the Roman emperor. Filled with 
hatred of the Moslems, he invented the truce and the anniversary and 
the martyrdom. 

There had indeed been sixty (or sixty-three) soldiers martyred by 
the Arabs in Palestine, and ten (or twelve) of them were buried at 
the shrine of St Stephen the Protomartyr at Jerusalem. But they died 
in the reign of Heraclius, not of Leo III. The evidence is a Latin Passio 
poorly translated from Greek.9 

According to the Latin Passio the city of Gaza was compelled to 
yield to the Arabs' siege in the twenty-seventh year of Heraclius.1o 

In the capitulation the sixty soldiers were taken prisoner. Their lives 
were promised to them by the Arab commander Ambrus (Amr) on 
condition that they apostatized. They refused, and after thirty days in 
prison they were taken to Eleutheropolis, where they stayed for two 
months. (A lacuna follows, because we are told that the captives were 
brought back to Eleutheropolis, but we are not informed that they 
were taken from the place.) Three months later the soldiers were 
sent to Jerusalem. There the patriarch Sophronios comforted them. 
They again refused to apostatize ten months later. The heads of ten 

8 op.cit. (supra n.3) 178. 
• Ms. St Peter's Basilica, Rome, A5 fol. 222-23v , saee. IX or X, published by H. Delehaye, 

"Passio Sanctorum Sexaginta Martyrum," AnalBoII 23 (1904) 289-307. H-G. Beck (Kirehe 
und theologisehe Literatur im by{antinisehen Reich [Munich 1959] 506-07) refers to this article 
but fails to make clear that the Latin Passio describes a joint martyrdom in the time of 
Heraclius, not of Leo III; Beck correctly states that the Latin Passio is more to be trusted 
than the Greek. 

10 This implies a date for the fall of Gaza later than August or September 634, to which 
the event is conventionally assigned: the year-number in the Passio may be corrupt (ef 
Delehaye, art.cit. [supra n.9] 291). Theophanes says that the whole territory of Gaza was 
taken by the Arabs already in Year 23 of Heraclius (1.336,16). 



GEORGE HUXLEY 373 

of them were then cut off at the command of the local emir acting on 
the instructions of Ambrus on 11 November ofIndiction 13.11 Sophro­
nius buried them before founding the 'oratorium' of St Stephen.12 

The Passio lists twelve. not ten, names of martyred soldiers here 
(ch.2). 

The survivors were brought before Ambrus at Eleutheropolis a 
month later. Since they remained steadfast. orders were given to cut 
them down (fifty-one names are listed). The date is given as Thursday 
17 December, Heraclius Year 28, Indiction 13 (again there is corrup­
tion in the year-numbers, and possibly in the weekday also).13 The 
bodies were bought for 3,000 solidi. After their burial the Church of 
the Holy Trinity was built at Eleutheropolis. 

The total number of martyrs is not certain-there were sixty or 
sixty-three (10+ 50 or 12+ 51)-but the story is coherent and simple; 
miracles are lacking; and there is a secure historical context. If there 
were sixty Palestinian soldier-martyrs, then they died, not all of them 
at Jerusalem, soon after the Arab conquest, towards the end of 
Heraclius' reign. In the Syriac Passio translated for the lowly monk 
John into Greek some time after the death of Leo III, the Melkite 
propagandist converted the historical martyrdoms of ca 637 into 
fictitious martyrdoms of ca 726; he invented the seven-year truce; 
he transferred the burial of all sixty to Jerusalem; and he adopted a 
Single anniversary, 21 October14 instead of 11 (or 6) November at 
Jerusalem and 17 December at Eleutheropolis. 

The Greek Passio, then, like its Syriac original, is almost devoid 
of historical content. But it does not entirely lack historical value. 
Through it we look into the embittered world of the dhimmis, who 

11 Passio ch.2. Both numbers may be corrupt: see Delehaye (art.cit. [supra n.9] 291 and 
298). who proposed on the evidence of Usuard. Adon and other martyrologia to change 
die undecima to die sexta. 

12 Sophronios died in Heraclius' Year 26 according to Theophanes (1.399.30). but the 
chronographer there combines events of more than one year. It is customary to place the 
death of Sophronios on 11 March 638 (Vita. PG 87 (3) 3144. following AA.SS. March II 
(March 11) [1865] 70); if that is correct, the ten martyrs at Jerusalem died not later than 
11 November 637. Compare Delehaye, art.cit. (supra n.9) 291-92. 

13 Delehaye (art.cit. [supra n.9] 291) considers 17 December 638 possible. If that is correct, 
then the death of Sophronios would have occurred not earlier than 11 March 639. These 
and other chronological problems connected with the Arab conquest of Palestine cannot 
be discussed here. 

14 The date 21 October is found in some Greek menaia as the anniversary of the Martyr­
dom of the Sixty of Jerusalem. See AA.SS Octob. XI (1869) 253 [.I. Martinov, Annus Ecclesias­
ticus Graeco-Slavicus]. 



374 THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM 

a century or so after the conquest still hoped for a Christian liberator 
to come from Romania. The anonymous pseudepigrapher lived in a 
harsher and more truculent society than that of St John Damascene, 
who had enjoyed the patronage of califs and served them before he 
retired to a monastery. From the safety of the Saracen dominions 
John, the urbane Greek-speaking Arabized Syrian Mansour, con­
fidently attacked the heterodoxy of Leo Ill's imperial Iconoclasm.ls 

In those same dominions our anonymous Syriac author, loathing the 
Saracen conqueror, invented an atrocity in order to give vent to his 
hatred. 

In some Syro-Palestinian Christians such hatred turned to fanati­
cism: one of them was St Peter of Capitolias, who deliberately won 
martyrdom by abusing the rulers and the religion of the Saracens.16 

Our anonymous hagiographer, however, did not seek a martyrdom 
for himself; instead he borrowed one for the benefit of his readers. 

The connexions between the martyria can now be set out: 

Lost Greek version of Passio of L+ X 
Martyrs in the reign of Heraclius 

Extant Latin Passio of 
L+ X Martyrs in the 
reign of Heraclius 

I 
* 

.1 f Extant Latm Passio 0 

Saints Florianus, Calanicus 
and the XL Martyrs17 

THE QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY OF BELFAST 

August, 1977 

Lost Syriac Passio adapting 
martyrdom of the L+ X to 
fictitious context in the reign 
of Leo III. Composed after 74018 

I 
Extant short Greek Passio 
of LX Martyrs 

I 
Extant long Greek Passio 
of LXIII Martyrs 

16 For the family background of St John Damascene see P. Peeters, Le Trefonds orientale 
de I'hagiographie by~antine (Brussels 1950) 214. 

11 P. Peeters, "La Passion de S. Pierre de Capirolias (t13 Janvier 715)." AnalBoIl 57 (1939) 
299-333. 

17 A text of this derivative composition is given by Pere Delehaye. art.cit. (supra n.9) 
303-05; for the number XL see Delehaye p.297. 

18 The preamble (chs. 1 and 2) with its quotations from the Greek vulgate cannot have 
been in the Syriac original (Gero, op.cit. [supra n.3) 176-77 n.3). The colophon (ch.12) was 
added by John the monk. The Syriac original is represented in thl' (;),eek by chs.3 to 11 
inclusive.