Baring-Gould’s sources: Greek Menasa and Roman Martyrology. Authority: — The Greek Acts written after 870, and incorrect as to several historical particulars, though in the main trustworthy. With them agree various notices, as the contemporary epistle of Gregory II. to Leo the Isaurian, in which the facts without the names are narrated briefly.] Leo the Isaurian, Emperor of the East, as has been related in another place, was resolved to put down the use of pictures and images in churches and elsewhere. There was a statue of Christ above one of the gates of Constantinople, and he ordered its destruction. When the ladder was placed against the gate for the purpose, some of the most zealous Christians of Constantinople rushed to the spot. Mary, a woman of the imperial family, Gregory, head of the body-guard,1 and others, shook the ladder, precipitated the image-breaker to the ground, and tore the unfortunate man to pieces, limb from limb. The emperor could not overlook this barbarous murder, worthy of savages, and not to be justified even by the orthodoxy of their zeal; and all implicated in it were arrested, 1 “ Protospatharius."

…ten men, two youths, and Mary who had led them on. In the disturbance, Theodosia, a nun, was cruelly, but perhaps accidentally, injured.1 Several of those guilty of the barbarous act were put to death the same day, but Mary, on account of her rank, was ordered to prison. She broke out in a furious invective against the emperor. “Dost thou call me an idolator because I venerate the image of Christ ? Thy image is impressed in wax on thy decrees and briefs, and the seal is honoured. Do those who respect the seal, for a moment regard it as their emperor? Thou art more stolid than any image, and more inanimate than dull clay — miserable wretch, full of the machinations of the devil, precursor of Antichrist, foe to all justice !”2 Leo, enraged, ordered her and the rest to be beaten and thrown into prison. After eight months they were brought before him again.

“Why,” said he, “will ye persist in your idolatry, and in your worship of old bones ?” “Accursed and detestable one,” answered Mary, “do you still blaspheme, and labour at the devil’s work?” He ordered them to be again beaten, and then that their heads should be struck off.

We are informed that miracles were wrought by their relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor]. All those who suffered for the atrocious murder of the image-breaker are commemorated together this day as saints and martyrs in the East and West. It is to be regretted that Baronius [Cardinal Baronius (d. 1607), church historian who edited the Roman Martyrology] should have introduced them into the Roman Martyrology.

1 S. Theodosia, May 29. 2 It is most probable that the speeches of the martyrs are rhetorical inventions of the author of tho Acts, who wrote more than a century later. August xo.] S. Lmwence.