Baring-Gould’s sources: Modem Roman Martyrology. Greek Menaea and Menologies on the same day. Authority: — An Oration by Arethas, B. of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Also two Orations by James, B. of Sarug, in Assemani, Bib. Orient, i. p. 329, and Metaphrastes.] N the persecution of Diocletian, Antoninus, governor of Edessa, arrested Gurias and Samonas, two Christians of that city, and thrust them into prison. On their refusal to sacrifice to the gods, he wrote to Diocletian to know what he had better do. The emperor ordered Musonius, prefect of Antioch, to go to Edessa, and try the glorious confessors of Jesus Christ. Musonius accordingly went thither, and Gurias and Samonas were brought before him. As they refused to bum incense to Jupiter, he had each suspended by one hand, with a stone 1 Only in the Dominican Martyrology.

Go< le attached to the feet They hung thus without crying out for several hours. When they fainted, they were cast into the barathrum of the prison, where the sewers discharged their foul contents. In this fetid hole, without light or sufficient food, they were kept during three days. On the 10th of November they were again brought before the magistrate. They manifested such firmness that the prefect lost his temper, and gave orders that Samonas should have his knee bent, a strap of iron passed round his thigh and shin so as to hold the leg bent, and then that the martyr should be hung up by the foot of the bent leg, and an iron weight attached to the other. This command seemed so cruel even to the executioners that they urged Samonas to escape the infliction of it, by sacrificing to the gods. Gurias was not thus treated: he was a man of a delicate frame and constitution, and the sufferings he had already undergone had almost killed him. After Samonas had endured the horrible agony some while, Musonius ordered them both to be decapitated, and this order was immediately executed, November 10th, about the year 299.

Several years after, under Licinius [Roman emperor in the East 308–324], Abibus, deacon of Edessa, finding that Licinius was determined on persecuting the Christians, and that his officers were seeking him, delivered himself up to Theotechnus, one of them. Theotechnus bade him quietly run away and hide, as he did not want to be forced to deliver him up; but Abibus, thirsting for martyrdom, refused to do so. Theotechnus was obliged therefore to lead him before Lysanius, the governor, who ordered him to be burnt alive. When the fire went out, his mother drew from it his half-consumed body, and buried it with those of Gurias and Samonas.