Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.
March 17
Not verified yet
Martyr
Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 112 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.
In answer, he stooped and kissed the image of his Master, saying, "Far be it from me, Lord Jesus Christ, only begotten Son of God, to trample on Thy sacred representation." He was at once stripped, pressed between two boards, his body torn with iron combs, and then hung head downwards over a fire, which was heaped about him, till he was consumed.
Stay faithful when it costs you. This account is about holding firm under pressure.
Learn from the kind of life it was. Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.
In the furious persecution waged by Constantine Copronymus against images and those who reverenced them, Paul, a Cypriot, was brought before the governor of that island, Theophanes Lardotyrus, and was ordered to choose whether he would stamp on a crucifix laid before him, or suffer torture on the rack. In answer, he stooped and kissed the image of his Master, saying, "Far be it from me, Lord Jesus Christ, only begotten Son of God, to trample on Thy sacred representation." He was at once stripped, pressed between two boards, his body torn with iron combs, and then hung head downwards over a fire, which was heaped about him, till he was consumed.
Feast: March 17
One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Paul's story, and a nudge to keep going.
From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897), digitized text from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897), digitized text from Project Gutenberg. Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.
