St Colluthus was a Coptic physician who was tried and executed in 314 AD. This was part of the great persecution of Christians ordered by the emperor Diocletian. The original court record survives, more or less, preserved as a martyrdom text, and this I posted a few days ago here. This has been referenced in the literature as “Colluthus 1”.
But there is another Martyrdom of St Colluthus, derived from the first, and known as “Colluthus 2”. This has been sharpened up by an editor who felt that it needed some miracles, and that it needed to conform more closely to other fictional martyrdoms. In these the saint is usually arrogant, and the pagan judge is always a comic-book baddie.
I thought that it would be interesting to post the translation of this also. As before, the translation here has been extracted from E.A.E. Reymond and J.W.B. Barns (edd.), Four martyrdoms from the Pierpont Morgan Coptic codices, Oxford (1973), pp.145-150. Curiously Reymond felt that Colluthus 2 should be rendered in mock-Jacobean English. I have removed this and generally made it easier to read.
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The martyrdom of the revered martyr, the holy Apa Colluthus, which he fulfilled in fortitude on the twenty-fourth day of the month Pashons.
It happened in the twenty-first year of the emperors Diocletian and Maximinianus (sic) the transgressors, when they were persecuting the Christians, on the twenty-first (sic) day of the month Pashons, that the holy Apa Colluthus was produced before Arianus the governor as he sat on the tribunal in Shmoun (Hermopolis).
Arianus the governor of the Thebaid said to Apa Colluthus, “Will you obey? For all these who stand here are praying for you to be wise. If therefore it is shame which restrains you, out of vanity and the law of the Christians, well, now let a proper shame come to you, so that you worship the Emperor’s gods.”
The holy Apa Colluthus answered, “May it not happen that I should abandon my God and worship idols which are the works of men’s hands; they have eyes and do not see, they have ears and do not hear, they have mouths and do not speak, they have noses and do not smell; their hands do not handle, their feet do not walk; they do not speak through their throat; for there is no spirit in them. Those who have made them are like them, and all who put their trust in them. For, as for you and your lawless emperors, the Devil has shut up all the perceptions of your souls, like those things which you worship.”
Arianus was angry, and ordered the soldiers to lay before the holy Apa Colluthus all the things with which people are tortured, if perhaps through the fear of them he should be able to prevail on him and persuade him to sacrifice to the idols. And he brought into the middle of the fire, and a great stone to be hung upon the neck of the blessed man, and a sack full of sand, and a helmet,[1] and the rest of the instruments of torture.
And when he had laid all these in his sight, the governor said to him, “O Colluthus, be afraid of all these torments and pains which are laid before you, and sacrifice; all these torments are for those who disobey the Emperors.”
And Apa Colluthus answered, “It is written, ‘Don’t be afraid of those who kill your body, but are not able to kill your soul; but rather be afraid of him which is able to destroy your soul and your body in the Gehenna of fire.’ And again it is written, “Anyone who confesses Me before men, I will confess him also before My Father Who is in heaven, and His holy angels’; and again, ‘Whoever denies Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father who is in heaven, and His holy angels’ ”
Arianus answered and said to Apa Colluthus, “You have not been called upon to make long speeches; if you dare to speak again in my presence, I will have your tongue torn out. For all those who stand here grieve for your sake . . .”
Apa Colluthus answered, “My pride and my crown is the Lord. For it is written, ‘Our conversation is in heaven, from whence we look for our Saviour, the Lord Jesus, Who shall change the body of our low estate into the likeness of the body of His glory; that the eyes of our heart may be enlighted.”
Arianus answered and said to him, “Are you a deacon or a presbyter, to utter these words? And tell me too, what is your calling?”
Apa Colluthus said to him, “To this world I am a physician from my youth up, for by God I have been granted the power of healing; but to God I am a Christian, worshipping Jesus Christ my Lord.”
Arianus said to him, “Sacrifice, O Colluthus, and have pity on yourself; let every one look upon your favourably, and regard you in a good light. For you have not had any of the advocates who are present here contend for you; they are all together and you have not made use of their support to speak for you.”
Apa Colluthus answered, “I do not need them, for I have my Lord Jesus Christ fighting for me. For all your torments which are laid before me are nothing in my sight. Therefore every torment which you please, give them to me … it is written, ‘An athlete is not crowned unless he runs well.’ ”
The governor straightway ordered him to be put on the rack and scraped and stabbed. But when he was set up on the rack, the holy Apa Colluthus signed himself with the Cross straightway, and the rack fell in two pieces. And Arianus said, “See the magic of the Christians, how great it is!” And the governor ordered another rack to be brought, and Apa Colluthus to be put on it and fitted with a helmet . . . Apa Colluthus . . . [The text breaks off here]
[1] κασσίς = “cassis”, a heated metal helmet used as an implement of torture. Lampe has “whip”, wrongly.