St. Mennas, Martyr


THE EDICTS of Dioclesian were rigorously executed in the East, when Mennas or Menas, an Egyptian by birth, a soldier in the Roman troops, then quartered at Cotyæus in Phrygia, was apprehended, and, boldly confessing his faith, cruelly scourged, then tormented in the most inhuman manner on the rack, and at length beheaded, by the command of Pyrrhus, the president, probably about the year 304. His name has been always very famous in the calendars of the church, especially in the East. See the first acts of this martyr, translated in Surius, who borrowed them from Metaphrastes. They begin, [Greek], and are warmly defended and extolled by Falconius, p. 30. The second acts in Surius, ascribed to Timothy, patriarch of Alexandria, in 380, deserve little credit. (See Tillem. t. 5. in Peter of Alex. n. 4.) Lambecius mentions other acts of this saint, t. 8. p. 269. See Fabricius Bibl. Gr. t. 6. p. 548.	1

Another ST. MENNAS, martyr in Lybia, under Maximian, is named in the Eastern and Western Martyrologies on the 10th of December. Procopius (l. 1. de ædif. Justin.) mentions a church built at Constantinople by Justinian, in honour of St. Mennas, whose body was translated thither. This Baronius understands of the Lybian; Jos. Assemani of Mennas, the soldier under Dioclesian. (t. 5. p. 461.) The acts of Mennas the Lybian, in Surius, are of no authority.	2