Morning broke at last, and a few still lived, amongst others Melithon, the youngest of the soldiers. Agricola ordered the legs and arms of those who survived to be broken, and as the order was carried into execution, they sang faintly with their frozen lips, "Our soul hath escaped out of the snare of the fowler; the snare is broken, and we are delivered." The mother of Melithon was present. She raised him in her arms, and laid him with the other bodies in the wagon which was to convey them to a fire in which they were all to be consumed. Melithon still lived, and smiled faintly upon her. "Oh, son of my bosom, how glad am I to see thee offer to Christ the last remains of thy life. Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps that thou hast sucked!" And she followed the tumbril to the fire into which her yet breathing son was cast, together with the frozen bodies of his comrades.
A few fragments still remain of the church, which in after years was raised on the scene of the martyrdom. The names of these martyrs were Quirio or Cyrio, Candidus, Domnus, Melitho, Domitian, Eunoicus, Sisinius, Heraclius, Alexander, John, Claudius, Athanasius, Valens, Helianus, Ecditius, Acacius, Vivianus, Helias, Theodulus, Cyrillus, Flavius, Severian, Valerius, Chudio, Sacerdo Priscus, Eutychius, Smaragdus, Philoctimo, Aetius, Nicolas, Lysimachus, Theophilus, Xantheas, Augias, Leontius, Hesychius, Caius and Gorgo.
S. MACARIUS, B. OF JERUSALEM.
(ABOUT A.D. 335.)
[Roman Martyrology. Authorities:—Eusebius, Theodoret Socrates.]
S. Macarius was created bishop of Jerusalem in the year 314. He was present at the great council of Nicæa, against Arius, whom he always opposed from the beginning of his heretical teaching. The historian Socrates has preserved for us a letter written to him by the Emperor Constantine. There was another Macarius, bishop of the same see, in the reign of the Emperor Justinian, who was driven from his see for defending the heresy of the Origenists; but having recanted, was restored.
S. KESSOG, B. C.
(6TH CENT.)
[Aberdeen Breviary. Authority:—David Camerarius, Thomas Dempster, and the Lections in the Breviary.]
Kessog or Makkessog, as he is otherwise called, an Irish prince by birth, and an itinerary bishop in the province of Boyne, laboured for the spread of the Gospel in Scotland. He is said to have settled in Lennox; and Thomas Dempster says he was represented in art dressed as a soldier with a bow in his hand and a quiver at his back.