Mercurius

Why Julian threatened Caesarea

Julian became emperor in AD 361 and turned back to the old gods, although he had been raised a Christian. He hated Caesarea in Cappadocia, where Mercurius lay buried, because its Christians had pulled down its temples. He took away its standing as a city, seized about AD 300 pounds of gold from its churches, made its clergy serve as soldiers and taxed its Christians as heavily as villages.

He threatened that unless the temples were rebuilt, his anger would fall on the city “until none of the Galileans remained in existence”, his mocking name for Christians. The church historian Sozomen believed he would have carried it out had he not died soon after.

A spear no one could trace

The officer Ammianus Marcellinus was with the army in Persia. In his account, on 26 June AD 363 Julian rushed into a fight without his armour, and a cavalryman's spear came from no one knew where, grazed his arm and pierced his side. He died about midnight.

Julian's friend Libanius argued that one of the emperor's own men had thrown it, because no one ever claimed the reward the Persian king offered. Sozomen took that to mean a Christian soldier, which he thought probably the truth.

Two messengers

In Sozomen's history a friend of Julian spent a night in a church on his way to join him in Persia. In a dream he saw the apostles and prophets meet to complain of the harm Julian was doing the Church, until two of them went out to end his rule.

The next night the two came back to tell the others that Julian was dead. Nearly 1,000 years later the Greek historian Nicephorus made Mercurius one of the two.

Three arrows

The Julian Romance is a tale written in the early 500s in Syriac, the language of the Christians of Syria.

In it the Christian officer Jovian grieved over closed churches and persecuted priests until he fell asleep and dreamed of Mercurius holding a bow and three arrows. One arrow was for Julian and two for the officials who urged him on against the churches. Mercurius promised that after their deaths the Church would have peace.

Later a voice from heaven cried over the armies in Persia, “The arrow of salvation in the camp of the Romans!” When Julian mocked it, an arrow flew from where the voice had come and struck him down. Dying, he told his men to make Jovian emperor in his place.

Basil's dream

From the 500s, chroniclers told the story as a dream of Basil the Great, then a priest of Caesarea and later its bishop. In the late 600s the Egyptian bishop John of Nikiu gave the reason first: Julian had “shed the blood of many Christians”.

On the night Julian died, Basil saw heaven open, with Christ on His throne and Mercurius before Him in shining armour. Christ commanded, “Mercury, go and slay Julian the adversary of My anointed ones.” Mercurius vanished and came back to say it was done. The news of Julian's death arrived soon after.

Mary sends him instead in a Life of Basil from about the 800s, credited to his friend Amphilochius. In it Basil found Mercurius's tomb empty of his body and weapons, which were back by morning with the spear bloody. Julian never came back to carry out his threat against Caesarea.

The painting that bowed its head

John of Damascus told the story in the early 700s to show that icons were nothing new. In his telling Basil prayed for Julian's removal before an icon of Mary with Mercurius painted on it, and saw the martyr vanish from it and come back holding a bloody spear.

The Coptic telling puts Basil in Julian's prison, where he prayed for the other Christian prisoners. He saw a painting of Mercurius on horseback on the wall and begged him to free Christ's people from the emperor. At once the figure vanished and came back with its spear dripping blood.

When Basil asked if he had killed the emperor, it bowed its head. That is why Coptic painters show Mercurius with his head bowed and Basil before him.

The body that chose its resting place

The Christians of Edfu wanted to bring his body in from outside the town, though a few feared the saint would not allow it. While they argued, the body moved by itself and set out for the town. Clergy walked before it singing hymns, with incense and branches of sweet-smelling flowers.

A man in the town tried to take it into his own house, but it became as heavy as lead and nobody could move it. The crowd took it to the church instead, where it stayed until a shrine worthy of it was built.

“He will not be persuaded to allow this; let us take him into the church.”

The thief who carried the plank back

While the shrine was going up, a man of the town took a fine plank from the timber, swung it onto his back and set off home. Near the town he lost his way, because the saint had made his mind wander.

Mercurius then told the shrine's steward, a poor man to whom he often appeared, to open his door. There stood the thief with the plank on his back. The thief came to himself and confessed, and Mercurius forgave him through the steward.

Next morning the thief told the town what had happened and carried the plank back while everyone watched. Nobody stole from the shrine again, and he stayed to make bricks until it was finished.

“I have sinned against thee and I have stolen thy wood.”

The screen that bore fruit

For the finished shrine the builders made a large wooden screen from three trees that belonged to a woman Mercurius had healed of blindness. As a crowd of men lifted it into place, a few of the workmen joked that they wished Mercurius would make the wood bear fruit for them to eat, and at once it did.

Many were cured by the fruit, which some of the men took home to keep as a charm. When word spread, the whole town came to see.

“And suddenly, whilst yet the words were coming out of their mouths, the wood sent forth branches laden with very fine ripe fruit.”