Praise and Worship Music

Not as bad as cruddy Seventies and Eighties “hymns,” but… ugh, I am so so tired of being forced to sing this stuff every week.

1. Piano songs.
2. Unison in weird ranges.
3. Syrupy.
4. Totally dedicated to personal, individual experience, making it all about ME instead of God.
5. Encourages people to sing in a whispery way that creates vocal nodes and bad vocal habits.
6. Always the same freaking song construction formulas, to the point that I can often tell how the song is going to sound before we get there.
7. No, we haven’t all heard this song, nor does every parish subject people to it.
8. No, the music is not all that popular with all the younger people. It’s popular with certain younger people whom you know, but the others either are neutral or don’t like it at all.

On the bright side, the doctrinal issues are usually not there — often because they are avoided in favor of a vague “God loves you, feel good about that” attitude. Nobody ever does anything really evil that they have to repent and amend; they just feel shame and are cheered up by God. Nobody is ever angry at God; they just didn’t know Him. And so on. The music pretends that the dark side of life and faith is dealt with, but it’s not even allowed to exist in the lyrics. All people are victims looking for comfort, and there is no place for villains looking to become saints.

Book of Invasions Mod for Crusader Kings 3

I don’t even play Crusader Kings 3, but this is exciting! And geeky!

Basically, a mod team created an opportunity to follow Ireland’s mythic history (which might possibly have some connection to actual prehistory, but nobody knows what it is), in which many human groups with magical powers invade Ireland, until it finally sticks. And you get to attempt to conquer Ireland over the course of all that mythic history, as the leader of one of these invasive factions.

Now, in the actual Lebor Gabala Erenn, most of the settler groups all died tragically, but not in this game! Nope, they are still around and kicking.

The other trick is that, possibly, some of the invader names actually refer to various Celtic groups and their influence on Irish history. One of the most suspicious ones is the Fir Bolg, because maaaaaybe they refer to the Belgae, a Celtic tribe that managed to go everywhere you want to be. Including some expeditions to Greece. Others point to Pictish stuff.

So anyway… the Crusader Kings 3 mod is called Tales of Ireland, and it really looks beautiful.

OTOH, they did change a lot of stuff for game balance, and they went in for a lot of “de-Christianization” that seems to go way way way too far. (When you decide to have monastic round towers turn into some kind of Paleolithic or Bronze Age structures built by the Nemedians, you’ve definitely gone too far.) They also decided to add “the Celts” as a separate faction, when (as the video points out) the Children of Mil are the Celts, possibly with separate Celtic helpings among the Fir Bolg.

OTOH, a lot of this is for the sake of humor or fairy tale situations — if you hang around the Giants’ Causeway, you meet up with giants, not with basalt oceanic rock formations.

Anyway, it seems pretty full of flavor and interest.

Steak-Umm Defending Logic on Twitter

Holy crud, somebody is finally handing it to that pompous, anti-historical, anti-logic, barely more scientific than even Bill Nye, arrogant know-it-all, and general uninformed arse, Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

And it’s the Steak-Umm social media intern on Twitter.

God bless you and protect you, social media righteous hero.

Apparently somebody paid as much attention to science and logic classes as marketing ones, and I like it. Special props for using “epistemology” and “log off bro” in the same thread.

(And even though Steak-Umm marketing is vaguely blasphemous, I think the Lord will give them a pass for defending Truth in a dangerous time. And for trying to have a sense of humor, even if some of its manifestations are kinda dumb.)

(Also, they have a corporate spokesdog from home, who is obviously very mannerly, because he is not mauling the Steak-Umm box.)

Steak-Umms are really good. For those who are unaware, they are extremely thin-cut sheets of meat, which allow you to cook them very quickly in a pan. One then uses them to make delicious hot sandwiches, with or without cheese. I haven’t had any in years, but they are tasty; and now I want some.

In fact, Steak-Umm corporate, I fully intend to buy some. Because of your social media person. Give him/her a bonus.

No, That’s Not What It Says.

Obviously I like the Book of Revelation, so I was happy when a (non-Catholic, but usually sensible) Biblical scholar announced that he was doing a podcast series on the Old Testament references in the Book of Revelation.

The problem is that he will say some sensible things, add some interesting info… and then jump right off a cliff into Stupid, or at least, into totally unsupported inferences. He then says things that boil down to, “I like what this scholar says, so it must be true,” or “I like this better than what other people say, and so I just feel that it’s correct.”

Argh. Argh. Argh.

For example. Rev. 2:4 — “But I have something against you: You have left your first love.”

He correctly points out that Jesus also says that the Ephesians are doing okey-dokey on works, and on doctrine and discernment, and on endurance of suffering. But then… based on another scholar, he decides that if they’re not loving Jesus/God like they did at first (cf. Jeremiah 2:2), it must mean that they’re not following His commands. And since Jesus doesn’t mention evangelism specifically as one of their works, he figures they’re too scared or angry to evangelize the pagans.

Honestly? Where is that in the text, or in the referred text? Why wouldn’t it be, “The Ephesians have a great intellectual faith and knowledge, and great deeds, but they need to work on personal heartfelt devotion and prayer life”? Especially since they’re Ephesians and have an entire letter about how the Father loved them, and how Christ’s love “surpasses all knowledge,” and how being “filled” with love means being filled with “the fullness of God”? (Eph. 3:19)

But I go on listening, and all of a sudden this guy (based on another scholar’s article) is talking about how “the doctrine of Balaam” and “the doctrine of the Nicolaites” must be the same thing… because they appear in the same paragraph, and because sex is involved in both.

We have a lot of historical commentary about the the Nicolaitans. And what we’re told is that there was a legend that one of the original seven deacons, Nicolas, went so far with holding everything in common that he tried to share his lovely wife. So because of this legend that might or might not be true, Nicolaitan Christian heretics shared their wives/husbands in common. (And possibly this was one of the sources for the pagan Roman idea that Christians had orgies at their agape feasts and Masses.)

Meanwhile, it’s also pretty easy to read in the Bible about Balaam and Balak and Baal-Peor, and how they tricked the Israelites into worshipping pagan gods, eating pagan sacrificial feasts, and fornicating at sacred pagan orgies. None of this had anything to do with Jewishness or holding things in common.

So although you could say that an error of Christian communism and an error of falling into paganism both involve unlawful sex, they are clearly not the same things at all.

So how can you take this kind of commentary seriously? It’s not more credible for having scholars advocate it; it just makes the scholars less credible for anything!

Argh argh argh. I will probably get through the rest of the episode by gritting my teeth, but sheesh. Maybe I can just skim a transcript, so that it will be over sooner.

The 1991 Lord of the Rings

Channel 5 Russia (a government TV network) apparently was scrounging around in its backrooms for Soviet films made by its predecessor organization, and found the long-lost video of a two-part TV movie version of Lord of the Rings.

The name of the movie is Хранители (Khraniteli, which means “The Keepers” or “The Guardians”). The same title was used for the Russian release of Watchmen, so make sure you get the right one. It’s a “telespectacle,” which apparently meant a film adaptation of a stage play, with some outdoor scenes filmed. (Very similar to some opera adaptations.)

It was made in 1991, when glasnost was in effect and the Soviet Union was about to dissolve, and money seems to have been a little tight. For example, the Black Riders couldn’t find any black horses, as nobody dyed their coats or hooves; and the Riders are wearing jeans. Later on, the horses doubled as Tom Bombadil’s ponies. (And one pony gets fed part of a potato.)

OTOH, some of the cheesy special effects are typical of elaborately cheesy Soviet-era fairy tale productions, so you can’t blame money. There’s also a lot of Soviet/Russian “comic relief.”

However, the soundtrack is by a guy from the band Akvarium (Aquarium) which was a good listenable band, even if it was Soviet-approved, and which did a lot of fantasy songs.

The general idea seems to have been a last-ditch attempt to make an LOTR trilogy of films –while they could still take the Soviet approach of ignoring foreign copyrights, but while no censors were likely to stop them. (LOTR was only circulated in samizdat until 1988, because obviously the storyline was about free peoples fighting evil, God and angelic powers, and monarchy restoration.) The film was shown once on TV, but disappeared shortly thereafter, never to be seen again until it was posted on YouTube by Channel 5, on March 26.

There’s no English captioning, but you know the storyline. The Russian captioning seems good. The videos were publicized today in UK newspapers, so expect them to be taken down soon.

Khraniteli, Part 1. (Only gets to the Barrow Downs. Holy cow, must be a lot of Tom Bombadil.)

Khraniteli, Part 2. (From the barrow to the breaking of the Fellowship.)

There’s also a 1985 Soviet live action Hobbit, and a 1991 Soviet animated Hobbit series pilot, both available on YouTube.

Re: identity of the Hobbits: When Bilbo comes onstage at his party, 5 minutes in, he names and embraces Pippin, Merry, and Lobelia (named something else?). Gandalf shows up 7 minutes in. Frodo is the red-haired guy with the big polka dot neckcloth and the messy hair.

I like the Bilbo actor a lot, and the costuming for him is pretty good. The Gandalf is good, too, although his costume stinks.

Actors apparently do all love the Gandalf and Bilbo ring scene, because it just has a lot of inherent drama. But screenplay writers seem to have a lot of problems with it! Leave it alone, guys….

The Gollum backstory… um. Especially the “Gandalf questions Gollum by threatening him with fire” scene. I know it’s implied in the book, but that’s not a kid’s stage play!

Five minutes of Old Man Willow trippily messing with the Hobbits is five minutes too long. OTOH, it makes you really glad to see Tom Bombadil! Unfortunately, it just gets trippier. Still, I do like the “manly Bombadil” interpretation, even if I don’t like the size thing.

The laid out Hobbits are effective, but the barrow wight is… um… not exactly as described by Tolkien. Um.

Jesus Wants You to Ask for Stuff

It’s okay to want to pray for things you need. It’s a sign of spiritual growth to be happy with what God gives you, or to ask for important things that are worthy of prayer; but the lives of the wonderworking saints tell us that a lot of things are worthy of prayer, according to God.

It’s a sign of spiritual trouble if you are ashamed to pray for what other people need or what you need, or think that prayer is useless. Jesus orders and encourages us on many occasions to ask the Father for stuff we need, to be persistent about it, and not to be afraid that the outcome will be bad. The Lord’s Prayer that He gave us is all about asking for essentials and for eternal life. He’s not a vending machine and the “prosperity gospel” is heresy; but He’s not stingy, either.

John records that Jesus spent a lot of the Last Supper leading up to telling the Apostles to ask the Father for stuff. He’s the true Vine, we’re the branches, and we dwell in Him if we keep His commands. If we keep His commands and dwell in Him and His words and His love, we will bear much fruit. If we keep His commands, we are His friends, and He will lay down His life for us.

John 15:16-17 – “Y’all did not choose me. But I chose y’all and I appointed (etheka: literally, placed, laid down – the same verb in “lay down his life for his friends”) y’all, so that you may go out and bear fruit and your fruit may dwell/remain — so that whatever y’all might ask the Father in My Name, He may give to y’all.

“I command these things so that y’all may love one another.”

John 16:24 – “Up until now, y’all have not asked for anything in My Name. Ask and you will receive, so that the joy of y’all may be filled up.”

So basically, Jesus did all this for us, and we bear fruit in response, so that we can have joy and eternal life, and so that the Father answers our prayers, and so that we love one another. That’s a lot of trouble for the Trinity to go to, if we never ask God for what we need; and it’s ignoring a direct commandment.

Fr. Reginald Foster’s Funeral

A touching account of the famous Fr. Reggie’s funeral, back in January. As often happens with the weird and maybe-saintly, the funeral seems to have fit him, in his own way.

“Thinking He’s the Gardener….”

So Mary Magdalene thought Jesus was the gardener — which is “kepouros” in Greek. It literally is “garden” (kepos) + “watcher, guard, keeper” (ouros).

The last time we saw somebody watching and guarding a garden, it was an angel with a flaming sword, keeping humans out of Paradise and away from the Tree of Life.

And then there was the leader of the Lord’s hosts, who talked to Joshua while bearing a flaming sword. He let Israel’s people into the garden of Israel, but they did not get the Tree of Life.

But He has not come as garden security, to keep her out. It’s Life Himself, alive after dying on a tree, alive after spending time in the cool of the evening in a garden.

And He calls her by name.

“My Father Is the Farmer”

In John 15:1, Jesus says, “I am the true Vine, and My Father is the Farmer” (georgos).

“Georgos” literally means “land/earth” + “worker”, and thus “farmer.” It’s where we get the name George.

It’s usually translated as “vineworker” or “vinedresser” when it shows up in a vineyard context, especially since the Septuagint used it that way; but it really is just the generic word for “farmer.”

So yes, Jesus is in the construction trades like His Dad, and He’s a shepherd like His Dad; but the Father is a farmer too. So it’s not surprising, maybe, that Mary Magdalene would confuse Jesus with the gardener!

UPDATE: John 15:2 uses another surprising expression. It doesn’t warn us literally that branches not bearing fruit (me pheron carpon) will be cut off; it says that the Father “takes it away” (airei auto) in the sense of “picks up, pulls off, plucks, removes”; but also, that the Father “cleans up,” (kathairei) every branch that bears fruit, in the sense of “prunes.” And then Jesus adds, “Y’all are already clean (katharoi), by the Word that I have spoken to y’all.”

There’s a lot of “clean” and “pure” in John’s Gospel…. (As seen in my previous post.)

Priest and Servant II: Sacrificial Victim

If you keep up with Brant Pitre, Scott Hahn, etc., you know that the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint don’t say, “Sacrifice this animal,” but “Do this to the animal” or “Do this animal.” So when Jesus said, “Do this in memory of Me,” He was saying, “Offer this sacrifice.”

So… in the Holy Thursday reading, we have John quoting Jesus as saying, “Do y’all know what I have done to y’all?… I have given y’all a pattern, so that as I did to y’all, y’all should also do.” (John 13:12, 15)

[Btw, the verse does NOT say, “to each other.” It just says they should do it. Argh, translators adding things!]

The word for pattern, “hypodeigma,” is the same word that is used for God’s patterns of the Temple furniture and layout and vestments, which He showed Moses on Mount Sinai. So yes, we are at a greater version of the heavenly banquet with God and the elders of Israel, and it’s not just an upper room but the heavenly mountain.

Also, when the Apostles (except Judas) are described as already washed and therefore “clean” (John 13:10), the word that is actually used is “katharos” and “katharoi.”

That means “pure,” really. It is used in the Septuagint to mean “clean” in the clean/unclean ritual sense, or to talk about “clean beasts” that are suitable for sacrifice. But it’s also used for “pure” gold as a material.

Anyhow… my point is that Jesus is serving the Apostles while making them priests, as I talked about in my last post. But also Jesus is preparing to “do” Himself, and for them to help “do” Him in a continual re-presentation of His perfect once-for-all sacrifice.

But by “doing” something to them, it implies that they are also being made into little Christs who will also be sacrificial victims. Jesus is implying that a servant who wants to be like Himself will sacrifice his time and effort, and maybe even his life, to serve others.

Also, it seems to me that it’s setting the Apostles up to turn other people into priests, and servants, and living sacrifices. It’s a process being instituted.

And then Jesus says something interesting. He says that a servant/slave (doulos) is not greater than the master/lord (kyriou), nor an emissary/apostle (apostolos) greater than the one that sent him. (cf. John 13:16) So yup, that’s pretty pointed! I don’t know why it’s not usually translated “apostle,” since every other use gets translated as “apostle.”

Before moving onto the actual Supper, He says, “If y’all know these things, blessed are y’all — if y’all do them.” (John 13:17)

Yeah, that’s not stern at all….

UPDATE: Going back to the “pattern,” it’s worth pointing out that all of us Christians have bodies that are temples where the Holy Spirit dwells, and where the Son and the Father dwell. So this is one of the heavenly patterns for how to build and furnish our individual temples.

Priest and Servant

As we saw last night, Holy Thursday is about the institution of the Eucharist and the New Covenant; but right before then, it’s about the institution of the priesthood, and the obligation for the new priestly people, Christians, to act as servants toward each other.

Jesus takes off His himation, or cloak, which leaves Him in His long seamless robe; and then He ties a towel around Himself as a belt.

And what did the Jewish priests wear at the Temple? A long seamless linen robe down to the ankles, and a belt or sash tied around the robe.

But the way Jesus was doing it (ie, with the towel) seems to have been how servants did the footwashing for guests. So it was a sort of visual pun.

Leviticus 8:6 – “Moses had Aaron and his sons come forward, and he washed them. He put the linen robe on Aaron and fastened the belt around him.” (This is when Aaron and his sons are made priests of the Lord.)

Exodus 40:30-32 – “He placed the basin between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and put water in it for washing; and from it, Moses, Aaron, and his sons washed their hands and their feet. They washed whenever they entered the Tent of Meeting or approached the altar, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.

You get another priestly thing when Jesus warns Peter that unless he is washed, “You do not have a portion with Me.” (John 13:8) The Levites and priests of Israel were the only tribe that did not have a portion of the land; their portion and inheritance was God Himself.

(Oh, and here’s something funny. Peter didn’t just say, “Lord, you will _never_ wash my feet.” He said, “You will not wash my feet eis ton aiona,” which literally means, “to the age,” and is a translation of some kind of Hebrew expression about “olam.” It’s something like “ever in my life,” “in this age,” or even “forever.” So it’s a pretty exaggerated or emotional way to talk. Jesus says it because He’s God and He can, but Peter saying it is silly.)

A Trivial Observation about Snail Battles

In the Ormsby Psalter (which is in the Bodleian, and digitized online), folio 109r has a snail battle directly opposite a rather snail-shaped letter Q.

(The illustration program seems to be: a grapevine, marking Psalm 79/80; a battle of a goatman with sword and shield vs. a lion/unicorn woman, with a pot and spoon; a dog with a hood looking backward, and a startled pig face on his butt, also looking backward (and thus pointing out the location of the psalm commentary about “Lord, turn us around, and show us Your face, and we shall be saved”).

(Then there’s a musical party scene in the letter E, illustrating Psalm 80/81, “Take up a psalm and give it the tympanum (playing bells with a hammer in the picture)… with the harp… blow the trumpet….” There is the Q in “Quia preceptum,” and then, on the other margin, there’s a snail. A human man is dropping sword and shield and running from the snail, which seems to go along with “Iudicium Deo Iacob.”)

(At the bottom, “his back” is right above a picture of two half-naked men wrestling, thus showing their backs, along with a donkey-man referee with a naked butt and legs at “burdens.” Presumably because donkeys carry burdens.The word “Divertit” is right next to a picture of some kind of bird, of the kind named tits; and it has its neck at a weird upside down angle to represent divertit’s meaning, “to turn away.”)

So yeah, it’s more entertaining than chapter headings, and might have helped with memorization of the book’s layout or contents.

I don’t know what’s up with the acorns, and the dragon vs. leopard dragon thing.

St. Digory?

Well…no. Not that you’d notice.

But actually this is probably a Breton name, had some English popularity, and became a popular Cornish first name for centuries. Today, it’s mostly known from C.S. Lewis’ character, Digory Kirke, and from Dowland’s tune, “Captain Digorie Piper His Galliard.” Cedric and Amos Diggory from the Harry Potter books were named after Lewis’ character, and Diggory Island is a real place in Cornwall on the sea coast. There’s also a Thomas Hardy character named Digory Venn, which makes sense because Hardy’s books are set in the south of England, close to Cornwall.

(Btw, Digorie Piper was from Launceston, Cornwall, and Dowland might just have met him at some point. But Piper became a pirate, and was executed in 1586. The galliard wasn’t published until 1604, and it’s a sad one.)

The name “Digory” comes from a medieval romance in the style of a Breton lai, called “Sir Degare,” “Syr Degore,” or “Degarre.” If the “teg/deg” particle were from Breton, it would mean something like “excellent one,” and would be a name in the same family as the Welsh “Tegau/Tegan.” But there’s also the Breton word “digor,” which means “open” or “opened.” That seems more likely. Some claim the name is “D’Esgare.” But the French version of the story says that his name is “D’Egarre,” and means “the lost one.”

Sir Digory was the son of a human princess and a fairy knight, who either raped her, abducted her, or seduced her while she was lost in the woods. Either way, he left her with only one-half of a broken fairy sword to know him by. Scared to keep the resulting baby, his mother dropped the kid off at a holy hermit’s doorstep, along with gold, a letter, and magic gloves that will only fit his mother’s hand.

The hermit got his sister to raise the baby, then educated the child when he got old enough. Then Digory set out to find his family, killed a dragon with a wooden club and saved an earl, was knighted by him and given a horse and armor, and then headed back to Brittany, to fight for the hand of the princess you couldn’t marry unless you beat the king of Brittany in combat. He won, he got married — and it turned out to be his mom.

Luckily his mom recognized the gloves, and Bad Stuff was averted. His mom decides that it’s probably time to ‘fess up to her dad about the teen pregnancy. Digory spares everyone embarrassment and heads out to find his fairy dad, and his mom gives him the broken sword to know his dad by. (Unless it’s a version where the mom left the sword for the baby, along with the gloves.)

So first Digory meets a mysterious lady in a hidden castle in the woods, falls in love with her, is put to sleep magically, and then gets rebuked for not waking up fast enough. The castle is under attack by a wicked knight who wants to marry the lady, and he has just slain all her dead father’s knights. So Digory fights the bad suitor, wins, and is offered the lady’s hand. He says he can’t stay but will be back within a year to collect.

Digory goes off. He runs into a fairy knight, who challenges him to a fight. (In many versions, they fight, equal each other, are both unhorsed, start to fight on foot, and then they pause and talk.) Digory shows the fairy knight the broken sword, and the knight acknowledges Digory as his son, producing the point of the sword as proof. They ride back to Digory’s mom, and the fairy knight marries her. Then they ride to the mysterious lady’s castle, and she marries Digory. Everybody lives happily ever after.

The puzzling part is that we don’t know why the rape, abduction, and/or seduction, and why the fairy knight didn’t just marry the girl in the first place. He doesn’t seem to be cursed, evil, or anything like that. He’s not portrayed as a bad guy. And why does Digory’s mom have magical gloves? Are these like the gloves or cloaks that only fit an honest woman, or what? This is one of those stories that seems to be missing a lot of context. (Not to mention the incest/misunderstood relationships, the Rustam/CuChulainn son as challenger thing, etc.) Clearly the idea is that things need fixing, but why did they go wrong?

In the longer versions, the problem is that the King of Brittany, Digory’s grandfather, is so protective of his teenage daughter that he himself duels all her suitors, and keeps defeating them. So I guess you’d have to be okay with killing your father-in-law in order to woo his daughter. The other problem is that the princess looks too much like her dead mother, and is only allowed to leave the castle to visit her mother’s grave in the woods. The princess’ maidens fall asleep under an enchanted chestnut tree near the grave, and the princess wanders into the woods to seek help or escape. And that’s when the fairy knight grabs her.

So yeah, some kind of curse or taboo, for sure. Very similar to other stories like “Tam Lin,” where the girl doesn’t seem willing or unwilling, and the knight prophesies that she’ll have a fated son, and so on. So whatever is wrong that’s binding the girl, there’s also something wrong with the guy that’s binding him. Why is the sword broken, for instance? And a sword is a Frankish marriage gift or betrothal gift, so what does a broken sword mean? And why is “Degore” sometimes included in lists of Arthur’s knights?

But anyway, this is not anything that most people would know about, so it doesn’t really affect the name of Digory today.

St. Talia?

Talia is an interesting name, because it’s never been a super-popular or super-obscure name. It’s just there.

There is a St. Talia, a female martyr celebrated in Ethiopia on November 11. It’s not clear whether or not this is a different version of a name like “Tatiana,” or not.

“Talia” or “Taliya” is a fairly popular Jewish name, meaning “dew of God.” It refers to various things, but mostly to Micah 5:7, which says that Israel’s remnant dispersed among the nations will be like dew from God, or like rainshowers on the grass, waiting for no man to get moving, and prowling among them like a lion. So it’s an interesting name, because it sounds sweet and peaceful but really isn’t!

There’s also the name “Thalia” or “Thaleia,” which is Greek for “blooming, growing green, flourishing,” and is the name of the Muse of comedy and of pastoral poetry. It was also the name of a Grace, a Nereid, and a Nymph. So yup, there are lots of Christian Thalias too. Thalie is currently a very popular Christian name in France, since the 1990’s, even though it used to be very rare.

In France, girls named Thalie celebrate their nameday on July 27, the day of St. Nathalie, better known as St. Natalia of Cordova. Natalia Sabigotho was half-Moor, half-Visigoth, back in the early days of Spain’s Islamic conquest. She and her husband Aurelius (who was half-Moor, half-Hispanic Roman) were secret apostates from Islam, who knew that they might someday have to become martyrs. After their two kids were old enough, they sent the kids to safety and began living like monks. After seeing a Christian trader flogged to death, they bravely proclaimed their faith too, and were martyred together on July 27, 852.