QUARANTA MARTIRI di SEBASTIA. — They are commemorated in the Greek and Latin Martyrologies on 9 March; their cult spread rapidly throughout the Church, and their relics were venerated in many places.
Their martyrdom is attested by several documents of differing historical value, sufficiently reliable to permit the glorious episode to be reconstructed truthfully. These include sermons by s. Basilio, s. Gregorio Nisseno, and s. Efrem; an ancient Passio, certainly not contemporary, which was translated into several languages; and the Testament that the martyrs themselves wrote in prison shortly before being led to execution. All these documents, while substantially agreeing, differ in details, though not in such a way as to warrant rejecting their authority. The sermons, while echoing written and oral traditions that may go back to the time of the martyrdom of the Q., also bear the imprint of the authors’ rhetorical style; the Passio, moreover, has all the defects common to this genre of writing; only the Testament is certainly genuine and beyond all suspicion.
During the persecution of Licinius, forty Christian soldiers, probably belonging to the XII Legione Fulminata, were arrested at Sebastia and given the choice between apostasy and capital punishment. Since they all remained steadfast in the faith, they were condemned to be exposed naked, during a terrible night of cold, in the courtyard of a gymnasium. Only one failed the test, asking to be immersed in the hot bath of the nearby thermae; but his place was immediately taken by the attendant, who suddenly converted. The following morning the frozen bodies were burned and the ashes scattered in the nearby river
; a church was later built at the site of the martyrdom. In Rome, too, an ancient oratory in the Forum, near S. Maria Antiqua, was dedicated to the Q.; it came to light during the excavations of