SEVEN SLEEPERS, Saints. - According to the most widespread legend, a group of young Christians (the number varies from three to eight) during the persecution of Decius (249-51) took refuge in a cave near Ephesus. When their hiding place was discovered, the Emperor ordered that they be walled up alive.
Under circumstances that are not well defined they awoke, and, still under fear of persecution, they sent one of their number into the city to buy food. Then the marvelous fact of their sleep, which had lasted three centuries, was discovered.
SEVEN FOUNDERS OF THE ORDER OF THE SERVANTS OF MARY, saints - The S. F. of the S. of Mary. Canvas by G. M. Crespi known as lo Spagnolo (17th cent.). Bologna, church of S. Maria dei Servi.
The first literary testimony of this legend in the East is found in a Syriac text of the 5th century cited by Dionysius of Tell Maḥrè and James of Sèrg (d. 521), who reworked the legend poetically. In the West the cult of the S. D. had already penetrated into Gaul in the 6th century. Gregory of Tours (538-94) knew the legend in a twofold form (cf. MGH, Script. rer. Merov., I, pp. 550-52 [Glor. mart., 94], 848-52 [the Passio]). Over their cave in Ephesus Theodosius II (408-50) is said to have had a basilica erected.
No one, except for a few devout hagiographers, defends the historicity of the account. The devout romance of the S. D. passed imperceptibly from the field of literature into that of the liturgy; nevertheless their cult, in origin, "is not the continuation of a religious fact of Greek polytheism" (cf. H. Delehaye, op. cit. in bibl., p. 177 ff.). The S. D. Maximian, Malchus, Martinian, Dionysius, John, Serapion and Constantine are commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on July 27. The Menologion of Basil commemorates them on Oct. 23, but instead of Malchus and Serapion it has Jamblichus and Antoninus.
The Koran (sūrah 18:8 ff.) and the ḥadīṯ (= tradition) designate the D. with the terms: aḥl al-ḥahf, aṣḥāb al-ḥahf, that is, "the men of the cave." Their legend is used to prove the truth of the resurrection of the flesh, as in Christian doctrine. This sūrah is recited every Friday at the mosque. An ancient tradition teaches that this weekly recitation repairs the breaches made in the wall of Gog and Magog (cf. Kor. 18:93; 21:96) by the barbarian hordes of the same name, whose irruption must bring about the end of the world. An eschatological event whose precursors the rest of the sūrah sets forth and whose day the prayer of the faithful must avert. An ancient ḥadīṯ of Muḥammad b. Ḥālid of Ḥuttal, a disciple of Kuṭajjir b. Ḥišām (d. 822), whose isnād (= chain of an oral tradition) would go back to the qārī (= reader, or rather reciter of the Koran) Nāfi' of Medina, says that "whoever recites the sūrah of the S. D. on Friday, a splendor comes forth from his feet up to the celestial horizon, which will make him shine on the Day of Judgment, and his sins committed between the two Fridays will be forgiven him."
The legend had penetrated into Nubia as early as the 8th century. The war fleet of the Turkish Empire was dedicated to the S. D. There exist drawings representing them both in miniatures and on boats and sails, where their names are written.
In Ephesus the cemetery of the S. D. has been discovered (v. Enc. Catt., V, coll. 124-25). In Rome M. Armellini discovered on the left of the Appian Way, a little beyond s. Cesario, an oratory dedicated to the archangel Gabriel and to the S. D. with frescoes of the 11th-12th century offered by Maria and Beno de Rapiza (M. Armellini, Seoperta di un antico oratorio presso la Via Appia dedicato all'arcangelo Gabriele ed ai S. d., Rome 1874; id., Le Chiese di Roma dal sec. IV al XIX, new ed. edited by C. Cecchelli, Rome 1942, pp. 732-33). - See plate XXIII.
Bibliography10 works
Martiniano Roncaglia