Theban Legion - The Account

The Account

According to Eucherius of Lyon, ca. 443–450, the garrison of the Legion was the city of Thebes, Egypt. There the Legion were quartered in the east until the emperor Maximian ordered them to march to Gaul, to assist him against the rebels of Burgundy. The Theban Legion was commanded in its march by Saint Maurice (Mauritius), Candidus, Innocent, and Exupernis (Exuperius), all of whom are venerated as saints. At the Swiss town of Saint Maurice-en-Valais, then called Agaunum, so it was said, the orders were given— since the Legion had refused to a man, to sacrifice to the Emperor— to "decimate" it by putting to death a tenth of its men. This act was repeated until none were left.

According to a letter from Eucherius, bishop of Lyon written about 450, bodies identified as the martyrs of Agaunum were discovered and identified by Theodore (Theodulus), the first historically identified Bishop of Octudurum, who was present at the Council of Aquileia, 381 and died in 391. The basilica he built in their honor attracted the pilgrim trade; its remains can still be seen, part of the abbey begun in the early sixth century on land donated by King Sigismund of Burgundy.

The earliest surviving document describing "the holy Martyrs who have made Aguanum illustrious with their blood" is the letter of Eucherius, which describes the succession of witnesses from the martyrdom to his time, a span of about 150 years. The bishop had made the journey to Agaunum himself, and his report of his visit multiplied a thousandfold the standard formula of the martyrologies:

"We often hear, do we not, a particular locality or city is held in high honour because of one single martyr who died there, and quite rightly, because in each case the saint gave his precious soul to the most high God. How much more should this sacred place, Aguanum, be reverenced, where so many thousands of martyrs have been slain, with the sword, for the sake of Christ."

As with many hagiographies, Eucherius' letter to Bishop Salvius reinforced an existing pilgrimage site. Many of the faithful were coming from diverse provinces of the empire, according to Eucherius, devoutly to honor these saints, and (important for the abbey of Aguanum) to offer presents of gold, silver and other things. He mentions many miracles, such as casting out of devils and other kinds of healing "which the power of the Lord works there every day through the intercession of his saints."

In the late sixth century Gregory of Tours was convinced of the miraculous powers of the Theban Legion, though he transferred the event to Cologne, where there was an early cult devoted to Maurice and the Theban Legion:

"At Cologne there is a church in which the fifty men from the holy Theban Legion are said to have consummated their martyrdom for the name of Christ. And because the church, with its wonderful construction and mosaics, shines as if somehow gilded, the inhabitants prefer to call it the "Church of the Golden Saints". Once Eberigisilus, who was at the time bishop of Cologne, was racked with severe pains in half his head. He was then in a villa near a village. Eberigisilus sent his deacon to the church of the saints. Since there was said to be in the middle of the church a pit into which the saints were thrown together after their martyrdom, the deacon collected some dust there and brought it to the bishop. As soon as the dust touched Eberigisilus' head, immediately all pain was gone."

The tale of steadfast conduct and faith was embroidered in later retellings and figured in the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine and was included among the persecution of Christians detailed in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, an early Protestant stand-by.

The strength of the account is based on the historical reputation for the eremites and other hermit saints of the Egyptian desert, the "Desert Fathers" of whom the most famous was Saint Anthony and the almost fanatical Christian following they inspired during the first two centuries. The first monks in the Christian tradition are known as the "Desert Fathers."

Accounts of the moral inculcated by the exemplum of the Theban Legion resonate with the immediate culture of each teller. The miraculous whole-hearted unanimity of the Legion, to the last individual, was downplayed by Hugo Grotius, for whom the moral of the Theban Legion was employed to condemn atrocities committed under military orders. For Donald O'Reilly, an apologist for the historicity of the account in 1978, it was "the moral issue of organized violence".