Saint Telemachus
The story of Telemachus comes to us from church history, first recorded by Bishop Theodoret of Syria in the early 5th Century – contemporary with the incident. His story has been told throughout the history of the Church, including being repeated in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and even told by President Reagan in 1984 during the National Day of Prayer.
Telemachus was one of the hermits of the early church. Once Rome became a Christian empire and the persecutions ceased, many Christians felt the Church had become ‘watered down’. Many of these people withdrew from society, wore distinctive old clothing, and spent their lives in solitude.
Living a life of self-deprival and contemplative prayer, Telemachus was little-known outside his own little group of hermits in Asia Minor. During a season of prayer, he felt God strongly prompting him to leave his enclave and re-enter the world. He did so, eventually traveling to Rome.
In Rome, he saw something shocking to him, the games of the Gladiators. Despite Rome being now a Christian empire, and having the godly Emperor Honorius on the throne, Rome still held these ancient, blood-thirsty games. In these games, the combatants would fight to the death with a variety of weapons, to the great delight of the cheering, frenzied crowds. Horrified that Christians would slaughter each other is such violent ways, Telemachus went to the stadium, entered the arena where two Gladiators had swords drawn on each other, and stepped between them and shouted, “Do not [return] God’s mercy in turning away the swords of your enemies by murdering each other!”
Furious that their sport had been interrupted, the crown began shouting at him. Many had stones they threw at him, and it is possible the gladiators struck him with their swords. Either way, Telemachus died in the arena that day. As the scene settled and the people realized what had happened, they realized by his dress that they had killed a man of God. Foxe says that he “turned the hearts of the people: they saw the hideous aspects of the favorite vice to which they had blindly surrendered themselves.” Some accounts have the crowd leaving the arena in silence and shame. From that moment onward, the bloody games of the Coliseum were no more.
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/foxe/martyrs/files/fox103.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Telemachus
