Posted: 9/11/2018 Updated: 1/1/2020
There are many good reasons why religious freedom has to be strongly
defended. This is one of them!
“He [Saint Telemachus] protested in Rome against gladiatorial combat, and was murdered by its supporters [or by a gladiator]. His efforts moved the Christian emperor Honorius to ban the combats, and Telemachus is considered a martyr, saving many through his sacrificial death.”
(Source 2; emphasis added)
(Source 2; emphasis added)
“The Christian Emperor Honorius, however, was impressed by the monk's martyrdom and it spurred him to issue a historic ban on gladiatorial fights. Frederick George Holweck gives the year of his death as 391. [3] The last known gladiatorial fight in Rome was on 1 January 404 AD.”
(Source 1; emphasis added)
Here is Ronald Reagan’s interpretation of Saint Telemachus:
“This power of prayer can be illustrated by a story
that goes back to the fourth century. The Asian [ascetic] monk living in a little remote village, spending most of his time in prayer
or tending the garden from which he obtained his sustenance—
I hesitate to say the name because I'm not sure I know the pronunciation,
but let me take a chance. It was Telemachus, back in the fourth century.
And then one day, he thought he heard the voice of God
telling him to go to Rome. And believing that he had heard, he set out.
And weeks and weeks later, he arrived there, having traveled most of the way
on foot.
And it was at a time of a festival in Rome. They were celebrating a triumph
over the Goths. And he followed a crowd into the Colosseum, and then there in the midst of this great crowd, he saw the
gladiators come forth, stand before the Emperor, and say,
"We who are about to die salute you." And he realized they were going
to fight to the death for the entertainment of the crowds. And he cried out, "In the name of Christ, stop!" And his voice was lost in the tumult there in the great Colosseum.
And as the games began, he made his way down through the crowd and climbed over the wall and dropped to the floor of the arena.
Suddenly the crowds saw this scrawny little figure
making his way out to the gladiators and saying,
over and over again, "In the name of Christ, stop." And they thought it was part of the entertainment and at first they were amused. But then, when they realized it wasn't,
they grew belligerent and angry.
And as he was pleading with the gladiators,
"In the name of Christ, stop," one of them plunged his sword into his body. And as he fell to the sand of the arena in death, his last words were,
"In the name of Christ, stop."
And suddenly, a strange thing happened. The gladiators stood looking at this tiny form lying in the sand. A silence fell over the Colosseum. And then, someplace up in the upper tiers,
an individual made his way to an exit and left,
and others began to follow. And in the dead silence, everyone left the Colosseum.
That was the last battle to the death between gladiators
in the Roman Colosseum. Never again did anyone kill or
did men kill each other for the entertainment of the crowd.”
(Source 3; emphasis added; Reagan had a wonderful gift of telling stories)
It is a very moving story no matter whether every detail is authentic. Or did the games end, because Rome was overrun by Germanic tribes in 410 AD?
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