Artigo do dia · 12 de May
Saints Nereus and Achilleus
At Rome, in the cemetery of Domitilla on the Via Ardeatina, the holy martyrs Nereus and Achilleus, who — as Pope Damasus attests in the inscription engraved upon their tomb — having served as soldiers and cruelly carrying out the tyrant’s orders, were suddenly converted to Christ. They abandoned the impious camp, cast aside their shields, their decorations and their blood-stained weapons, and confessing the name of the Lord, were found worthy to receive the palm of martyrdom.
Roman Martyrology
About the saint
Among the martyrs of Rome, Nereus and Achilleus stand out as two of the most moving examples of the courage of conversion — that virtue which seizes an entire man and turns him inside out, whatever the cost. They were soldiers in the emperor’s service, carrying out cruel orders, living off the glory of arms — and in one instant they laid it all down at the feet of Christ. Less than a century later, Pope Damasus wrote an inscription over their tomb that still sends shivers down the spine of anyone who reads it. Let us get to know a little of the story of these two martyrs and see how a soul once found by Christ can no longer bear to carry the weapons of the world.
Life
The historical documentation on Nereus and Achilleus is brief: what matters most comes from the inscription of Pope Damasus, engraved less than a century after the martyrdom. The later legend that presents them as eunuchs of the noble Flavia Domitilla is regarded as having no historical value — what we offer here is the trustworthy core preserved by the Tradition of the Church.
The documented history of Nereus and Achilleus comes down to us above all through Pope Damasus I, who between 366 and 384 had a marble inscription engraved over the tomb of the two, in the Catacomb of Domitilla, near the Via Ardeatina. This brief poem is the earliest historical witness we possess of them — and it says exactly what matters most: that they were soldiers, probably of the Praetorian Guard, carrying out “a cruel duty” in the emperor’s service and ready to obey “driven by fear.” The persecution against Christians in the army, begun by Diocletian between 295 and 298 and later extended to the whole Church from 303 onward, is the most likely setting of their conversion.
What happened then is what Damasus calls “a wonder, yet true”: suddenly they laid down their rage. Converted, they fled, abandoned the camp, threw away their shields, their decorations and their blood-stained weapons. “Confessing Christ, they rejoice to carry His triumphs” — says the last line of the inscription. They paid for that confession with their lives. One of the columns of the ciborium of the ancient basilica built over their tombs, rediscovered in 1874 by Giovanni Battista de Rossi, depicts the scene: Achilleus — whose name can still be read carved into the column — being beheaded.
They were buried in the Catacomb of Domitilla, on the Via Ardeatina, near the tomb of Petronilla, in one of the oldest sections of the Christian necropolis of Rome. Already in the fourth century a votive Mass was celebrated annually over their grave, and the ancient itineraries of the seventh-century pilgrims agree unanimously in pointing to the place. Over this tomb, still at the close of the fourth century, a three-aisled basilica was raised, abandoned around the ninth century and lost to the memory of Rome until De Rossi’s rediscovery, in the very same excavation that gave the inscription of Damasus back to the world.
In the fifth or sixth century a legend was born — the Acts of Saints Nereus and Achilleus — which turned them into eunuchs in the service of the noble Flavia Domitilla, the emperor’s niece. In this version, they would have accompanied the lady into exile on the island of Ponza and been beheaded at Terracina. Historians today regard this account as having no historical value for the life of the two — Damasus, writing much closer to their time, knew a different story. What remains standing, and is enough, is the memory of two men who laid down their arms into the hands of Christ.
In the sixth century, part of the relics was translated to the church which still today bears their names, near the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. The liturgical feast has always remained on May 12, passing down through the centuries untouched to our own day.
Why we celebrate today
The celebration of Nereus and Achilleus on May 12 goes back to the most ancient Roman liturgical calendars: already in the fifth century this was the date recorded as their dies natalis — the day of their entrance into Heaven through martyrdom — and on that same day, since the fourth century, a votive Mass was celebrated over their tomb on the Via Ardeatina. The reform of the calendar in 1969 kept this centuries-old date, now as an optional memorial.
For our life
What is startling in the story of Nereus and Achilleus is not the death — it is the gesture that came before. They were men trained to obey, career soldiers, who had built their entire lives around the uniform, the orders, the fear of stepping out of line. And even so, in a moment Damasus describes as “sudden,” they laid it all down. How many times do we, too, know exactly what Christ is asking of us — and yet refuse to let go, because “this is how it has always been,” because “everyone does it,” because it would be far too uncomfortable?
The virtue of these two is the courage to obey God rather than men when the hour comes — and the hour always comes, even when disguised as a difficult conversation, a career choice, an old habit that has to fall. Today it is worth pausing for a moment and asking: is there some “blood-stained weapon” that I am still carrying, and that Christ is asking me to lay down on the ground? It could be a grudge, an addiction, an entanglement I know is wrong, a silence of complicity. Nereus and Achilleus teach us that the “afterward,” in such cases, is for God to take care of — our part is only to have the courage to let go.
Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven.
Mt 10:32-33 (Douay-Rheims)
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