Benjamin

Biography

around 425) Persian Christians had lived peacefully for fifty years until Abdas, Bishop of Tesiphon, decided to burn a pagan temple. The fire enraged King Yezdigerd, who unfortunately took three years to understand that this prelate had lost his mind and that in his actions there was nothing of what Christ taught the Apostles. At the beginning of the persecution, Deacon Benjamin was arrested. He was a man of extraordinary zeal and eloquence, and had, in fact, achieved numerous conversions among the priests of Zarathustra. He spent two years molding in a dungeon until a Byzantine ambassador obtained his release by assuring the king that the prisoner had nothing to do with the burning of the temple and that there would never be a single complaint against him. "And will he leave the magicians alone?" Yezdigerd asked him. "It won't convert a single one," the ambassador replied. However, from the moment he regained his freedom, Benjamin resumed his apostolic work among the Magi, publicly declaring that he would never stop illuminating those who sought it with the light of Truth. "If I did anything else," he proclaimed, "I would incur the punishment that the Lord reserves for those who waste their talents." This time the ambassador could do nothing. Benjamin was arrested again and the emperor had him impaled.