The Lives of the Saints Volume 1 - St. Patrick's Basilica

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to demand justice, and said: "While we are waiting on your majesty's
person, our wives in distant countries are insulted." Whereupon the
emperor gave him a letter to the governor of the province to enable him
to obtain satisfaction. With this letter he set out for Sirmium, and
presented it to the governor, conjuring him, in the name of the emperor
his master, to revenge the affront offered to him in the person of his
wife during his absence. "And who is that insolent man," said the
magistrate, "who durst insult such a gentleman's wife?" "It is," said
he, "a vulgar pitiful fellow, one Serenus, a gardener." The governor
ordered him to be immediately brought before him, and asked him his
name. "It is Serenus," said he. The judge said: "Of what profession are
you?" He answered: "I am a gardener." The governor said: "How durst you
have the insolence and boldness to affront the wife of this officer?"
Serenus: "I never insulted any woman, to my knowledge, in my life." The
governor then said: "Let the witnesses be called in to convict this
fellow of the affront he offered this lady in a garden." Serenus,
hearing the garden mentioned, recalled this woman to mind, and answered:
"I remember that, some time ago, a lady came into my garden at an
unseasonable hour, with a design, as she said, to take a walk: and I own
I took the liberty to tell her it was against decency {446} for one of
her sex and quality to be abroad at such an hour." This plea of Serenus
having put the officer to the blush for his wife's action, which was too
plain an indication of her wicked purpose and design, he dropped his
prosecution against the innocent gardener, and withdrew out of court.
But the governor, understanding by this answer that Serenus was a man of
virtue, suspected by it that he might be a Christian, such being the
most likely, he thought, to resent visits from ladies at improper hours.
Wherefore, instead of discharging him, he began to question him on this
head, saying: "Who are you, and what is your religion?" Serenus, without
hesitating one moment, answered: "I am a Christian." The governor said:
"Where have you concealed yourself? and how have you avoided sacrificing
to the gods?" "It has pleased God," replied Serenus, "to reserve me for
this present time. It seemed awhile ago as if he rejected me as a stone
unfit to enter his building, but he has the goodness to take me now to
be placed in it; I am ready to suffer all things for his name, that I
may have a part in his kingdom with his saints." The governor, hearing
this generous answer, burst into rage, and said: "Since you sought to
elude by flight the emperor's edicts, and have positively refused to
sacrifice to the gods, I condemn you for these crimes to lose your
head." The sentence was no sooner pronounced, but the saint was carried
off and led to the place of execution, where he was beheaded, on the 23d
of February, in 307. The ancient Martyrology attributed to St. Jerom,
published at Lucca by Florentinius, joins with him sixty-two others,
who, at different times, were crowned at Sirmium. The Roman Martyrology,
with others, says seventy-two.