St Erasmus of Formiae

Saint Erasmus is a Christian saint and martyr who died in 303. He is venerated as the Patron Saint of Sailors. According to his legend, Erasmus was an early Christian bishop in Italy when the persecutions by the Emperor Diocletian began. Erasmus was called before a judge, beaten around the head, spat upon and “besprinkled with foulness.” He was then beaten with leaden mauls until his veins broke and burst. Erasmus suffered all of these punishments with tremendous willingness and showed no fear. This made Emperor Diocletian so mad he had Erasmus thrown into a pit of snakes and worms, and boiling oil and sulphur was poured on him but he lay there pretending he was having a bath and thanked the Emperor for being so kind.

Then thunder and lightning came and electrocuted everyone except for Erasmus who was protected from the lightning. This made the Emperor Diocletian even angrier with Erasmus and he had him thrown in another pit filled with snakes. On this occasion, an angel came and slew all the vipers.

Erasmus would not cease preaching the Gospel, even though he was in great pain from having rosin, pitch, brimstone lead, and oil poured into his mouth. Erasmus stayed brave and never shrank away from his tormentors once. Erasmus then had a searing hot cloak and metal coat put onto his body before an angel eventually carried him away to safety.

This made the emperor so angry he had Erasmus enclosed in a barrel full of protruding spikes, and the barrel was rolled down a hill. Another angel healed him this time but more tortures ensued; his teeth were plucked out of his head with iron pincers, they bound him to a pillar and whipped his skin with iron shards, they roasted him upon a gridiron, they hammered sharp nails of iron into his fingers, they poked out his eyes with their fingers.

After this, they laid this holy bishop upon the ground naked and stretched him with strong ropes bound to horses and wrapped around his neck, arms, and legs, so that all his veins and sinews burst.

Erasmus still recovered and fled to Mount Lebanon and survived on what ravens brought him to eat. When he was recaptured, he was brought before the emperor and beaten and whipped, then coated with pitch and set alight and still he survived. Thrown into prison with the intention of letting him die of starvation, St Erasmus managed to escape.

He was recaptured and tortured some more in the Roman province of Illyricum because he continued preaching and converted numerous pagans to Christianity. Finally, according to the legend, his stomach was slit open and his intestines wound around a windlass.

A windlass is an apparatus for moving heavy weights and is typically used for the loading and unloading of ships. This is the reason that, to this very day, Saint Erasmus is the Patron Saint of Sailors. It is said that he watches over sailors and he uses Saint Elmo’s fire (the glow accompanying the brush-like discharges of atmospheric electricity that appears as a tip of light on the masts of ships during stormy weather) as the visible sign of his guardianship over them. Erasmus is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of saints conjointly venerated in medieval Germany.

When we told our Razzi the story he went a little pale and said he did not really want to be a saint if you have to go through all that. He would rather just be normal Razzi, thank you very much!