Holy Martyrs and Confessors Julius and Aaron of Caerleon

The Roman Amphitheatre at Isca Silurum, now Caerleon

The first of July is the feast of Saints Julius and Aaron in the Orthodox Church. Romano-British inhabitants of the legionary settlement of Isca Silurum (where the Welsh city of Caerleon is now), Julius and Aaron were victims of the persecutions of Diocletian, alongside Alban the Protomartyr and Amphibalos of Verulamium.

The English Bede the Venerable and the Welsh Gildas the Historian are our two sources concerning the lives of these two early confessors of Christ in the British Isles. Here, in a dutiful excerpt from the History of the English Church and People, is what Saint Bede has to say about them:

In the same persecution [that claimed Alban] suffered Aaron and Julius, citizens of the City of Legions, and many others of both sexes throughout the land. After enduring many horrible physical tortures, death brought an end to the sufferings, and their souls entered the joys of the heavenly City.

Clearly Holy Bede’s own treatment of these British martyrs was significantly indebted to Saint Gildas, for here is the relevant passage from On the Ruin of Britain:

God, therefore, who wishes all men to be saved, and who calls sinners no less than those who think themselves righteous, magnified his mercy towards us, and, as we know, during the above-named persecution, that Britain might not totally be enveloped in the dark shades of night, he, of his own free gift, kindled up among us bright luminaries of holy martyrs, whose places of burial and of martyrdom, had they not for our manifold crimes been interfered with and destroyed by the barbarians, would have still kindled in the minds of the beholders no small fire of divine charity. Such were St Alban of Verulam, Aaron and Julius, citizens of Carlisle, and the rest, of both sexes, who in different places stood their ground in the Christian contest.

The two confessors of Isca Silurum had a minor cultus that survived in Caerleon well into the Norman period, though that cultus was dwarfed even there by that of Saint Alban the Protomartyr. It is a true shame and tragœdy that the Reformation with its abuses of ancient Christianity both in Wales and in England all but utterly destroyed any material memory of these two early sufferers for the Faith. In the Orthodox Church they are venerated on the first of July, though two other dates for their feast are given in traditional martyrologies: the twenty-second of July, and the twentieth of June. O holy martyrs Aaron and Julius, confessors of Christ and sufferers for the Faith, intercede for us sinners with the only lover of mankind!

O holy martyrs, bright lights of Wales,
You gave up your lives at Caerleon.
The crowd may have roared in the amphitheatre,
But your eyes were fixed on your welcome in heaven.
O Holy Julius and Aaron, pray for us!