Saint Leonides of Alexandria

Saint Leonides of Alexandria was a Christian and the father of seven sons who, at the beginning of the third century, during the persecution under Emperor Septimius Severus, gave his life for the faith. His eldest son was Origen, one of the most outstanding interpreters of Sacred Scripture in the early Church. The Roman Martyrology commemorates Leonides on April 22.

Very little is known about his life. The sources give neither the date of his birth nor his origins. Almost everything known about him was recorded by Eusebius of Caesarea in the sixth book of his “Church History,” where he tells of Origen’s youth. Saint Jerome also left a brief mention.

Eusebius writes that Leonides himself saw to his son’s education. Before introducing him to Greek learning, he taught him Sacred Scripture and every day had him recite from memory the passages he had learned. The boy was not content with the plain meaning of the words and kept asking his father about the deeper sense of the inspired books. Leonides would admonish him not to search beyond his age, but in secret he thanked God for giving him such a child. It was said that he often stood over the sleeping boy, uncovered his breast, and kissed it with reverence, as though the Spirit of God dwelt within it.

In the tenth year of the reign of Septimius Severus, a persecution of Christians flared up in Alexandria. Leonides was imprisoned. Origen, not quite seventeen, wanted to follow him to martyrdom, but his mother hid his clothes and kept him at home. So he wrote his father a letter, begging him not to change his mind for the family’s sake. Leonides stood firm and was beheaded with the sword. The year of his death cannot be fixed exactly: 202 is most often given, sometimes 204.

The martyr’s property was seized by the imperial treasury, and his widow was left with seven sons and without means to live. Origen, educated by his father, soon began to earn a living by teaching. Forty years later he confessed in one of his homilies that it was of no use to him to have a martyr for a father if he himself did not live well and honor the witness that had made his father illustrious in Christ. Pope Benedict XVI recalled these words in his catechesis of April 25, 2007.

Leonides was not canonized, because in the first centuries the process of canonization did not yet exist. The Church venerates him as a martyr on the testimony of the ancient writers.