‘’ SAINT SEBASTIAN ‘’
2012
Multilevel drawing by engineering CADplatform software, pen on paper thermally combined with cardboard
65x100cm
Their arrows in your faith
Sebastian had prudently concealed his faith as Christian, but in 286 it was detected (persecution of Christians). Diocletian reproached him for his supposed betrayal, and he commanded him to be led to a field and there to be bound to a stake so that certain archers from Mauritania would shoot arrows at him. “And the archers shot at him till he was as full of arrows as an urchin is full of pricks, and thus left him there for dead.” Miraculously, the arrows did not kill him. The widow of Castulus, Irene of Rome, went to retrieve his body to bury it, and she discovered he was still alive. She brought him back to her house and nursed him back to health. Sebastian later stood by a staircase where the emperor was to pass and harangued Diocletian for his cruelties against Christians. This freedom of speech, and from a person whom he supposed to have been dead, greatly astonished the emperor…But, recovering from his surprise, he gave orders for his being seized and beat to death with cudgels. Sebastian died c. AD 288.
