Lentorama 2018: Second String Saints

Day 7 - Four Crowned Martyrs

The first sign that there may be issues with your group of saints: your name says there are four, but there are actually nine. Four of them were clerks in the Roman army who refused to make a sacrifice to a pagan god, and were beaten to death for their trouble. The other five were all sculptors who refused to make a statue of a different pagan god, who were then executed by being sealed alive in lead coffins and then thrown into the sea. All of this happened under the reign of Diocletian, who clearly wasn't brooking any monotheism.

It looks like the similarities in the two groups' stories - refusal to pay homage to a pagan god, followed by brutal killings - is what caused them to get lumped together under one name. But there also seems to be plenty of confusion of who these guys are, as there are claims that the names from both groups were co-opted from other religious works (though the names of the clerks are also said to have been learned through revelation). Put on top of that later research suggests that the only group that actually existed is the five stonemasons, and you begin to understand why maybe these folks don't need top billing.