The Legend of St Judah Cyriacus

On May 4th, the Martyrology contains a seemingly very ordinary entry about a saint named Cyriacus: “At Jerusalem (the birth into heaven) of St Cyriacus the bishop, who was slain there under Julian the Apostate when he was visiting the holy places.” But behind this there lies a very remarkable hagiographical confusion, which is connected to the previous day’s feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross.

The fifteenth bishop of Jerusalem, and the last man of Jewish descent to hold that office, was a certain Judah, who is mentioned in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History (IV, 5). He is also traditionally said to be a descendant of the Lord’s family, the great-grandson of the Apostle Jude, and was therefore known by the epithet “Kyriakos”, meaning “of the Lord.” Eusebius also says that he lived at the time of the second great rebellion of the Jews against Roman rule (132-35), known after its leader as the Bar-Kochba rebellion. After this was put down, Jews were forbidden to live in the city, and thus he could no longer serve as its bishop; he was therefore replaced by a man named Marcus, and lived out the rest of his days in Galilee.

(Pictured right: St Judah Cyriacus, 1620-25, by the Venetian painter Iacopo Negretti (1548/50-1628), commonly known as Palma il Giovane; in the sacristy of the Jesuit church of the Assumption in Venice. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

But Kyriakos, written as “Cyriacus” in Latin, was not an unusual name among Christians in the ancient world. Twelve others who bear it are listed in the Martyrology, (plus three women named Cyriaca), and three others who are called by a slightly latinized form “Quiriacus.” One of these is a bishop of Ancona, a city on the Adriatic coast of Italy, about 166 miles to the north-northeast of Rome, who is supposed to have lived in the mid-4th century. And somehow, despite the two centuries that separate them in time, he was confused with the Lord’s kinsman who bears his name as an epithet.

Per se, this is not a particularly unusual thing. Much of what the Middle Ages knew of ancient history, especially regarding less prominent figures such as a random bishop of a small port city, was mixed up in a giant chronological muddle. A similar and very famous confusion took place between a missionary named Dionysius sent to Gaul in the mid-3rd century and his Biblical namesake in the latter part of Acts 17. But what makes this case so interesting is how it became tangled up with the story of the finding of the True Cross.

An aerial view of the cathedral of Ancona, dedicated to St Judah Cyriacus, from a postcard made in the 1960s. The local tradition holds that the relics of the Saint were given to the city by the Roman Empress Galla Placidia in the first half of the 5th century. 

After the Bar-Kochba rebellion, the Romans destroyed the ancient city of Jerusalem in a very Roman fashion, by basically choosing a level, shaving off everything higher than that level, and building a giant platform, on top of which they then constructed a new city. This means that the Jerusalem which Our Lord and the Apostles knew, including Calvary and the tomb, was essentially buried under it. After that point, although the Church might well have preserved the memory of the places where the events narrated in the Gospels and Acts happened, the original sites would no longer have been accessible.

In his wonderful novel Helena, a fictionalized account of the holy empress’ life and the finding of the Cross, Evelyn Waugh describes this situation very beautifully. Helena asks the writer Lactantius how the Church knows that the events of Jesus’ life really took place, and he replies:

“We have the accounts written by witnesses. Besides that there is the living memory of the Church. We have knowledge handed down from father to son, invisible places marked by memory – the cave where he was born, the tomb where his body was laid, the grave of Peter. … If you want to visit the holy places you must find the right man. He can tell you, so many paces to the east from such and such a stone, where the shadow falls at sunrise on such and such a day. A few families know these things and they see to it that their children learn the instructions. One day when the Church is free and open there will be no need for such devices.”

St Helena, 1495, by Cima da Conegliano. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

Now the Church historian Sozomen reports (II.1) that the location of Calvary was “disclosed by a Hebrew who dwelt in the East, and who derived his information from some documents which had come to him by paternal inheritance.” This may well represent a memory of the Lord’s family keeping record of the place, such as the aforementioned Judah Kyriakos, although Sozomen himself doubted the truth of the story.

But in the early medieval retelling of the story, the version which carries over into the Golden Legend, when St Helena went to find the Cross, some of the Jewish leaders knew where it was, but refused to tell her, so she threatened to have them all burned alive. They therefore handed over to her one of their number, a man named Judah, whom she had lowered into a well and left for several days, until he agreed to reveal its location. This distasteful episode furnished the antiphons for Lauds, Vespers and the minor Hours of the Finding of the Cross in the pre-Tridentine Roman Breviary; the second, for example, reads, “Then she ordered them all to be burned, but they, being fearful, handed over Judas, alleluia.” (In Clement VIII’s revision of the Tridentine Breviary, these antiphons were all replaced with those of the Exaltation.)

Judah being lowered into the well, part of the cycle of paintings which depict the legend of the Cross by Piero della Francesca (after 1447), in the basilica of St Francis in Arezzo.

The story goes on that this Judah converted to Christianity, eventually became bishop of Jerusalem, and was then martyred under Julian the Apostate. And thus we find the following passage in William Durandus’ entry on the Finding of the Cross.

“The cross was found at the time of Pope Eusebius by the blessed Helena, the mother of Constantine, with the assistance of Judah, who was then a Jew… (of whom) it is read that, having converted to the faith, he afterwards was made bishop of Jerusalem, and having changed his name, was called Quiriacus. It is said that the devil prophesied about him, ‘A Judah handed Christ over to death, but this Judah exalted him when he was dead… but Julian, my servant and friend, will soon be king, and avenge me upon this one.’ This took place when a monk called Julian, apostatizing from the order, by crime attained the Roman consulship, and thence having become emperor, and a persecutor of the Christians, afflicted him with various punishments and ordered him to be killed. It is also said that a certain soldier by the name of Quiriacus afterwards killed Julian, from whose tomb in Constantinople there comes forth an intolerable stench.” (Rat. Div. Off. VII, 11, 3-5)

The Martyrdom of St Judah Quiriacus, depicted on an altar frontal made in the 12th century in Catalonia, now in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Picturesque as this story may be, no part of it can possibly be true, and it should stand as a caution about the uncritical acceptance of hagiographical legends, even when they come from the pen of a luminary like Durandus. There was indeed a pope called Eusebius, who reigned for 19 months in the years 309-10, well before St Helena went to the Holy Land. It hardly needs saying that the emperor Julian the Apostate was never a monk. His brief reign (Nov. 361 – June 363) falls entirely within the much longer tenure of a bishop of Jerusalem called Cyril (350 ca. – 386), who outlived him by twenty-three years, and is, of course, a Saint and Doctor of the Church. (Cyril is “Kyrillos” in Greek, which might well have been confused with “Kyriakos” in some way.)

There is no solid historical foundation for the tradition that it was a Christian soldier who killed Julian, but in the East, where this tradition is accepted, the soldier’s name is given as Mercurius, not Quiriacus or one of its variants. Julian was originally buried in the city of Tarsus in modern Turkey, but his remains were later moved to Constantinople. The Byzantine chronicler John Zonaras (ca. 1070 – 1140) reports that his sarcophagus stood in a colonnade near the church of the Twelve Apostles. This church was also the imperial mausoleum, and it is impossible to suppose that the emperors would leave near it anything that emitted an intolerable stench.

A porphyry sarcophagus which is believed to have been that of Julian the Apostate, which is now in the Istanbul Archeological Museum in Constantinople. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Apaleutos25, CC BY-SA 4.0.)

An Icon of St George

Today is the feast of the martyr St George, who is honored with particular solemnity among the Greeks. This very nice icon of stories of his life was painted by an anonymous artist of the Cretan school sometime in the first half of the 18th century; it is now at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The central panel shows the classic story from George’s legend of him slaying the dragon; the twelve panels around it depict various episodes of his martyrdom.

In the central panel, George kills a dragon which had long terrorized a town in Libya called Sylene (or “Silena” in the Golden Legend). In the background on the right, the king and citizens watch from the battlements of a fortress; on the opposite side, the king’s daughter (dressed in red), who had been scheduled to be fed to the dragon, is seen running from the scene.

Perched on the horse behind the Saint is a young man called Amiras, who is holding a wine jug. According to a much later legend, he was a boy captured by Saracens from the city of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, and brought to Crete as to serve as a cupbearer of the Muslim princes who ruled over the island. Amiras prayed to George to deliver him from his captivity, and one day, as he was in the middle of serving at table, the Saint appeared to him, picked him up and set him on his horse, then rode over the sea to bring him back home to his mother.

On the top section are the first three episodes of the Saint’s passion: he is brought before the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, the agitators of the last great Roman persecution, in their capital of Nicomedia; he is led away to his punishment by two soldiers; a stone slab is laid on top of him to crush him to death. As is so often the case in the stories of the martyrs, the world refuses to cooperate with the persecutors, and everything they do that doesn’t involve them personally attacking the Saint (such as drowning, burning, throwing them off a cliff) fails. The wicked are in this way forced to assume responsibility for their actions.

The narration then goes back and forth from one side of the central panel to the other. The next image is composited out of these two sections.

At the upper left, St George is tormented on the wheel; upper right, he is comforted by an angel. Center left, he appears again before Diocletian; center right, he is submerged in quicklime, which again, does not work. Lower left, he is beaten with rods; lower right, he revives the dead ox of a farmer... 

and then in the first panel of the lower section, he revives a dead man. In the central panel, George refuses to adore an idol which is perched on top of a column, (and not easy to see); at last, he is slain by the sword.

The Oratory of Ss Cecilia and Valerian in Bologna

Since at least the last decades of 8th century, April 14 has been kept in the Roman Rite as the feast of three martyrs named Tiburtius, Valerian and Maximus. Valerian is said to have been the fiancé of St Cecilia, converted by her, after which he in turn converted his brother Tiburtius; Maximus was a soldier, one of several who witnessed the other two first beaten and then beheaded for the Faith, and was himself rewarded the crown of martyrdom after converting. Their legend has long been known to be historically unreliable; in a Roman breviary printed in 1529, their office has three fairly lengthy hagiographical lessons, excerpted in part from the legend of St Cecilia, but in St Pius V’s edition, these are reduced to two very short ones.

In the heart of Bologna, less than half a mile from the cathedral, stands a small oratory dedicated to Cecilia and Valerian, commissioned for the use of a confraternity by the city’s de facto ruler, a nobleman called Giovanni Bentivoglio. Beginning in 1505, a group of several painters who worked in his court were commissioned to fresco the walls with pictures of the main stories of the martyrs’ legend. (The series was completed within a year, just in time for an army led by Pope Julius II to invade Bologna and drive the Bentivoglios out of it; Giovanni died in Milan two years later as a prisoner of the French king.) The frescos, which are in a fairly good state of preservation, show the strong influence of the school of Perugino, from which emerged the most important painter of that period, Raphael. Some of the attributions given below are not very certain.

The Betrothal of Cecilia and Vaerian, by Francesco Raibolini, (generally known and Francesco Francia, or just “il Francia” in Italian.) 

According to the story, on their wedding night, Cecilia informs Valerian that she is a Christian, and has vowed to God to remain a virgin, and furthermore, that she is protected by an angel who will defend her if necessary. This inspires Valerian to inquire from her about the Faith, after which she sends him to Pope St Urban I, who is hiding from persecution in the region of the catacombs, to be baptized. (Urban was Pope from 222-230. Painting by Lorenzo Costa.)

The baptism of Valerian, by Giovanni Maria Chiodarolo and Cesare Tamaroccio.

When he returns to Cecilia, Valerian is able to see the angel, who then crowns them both with wreathes of flowers. (Painting by Bartolomeo Raminghi, known as Bagnacavallo, and Biagio Pupini.)

Valerian converts his brother Tiburtius, after which they are both arrested, tortured, and then taken out of the city and beheaded. (Painting by Amico Aspertini.)

The burial of Valerian and Tiburtius, also by Aspertini.

Cecilia stands before the prefect of Rome, a man named Almachius, and disputes with him over the truth of the Christian faith. (By Bagnacavallo and Pupini.)

The (attempted) martyrdom of Cecilia by beheading; “attempted” because, as the legend tells it, the inept executioner was unable to do his job properly, and thus wounded her horribly by striking her with the sword three times, but without killing her. Roman law forbade a fourth blow, and she was thus free to go, but died of her wounds several days later... (by Chiodarolo and Tamaroccio)

during which time she gave all her wealth and possessions to the poor. (This is represented by Costa very unrealistically, as if she were unwounded.)

The burial of Cecilia, by Francia.

A New Edition of The Tripartite Life of St Patrick

Just in time for the feast of St Patrick next Tuesday, we are very glad to share this announcement from Mr Phillip Campbell and Cruachan Hill Press.

Some of the most popular publishing projects I’ve been involved with over the last several years have been my reprints of the lives of St. Brigid of Kildare and St. Columba of Iona, two of the best-known saints of Ireland’s golden age. I have been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiastic reception these works have elicited, which testifies to the growing interest among Catholics in rediscovering the vast heritage of Catholic Ireland. I am therefore very happy to announce, after two years of labor, the addition of a third title to the collection: The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick and Other Works (Cruachan Hill Press, 2026).

Composed between the 8th and 11th centuries, The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick is the most popular biography of the great founder of the Irish church. Originally written in both Gaelic and Latin, it was meant to be read in three parts over the three successive days of Patrick’s festival. It is from this text that we get many of the most notable stories of his life: his contest with the druids of King Laoghaire at Tara, the establishment of his church at Armagh, his miraculous escape from his persecutors under the guise of a deer, and his famed Lent on Cruachan-Aighle, where he won the extraordinary grace of judging the Irish himself on the Judgment Day. Whatever Patrick story you’re thinking of, chances are it can be found in the Tripartite Life. This is, therefore, an indispensable resource for anyone who loves the great patron saint of Eíre.

But that’s not all! I have also included both of Patrick’s known works, his Confession and Epistle to Coroticus in their entirety, along with the earliest hagiography on the saint, The Metrical Life of St Patrick by St. Fiacc. You may not be familiar with Fiacc, but he is one of the most important eyewitnesses to Patrick’s life and ministry. As the son of the Chief Bard of Ireland and himself a druid in the service of King Laoghaire, Fiacc witnessed Patrick’s showdown with the druids firsthand and became one of the saint’s earliest converts. Written in old Irish, the Metrical Life is arranged in quatrains of thirty-four stanzas. A good deal of the poem reiterates material from the Confession, but we also see the introduction of other episodes that would go on to become integral to Patrick’s hagiographical tradition, like Brittany as the place where Patrick fled to after escaping slavery, and his schooling with St. Germanus of Auxerre.

The Confession and Epistle to Coroticus are the versions found in The Most Ancient Lives of St. Patrick, edited by Fr. James O’Leary and published in New York in 1904. St. Fiacc’s Metrical Life is an original translation from the Old Irish made by Fr. O’Leary. The Tripartite Life is given in the translation by Whitley Stokes (1830–1909), a renowned Victorian-era Irish lawyer, scholar and antiquarian. The whole book is 176 pages, 6 x 9 paperback.

Now perhaps the reader is thinking, “A quick Amazon search reveals several other editions of The Tripartite Life, as well as these other works. Why should I choose this one?”

For one thing, this work is not a cheap OCR reprint like most of the schlocky editions floating around on Amazon. This is a completely original edition, lovingly worked through line by line, chapter by chapter, with the help of a whole team of people. Phrases left in Latin by Whitley Stokes have been translated, and some of the Victorian grammar has been cleaned up for ease of reading. So you’re getting a lot better product for your money than you would with some crummy OCR scan.

Furthermore, there is substantial original content in this edition you won’t find anywhere else, most notably a 26-page introductory essay covering Patrick’s life and legacy, with a discussion of the various source texts and historical background. In addition, the text has been enriched with a generous number of explanatory endnotes, elaborating on the history, geography, and etymology of the names and places mentioned in the text.

Finally, another reason to consider this edition is because there are two different ways you can save when you do! From now through the end of Easter week, you can get 15% off if you purchase from the Cruachan Hill webpage using the promo code PATRICK15 at checkout. Alternately, if you want to bundle The Tripartite Life with the lives of Brigid and Columba, you can choose the Irish Saints Collection and get all three books at a generously discounted price.

We also have two other texts that readers with an interest in Catholic Ireland may want to take note of: The St. John Ogilvie Prayer Book, a prayer book in the Gaelic tradition with an original introduction by His Excellency Athanasius Schneider, and The Saga of Ireland: A Concise History of the Emerald Isle by Phillip Campbell (me), a 480-page history of Ireland peppered with historical fiction vignettes, laid out beautifully by Michael Schrauzer and illustrated by the lovely artwork of Chris Lewis of Baritus, which you can see below.

I have always been deeply moved by the story of St. Patrick. That one man can accomplish so much in God’s service is truly an enduring testament to the mighty works that grace is capable of affecting in a willing soul. I am sure that you, too, will be both edified and educated by this new edition of Patrick’s best-known and beloved vitae. May St. Patrick bless this humble work, and may all the saints of Erin remember us before the throne of God.

Ss Fructuosus and Companions, Spanish Martyrs of the Third Century

The feast of St Agnes is one of the oldest and most universal among those of the ancient martyrs; it is kept on this day in the Roman, Byzantine and Ambrosian Rites, and several of the Fathers preached or wrote about her, including Ss Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. The importance of her cultus is also demonstrated by the presence of her name in the canon of the Roman Mass, and the fact that her church in Rome on the via Nomentana was one of the first six built by the Emperor Constantine in the earliest years of the peace of the Church.

Earlier today, His Holiness Pope Leo blessed two lambs, as has customarily been done for centuries on the feast of St Agnes. The wool shorn from them is later used to make the pallia which the pope gives each year to those who have newly been made archbishops.

One of the works in which St Augustine mentions her is a sermon preached on her feast day in the year 396; however, it is titled “On the feast of Ss Fructuosus the bishop, and the deacons Augurius and Eulogius,” with whom it is principally concerned, who were martyred on the same day as Agnes, but roughly forty-five years earlier, at Tarragona in Spain, during the persecution of Valerian and Gallienus. Spanish liturgical books of the Roman Rite traditionally keep St Agnes on this day, and either transfer or commemorate the martyrs, but in the Mozarabic Rite, the native rite of Spain, they take precedence over Agnes, as a feast which is both older and more proper to the rite. The same is true in Tarragona, where they are honored the principal patron Saints.

The original account of their martyrdom survives, and is one of a fairly small number of such documents which are universally recognized to be authentic, even by the most skeptical among scholars of hagiography. These acts contain a record of the trial, such as it was, of Fructuosus and his companions before the Roman governor Emilian, who begins the interrogation.

“You have heard what the emperors have commanded?”
“I do not know what they have commanded, but I am a Christian.”
“They have commanded that the gods be worshipped.”
“I worship one God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all the things therein.”
“Do you know that there are (other) gods?”
“I do not.”
“You shall know hereafter.”

This last statement was effectively a threat of torture, at which Fructuosus “looked to the Lord and began to pray.” Emilian declared, “Who will be heard, who will be feared, who will be adored, if the gods are not worshipped, and the images of the emperors are not adored?” He then turned to Augurius and said, “Do not listen to the words of Fructuosus”, at which the latter replied, “I worship the almighty God.” Emilian then asked Eulogius, “Do you also worship Fructuosus?”, five words which fully betray a mystified incomprehension of Christianity very typical of the Romans. The answer was, “I do not worship Fructuosus, but the same (God) whom he worships.”

Turning back to Fructuosus, Emilian asked him “Are you a bishop?”, and to the answer “I am”, replied with a single word in Latin, “Fuisti – you were”, a very curt way of saying “You shall soon be dead.” He then gave the order that they be burnt alive.

The chapel dedicated to Ss Fructuosus, Augurius and Eulogius in the cathedral of Tarragona. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Turol Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0)

As the Saints were taken to the local amphitheater, the ruins of which still stand to this day, not only the Christians, but also the pagans expressed their grief, for they also loved Fructuosus. These acts contain an interesting witness to the antiquity of the Church’s discipline of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, which is also mentioned in one of the very oldest Christian documents outside the New Testament, the Didache. On his way to the amphitheater, Fructuosus was offered a cup of wine, but he would not drink it, saying that “it was not yet the hour to break the fast”, being only mid-morning. And thus, having kept the “statio” [1] of Wednesday in prison, “he hastened to complete that of Friday with the martyrs and prophets in the paradise which the Lord hath prepared for them that love Him.”

Another episode right before the execution, one of several such known to us, bears witness to the great veneration in which the martyrs were held by the early Christians. A man named Felix came forward, took the bishop’s right hand, and asked him to remember him, the clear implication being that the martyr would certainly stand in God’s presence very shortly, and thus be able to plead for him. To this Fructuosus replied, “I must keep in remembrance the Catholic Church, spread (through the world) from East to West.” He then addressed his flock as follows: “You will not now lack a shepherd, nor will the Lord’s charity and promise fail, either now or in the future; for what you see now (i.e. their execution) is but the weakness of an hour.”

The remains of the Roman amphitheater at Tarragona, constructed at the end of the 2nd century. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Burning at the stake usually killed more by smoke inhalation than actual burning, and this seems to be the case with these martyrs, since the acts say that the fire loosened the bonds which held them, in such a way that they were able to kneel in prayer before they died, “certain of the resurrection.” The author then reports that “the customary miracles” took place, a standing rebuke to those skeptics who are wont to treat excessive reports of miracles as a sign that the written life of a Saint is not authentic. Two of Emilian’s servants, Babylas and Mygdonius, who were also Christians, as well as his own daughter, saw the heavens open and the Saints ascending with crowns on their heads. Many of the persecutors focused their energies entirely on the clergy, and ignored the laity, and Emilian seems to have been such a one, since the two Christian servants were able to invite him to “come and see those whom you have condemned today, how they are restored to heaven and their hope”, but Emilian “was not worthy to see them.” The faithful then collected the relics, in accordance with the custom also attested in many other ancient accounts of martyrdoms.

In St Augustine’s time, the acts of the Martyrs were often read at Mass on Saints’ days, if they were available, and the sermon mentioned above is one of several that refers to this custom. “When we hear how the martyrs suffered, we rejoice, and glorify God in them. … You heard the persecutors’ interrogation, you heard the answers of those who confessed (Christ), while the passion of the Saints was being read.” Further along, he introduces St Agnes by saying, “Blessed are they whose passion was read. Blessed is Saint Agnes, the day of whose passion is today.” This custom never obtained in the Roman Rite, which had only two readings at the Mass, the Epistle and Gospel; hence the passions of the Saints found their place in the Divine Office instead. In the Ambrosian Rite, on the other hand, which has three readings on Sundays and feasts, the custom is still preserved to this day, even in the post-Conciliar form, by which the life of a Saint (in a fairly succinct version, to be sure) may be read in place of the Old Testament reading on certain feast days.

The following video was taken in 2014 in the basilica of St Ambrose in Milan, on the feast of the Martyrs Ss Protasius and Gervasius; after the Gloria and Collect, the passion of the two martyrs is read.

The cause and manner of the death of these martyrs naturally suggested to the author of their acts a similarity with the three children in the fiery furnace in the book of Daniel; this was a Biblical story near to the heart of every Christian in antiquity, since the Romans’ principal reason for persecuting them was their refusal to worship the statue of the Emperor, just as the three children would not worship the statue of the Babylonian Emperor. He therefore wrote that “they were like Ananiah, Azariah and Misael, in such wise that the divine Trinity was also seen in them, once they were set in the fire of the world, so that the Father was not far from them, and the Son came to help them, and the Holy Spirit walked in the midst of the fire.”

The Mozarabic liturgy makes many references to this idea in its liturgical texts for their feast day, as in this prayer at Matins. (The great veneration in which these Saints were held is also indicated by the fact that Mozarabic Matins normally has three prayers, but on their feast day, twenty-one, of which this is the sixth.) “Ananiah, Azariah, Misael, the three children tested by the fire of Babylon, were a great sign, o Lord, to Thy holy martyrs, to whom their august victory offered an example. In the case of the former, the fire fled, lest they die; in the case of the latter, it was let in, that they might be crowned. With the former, since also the time of the passion was not yet ripe, the fire of punishment could not touch their holy bodies; with the latter, in the acceptable time, when the way to paradise was opened by the death of Christ, it destroyed the bodies that were touched to the fire, once the door of paradise was now opened to the blessed. Therefore, we bless Thee, o God, who delivered the former from the flames, and crowned the latter after the flames; Who also, to deliver the former, didst sprinkle (dew) upon the fires, but allow them to take the latter up (to heaven). Grant us therefore, by the examples and prayers of them all, that we may so be delivered from the fire of carnal vices, that enkindled by the fiery sweetness of Thy words, we may merit to come to Thee in peace.”

The adoration of the statue of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Three Children in the furnace. From a manuscript known as the Saint-Sever Beatus (mid-11th century), an illustrated commentary on the book of the Apocalypse by the Spanish monk St Beatus of Liébana (ca. 730-800). This copy also includes St Jerome’s Commentary on the book of Daniel and a treatise by St Ildephonse of Toledo on the perpetual virginity of Mary. (Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 8878)

In a similar vein, the preface of their Mass (which, like many Mozarabic prefaces, is exceedingly long) ends with the words “Full worthy was it, that a divine voice should mark them, like unto that which marked the Hebrew children, Azariah and his companions, who walked in the furnace of the king of Babylon safe and sound, singing Thy praises with a new song, and in the heavenly office of the Angels cried out and said: Holy, holy, holy…”

Each year since 1990, a cultural association based in Tarragon and named for St Fructuosus has performed a passion play by Andreu Muñoz Melgar in honor of the three martyrs, in conjunction with the schola cantorum of the city’s cathedral. The story sticks very closely to that of the ancient passion, and in 2018, it was staged in the very amphitheater where the actual martyrdom took place, and at the same time of day. Here are links to two videos (not embeddable, for some reason) of the performance of it, the first from 2014 in Catalan, and the second from 2015 in Castilian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UJJSrot0IM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkZVp7Ovexo

[1] “Statio” meant the keeping of a fast until the mid-afternoon, which would later become the time for the canonical hour of None. This reference from 259AD shows us as an early form of the custom, later developed more fully, by which the Mass on penitential days was celebrated after None, and followed by Vespers, and the breaking of the fast.

The Legend of Ss Cyprian and Justina

September 26th is the traditional western date for the feast of two martyrs called Cyprian and Justina, who are said to have died at Antioch during the persecution of Diocletian, at the beginning of the 4th century. In the Byzantine Rite, today is the primary feast of St John the Evangelist, and these martyrs are therefore moved forward to October 2nd. Cyprian may be referred to as “of Antioch” to distinguish him from his much more important namesake of Carthage, but, as will be explained below, this very necessary distinction was blurred very early on.

Their legend tells that Cyprian was a magician, highly practiced in the very blackest of black arts (in ways which I would not even think to describe here), which he had learned by traveling all over the East, even as far as India, and eventually settling in Antioch. Justina was an Antiochene convert to Christianity, whom a pagan named Aglaides fell in love with, and being unable to win her over, turned to the magician to bring her around by his art. (In some versions of the story, Cyprian himself also falls in love with her.) But Justina nullifies his every attempt against her by making the sign of the Cross, including a magic potion given to Cyprian by the devil himself. (This detail is included in Jacopo de Voragine’s Golden Legend, but omitted by the Roman Breviary of 1529.)

An illustration of the story of Ss Cyprian and Justina from a 14th century French translation of the Golden Legend. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The devil then admits to Cyprian that he is powerless before the sign of the Cross, at which the latter converts to Christianity. (Aglaides, whose name becomes “Agladius” or “Acladius” in the Latin versions, falls victim to Chuck Cunningham syndrome, but in the Golden Legend, not before he turns into a sparrow by magic and flies up to Justina’s window.) Cyprian is baptized, and becomes such an exemplary Christian, not only in his teaching and living, but also by performing many miracles, that he is chosen to succeed Anthimus, the bishop of Antioch who received him into the Church. The devil then seeks revenge by stirring up persecution against the Christians; Cyprian and Justina are both put to various torments, and eventually beheaded, after which their bodies are brought to Rome. The Golden Legend adds that their bodies were further translated to the Italian city of Piacenza in the Emilia Romagna (about 44 miles south-east of Milan.) This may, however, result from a confusion between this Justina and another martyr of the same name from the city of Padua.

The cathedral of Piacenza, Italy. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Mongolo1984, CC BY-SA 4.0) 

The historical difficulties in this account abound, and do not primarily lie in its miraculous aspects. The biggest difficulty is rather that Antioch is a patriarchate, and its line of episcopal succession is extremely well documented; there was never any patriarch of Antioch called Anthimus or Cyprian, nor any bishop with either of those names in any of the various other Antiochs in Asia Minor. By the 370s, St Gregory of Nazianzus had somehow managed to confuse this Cyprian with his namesake of Carthage, whose life is far too well-documented to have anything to do with any part of this legend. He is followed in this impossible mistake by the poet Prudentius, who writes of him before his conversion thus in his book On the Crowns of the Martyrs XIII: “He was pre-eminent among young men for skill in perverse arts, would violate modesty by a trick, count nothing holy, and often practice a magic spell amid the tombs to raise passion in a wife and break the law of wedlock.” (From the Loeb Classical Library translation by HJ Thompson.)

The aforementioned pre-Tridentine edition of the Roman breviary had already simplified the story considerably; it has nine lessons at Matins, but they are not very long. The breviary of St Pius V reduces these even further to two, cutting out any reference to Cyprian being ordained at all. Inexplicably, the chapel which holds the putative relics of these Saints at the baptistry of the Lateran basilica in Rome has an inscription which calls him a deacon instead.

The inscription above the apse of the chapel reads, “DD (i.e. ‘divis’) Cypriano diac(ono) et Justinae virgini MM (i.e. ‘martyribus’), quorum corpora ara condit. – To Saints Cyprian the deacon and Justina the virgin, martyrs, whose bodies the altar preserves.” (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Dguendel, CC BY 3.0)

The Legend of St Eustachius

In the Ordinal of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216), the prototype of the missal and breviary of St Pius V, today is noted as the feast of the martyr St Eustachius and his companions, namely, his wife Theopista, and their sons Agapitus and Theopistus. The rubric of this ordinal appoints the Matins lessons to be taken from a long Latin hagiography, translated from a Greek original which seems to date back to at least the 7th century. (Acta Sanctorum 46, 123-135; BHL 2760) Their feast is kept on the same day in the Byzantine Rite, the date indicated as that of their martyrdom in the ancient passio.

The Annunciation with Ss Eustachius and Anthony the Abbot, ca. 1400-20, by the Master of the Brozzi Annunciation. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

These martyrs also have a basilica in the heart of Rome, first attested in the later 8th century, from which is named the surrounding administrative district, the “rione di Sant’ Eustachio”, one of the smallest, but most densely built up. This church was one of St Philip Neri’s favorites; from 1303-1660, it served as the chapel of the professors of the nearby University of Rome. In the Middle Ages, it was nicknamed “in platano – where the plane tree is”, in reference to a legend that a nearby tree was part of the gardens of Eustachius’ house, the place where the family met their martyrdom, and that Constantine originally built an oratory on the site, which in turn was later replaced by the basilica.

The early 18th-century façade of the Roman basilica of St Eustachius; note the stag with a cross between its horns at the very top, a reference to the legend mentioned below. At the upper left hand corner of this photograph is a part of the church’s belltower, the only part of the medieval structure that survives. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by LPLT, CC BY-SA 4.0)

In the editions of the Roman missal and breviary printed in the later 15th and early 16th centuries, the feast is either missing altogether, or noted only as a commemoration on the vigil of St Matthew, and so it appears also in the liturgical books of St Pius V; it is attested almost nowhere else in the later Middle Ages. In 1625, Pope Urban VIII restored it to the general calendar as a feast with the rank of semidouble, which was then raised to double by Clement X in 1671, and so it remained until 1960, when it was again reduced to a commemoration. These vicissitudes reflect an awareness, long predating the modern age of skepticism, that the martyrs’ legend cannot be accepted as historically true.

The hagiographical lessons which were add to the breviary by Pope Urban sum up the legend as follows. Eustachius, also known as Placidus (‘Eustathios’ and ‘Plakidas’ in Greek), was a Roman general who served under the emperor Trajan (98-117). He and his family were converted to Christianity after he saw a vision of a crucifix between the horns of a stag he was hunting. (This episode appears in the legends of some other Saints as well, most notable, that of a bishop of Maastricht-Liège in the Low Countries named Hubert (656 ca. – 727)). The Lord prophesies to them that they will suffer “incredible calamities”, as the breviary puts it, including the loss of all their property, and the separation of the family, each believing the others to be dead or lost forever.

An early 16th century icon of St Eustachius, by an unknown painter of the Cretan school. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

In reference to this aspect of the legend, five different hymns of their Byzantine Office compare the father to the Biblical Job, of which this one is especially beautiful. “O man with a soul of steel, how may we worthily praise thee? For thou overcamest nature, and being bereaved of thy goods, thy children and thy wife, cried out that blessed and praiseworthy speech of Job, ‘The Lord gaveth, the Lord tooketh away, as it pleased the Lord.’ So came it to pass, but the God whom thou didst love, and whom thou didst fervently desire, gave thy beloved ones back to thee, knowing beforehand that they would become thy fellows in martyrdom; and with them, through various torments, thou didst reach the blessed end, taking them along with thee. O Eustathios, mighty in soul, beseech God that our transgressions may be forgiven.”

Eustachius is then called back to military service by Trajan, and in the course of reporting for duty, is reunited against all hope with his wife and children. But when he is ordered to participate in the pagan rituals of thanksgiving for the ensuing victories, (for it was Trajan who expanded the Roman empire to its greatest extent), he refuses. For this, the family are thrown to the lions, which (as so often happens) refuse to touch them, and then put inside a hollow bronze statue of a bull and roasted alive inside it. Their bodies are buried by the faithful, and later brought to their Roman church.

The Martyrdom of St Eustathius and Companions, 1635, by the French painter Simon Vouet (1590-1649), made for the high alter of the Saints’ church in Paris.

It hardly needs to be said that no general of the name Eustachius, Placidus, or any permutation thereof from the time of Trajan is known to history. Likewise, there is absolutely no trace of these Saints in the earliest documents of the Roman liturgy, nor any reference to them in the writings of the Church Fathers who were familiar with the traditions of Rome, such as Ss Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Leo or Gregory.

In the ancient passion, before the martyrs are placed in the bronze bull, they pray as follows: “Grant, Lord, such grace to our relics, that everyone who shall be mindful of us may have a portion with us in the kingdom of heaven…”, to which God answers, “So shall it be for you, as ye have besought, and greater still than this.” This is a common feature of the legends of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, among whose company Eustachius is traditionally honored, as a patron of all those in grave difficulties, especially those involving families, as well as hunters (along with the aforementioned St Hubert) and foresters.

A statue of St Eustachius on the high altar of the basilica of the Fourteen Holy Helpers in Bad Staffelstein, Bavaria, and beneath it, a view of the whole altar. Both images from Wikimedia Commons by Holger Uwe Schmitt, CC BY-SA 4.0.

St Martha Kills a Dragon

At that time, there was in a certain grove by the Rhone, between Arles and Avignon, a dragon, half beast and half fish, bigger than a cow, longer than a horse, having teeth like swords that were as sharp as horns, and fortified, as it were, with two shields on either side; and it would lay low in the river, and destroy all those who passed along it, and sink the ships. … Besought by the people, Martha came to it, and found it in the grove as it was eating a man. She threw holy water on it, and showed it a cross, and so it was immediately beaten, and stood still like a sheep. Martha tied it up with her belt, and the people at once destroyed it with spears and stone. The dragon was called by the inhabitants “Tarasconus”; wherefore in memory of this, that place is still called “Tarascon”… (From the Golden Legend)

St Martha and the Tarascon, from the Hours of Louis de Laval, 1470-85; Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms Latin 920, folio 317v 

This story from the Golden Legend was included in the Roman Breviary even so late as 1529, in one of the last editions before the Tridientine reform. All trace of it was removed in the revision of Pope St Pius V, but it survives to this day in the folk traditions of southern France. The monster, also called “Tarasque” in French, appears on the shield of the city of Tarascon, where the legend is commemorated in a folk festival held every year, and an effigy of the creature is carried through the city in a parade.

(Image from Wikipedia by Gérard Marin)

He also appears in some of the Corpus Christi festivals in Spain, as seen here in Valencia.

(Image from Wikipedia by Chosovi)

The Legend of St Denis

October 9 has traditionally been kept as the feast of Ss Denis (“Dionysius” in Latin) and Companions, who were martyred at Paris in the 3rd century. St John Leonardi, the founder of a small congregation of clerks regular, died on this day in 1609; when he was added to the general calendar in 1940, his feast was placed on top of that of the martyrs, who were thus reduced to a commemoration. In the post-Conciliar reform, however, both feasts have been made optional memorials, which means that the martyrs may now be celebrated more freely in the Novus Ordo than in the Roman Rite. That they should be present at all in the modern liturgy is very surprising, since St Denis is the subject of one of the most famous hagiographical confusions, of exactly the sort that led to the suppression or downgrading of so many other feasts.

A statue of St Denis, from the treasury of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Paris. One legend tells that St Denis was beheaded on the hill of Montmartre which overlooks Paris, after which he picked up his head and walked about 4 miles to the site where he is buried, the future location of the abbey which bears his name. (Photo courtesy of the Schola Sainte-Cécile.)

In his History of the Franks (I.30), St Gregory of Tours (538-94) lists Denis as one of seven men sent to Gaul as bishops to evangelize various cities during the reign of the Emperor Decius (249-51), and says that sometime after, he was “afflicted with various sufferings for the name of Christ, and ended the present life at the blow of a sword.” In the Martyrology incorrectly attributed to St Jerome, Denis is named on October 9th together with a priest and a deacon, Rusticus and Eleutherius, who are also mentioned in the prayer of their collective feast day. Their bodies were buried at a site a few miles to the north of Paris, and a church built over it, which Gregory of Tours mentions twice, once in connection with a miracle, and again when describing its profanation. Not long after his time, King Dagobert I (603-39) established a monastery under royal patronage at the site, and completely rebuilt the church; it was rebuilt again in the days of Pepin the Short and his son Charlemagne, the latter of whom attended its consecration in 775.

According to the revised Butler’s Lives of the Saints, even before the Carolingian period, St Denis of Paris had already been confused in some quarters with the Biblical figure of the same name (i.e. Dionysius), who was converted by the preaching of St Paul in Athens (Acts 17, 22-34). This preaching took place at the “Areopagus – the hill of Ares”, a large outcropping of the Athenian acropolis which was used as a place of judgment for serious crimes like murder; St Luke calls Dionysius “the Areopagite”, i.e., one of the judges who sat on the court held there. The Church historian Eusebius reports (3.4.11), on the witness of another Dionysius (a very common name in antiquity), bishop of Corinth in the later 2nd century, that the Areopagite was the first bishop of Athens; by the turn of the seventh century, he was believed to have died as a martyr, being burnt alive by the Emperor Domitian.

The Preaching of St Paul at Athens; a preparatory cartoon made by Raphael in the 1510s as part of a series of designs intended to be woven into tapestries; now at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Sometime in the later 5th or early 6th century, an unknown Greek-speaking theologian produced a series of four treatises and ten letters, purporting to be works of Dionysius the Areopagite. This is not a case like those of Ss John Chrysostom or Augustine, among many others, to whom writings were very often mistakenly ascribed in later generations; the author clearly and deliberately intended to pass himself off as the contemporary of St Paul. To this end, he claims to have been present, along with Ss Peter and James, for the Dormition of the Virgin Mary (Div. Nom. 3, 2), and addresses letters to Ss John the Evangelist, Timothy and Polycarp. Scholars generally suppose him to have been a Syrian; the dating of his works depends in part on the obvious influence upon them of the neo-Platonic philosopher Proclus, who died in 485. Further attempts to glean information about the author from his writings remain speculative.

By the first decades of the sixth century, these writings were cited by authors on both sides of the debate over the Monophysite heresy, which the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon had condemned in 451. Most notably, at a council held in Constantinople in 533, the Monophysites cited them in support of their teaching, to which the leader of the Catholic party replied that they were forgeries. Nevertheless, as the controversy continued, and as the heresy evolved into Monotheletism in the 7th century, they came to be gradually accepted as both genuine and orthodox by several important figures, the most significant being St Maximus the Confessor, who cited them at a council held in the Lateran Basilica in Rome in 649, under Pope St Martin I. They were further defended and cited to the same effect at the next two ecumenical councils, Third Constantinople in 680, and Second Nicea in 787. To this day, the Byzantine Rite’s liturgical texts for St Dionysius, “the Holy Martyr and Areopagite”, bishop of Athens, are filled with references to the writings, as for example, this hymn at Vespers: “Having made thy mind equal in honor to that of the Angels through virtue, o all-wise father Dionysius, thou didst write an account in (thy) holy books of the heavenly order of their hierarchy, and according to it, didst organize the orders of the Church’s government, likening them to the ranks of heaven.” (He is also the titular Saint of the Roman Catholic cathedral of Athens.)

An early 11th-century mosaic of St Dionysios the Areopagite, in the monastery of St Luke in Boeotia, Greece. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

In the year 827, the Byzantine Emperor Michael II (820-29) sent a copy of the writings to Charlemagne’s son, King Louis the Pious, along with several other gifts. By coincidence, they happened to reach the king on the evening of October 8th, when he was at the royal abbey of St Denis for the vigil of the titular Saint’s feast day. The abbot, Hilduin, who was very close to the king, had them translated into Latin, although this translation was not very well done, and was replaced by another about 30 years later. At the king’s behest, he also wrote a life of St Denis, which definitively conflated the bishop of Paris with the Areopagite, ascribed his mission in Gaul to Pope St Clement I towards the end of the 1st century, and acknowledged the writings as his. This conflation was henceforth accepted, and remained the common legend of St Denis in western Europe for the next 700 years. The writings became extremely influential in the High Middle Ages; Hugh of St Victor, St Albert the Great, and yet another Denis, the great Carthusian theologian, wrote commentaries on them, and they are cited well over 2000 times in the works of St Thomas Aquinas.

In the Renaissance, when many of the certainties of the medieval tradition were being called into question, the authenticity of the writings, and the identification of the two Denises as the same person, were challenged by two of the most prominent among the great humanist scholars, Lorenzo Valla (1407-57), who also unmasked the forgery known as the Donation of Constantine, and later Erasmus. The question was the subject of much controversy and debate over the following centuries, with learned men, Catholic and Protestant, offering their opinions as both defenders and detractors of the tradition. The neo-Gallican revision of the Parisian liturgical books sided with the detractors by separating Denis into two persons, one of Athens, kept on his Byzantine date, October 3rd, and the other of Paris on the traditional date, without the title “Areopagite”, a change which was later harshly condemned by Dom Prosper Guéranger.

A leaf of a 15th century Missal according to the Use of Paris, with the Epistle of the Mass of St Denis, Acts 17, 22-34. (Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 859A)

However, this diffidence towards the traditional legend of St Denis was not a novelty of the neo-Gallicans. The pre-Tridentine Roman Breviary devotes only a single lesson of less than 70 words to St Denis and his companions, which makes no mention of the theological treatises. It also says that he was sent to Gaul “by the Roman Pontiff”, without specifying which one, a clear sign of doubt about the legend that it was St Clement.

Much more tellingly, the pre-Tridentine Parisian Breviary also pointedly does not refer to Denis as the author of the Areopagitic corpus, although it does accept him as the Athenian disciple of St Paul and the contemporary of St Clement. The Matins lessons for the feast day and the days of its octave are taken directly from Hilduin’s life of the Saint, but omit the chapters (9-17) which describe the theological writings, nor is there any reference to them in any of the proper antiphons or responsories of the Office, or in the Sequence of the Mass. (The Epistle of the latter is the passage from Acts 17 cited above.)

In point of fact, it was only with the Tridentine revision that the Roman Breviary accepted Hilduin’s conflation of the Athenian and Parisian Denis as the same person. Furthermore, a sentence is added to the effect that “He wrote wondrous and indeed heavenly books, on the divine names, on the celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchies, on mystical theology, and certain others.” This is perhaps the only case in the Breviary of St Pius V in which the legend of a Saint moves further away from the more skeptical view, almost certainly due to the influence of Cardinal Baronius, who defended the traditional legend in his notes on the revision of the Martyrology.

As late as 1857, when the Abbé Migne put together his great corpus of Patristic writings, the Patrologia Graeca, which is arranged in chronological order, he put the Areopagitic corpus and associated writings, including several defenses of its authenticity, between the works of St Clement I and those of St Ignatius of Antioch. However, in 1895, two Catholic scholars, Hugo Koch and Josef Stiglmayer, working quite separately from each other, demonstrated the dependence of the writings on the works of Proclus, and the question is now universally regarded as settled in the negative. This also explains what was, of course, the strongest objection to their authenticity all along, namely, the complete absence of any reference to them in the writings of earlier Church Fathers.

Part of the choir of the abbey of St Denys. Around the year 1135, the abbot Suger began the process of enlarging the Carolingian church, during which the choir was rebuilt from 1140-44. Inspired by the Areopagite’s theology of light as an expression and manifestation of God’s presence, Suger created the idea of having huge walls of windows which flood the church’s interior with light; this is the foundation of the architecture style which we now call Gothic, and this choir is the first example of it. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Guilhem Vellut, CC BY 2.0)

As with the many controversies over the authorship of the books of the Bible, the assumption behind this debate was to a large degree that if a work is not genuinely by the author to whom it is attributed, it is therefore a forgery, and hence worthless. And likewise, as with the many controversies over the authorship of the books of the Bible, this assumption has more recently been to a large degree subsumed by an understanding that authenticity is principally an historical question, and one that need not always impinge on the value of a writing as a work of theology. In his series of Wednesday audiences on the Church Fathers, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the author of these writings (May 14, 2008), and explicitly rejected the idea that he passed himself off as the Areopagite in order to vest his work with the authority of one close to the Apostles, but rather, did so “to make an act of humility; he did not want to glorify his own name, he did not want to build a monument to himself with his work but rather truly to serve the Gospel, to create an ecclesial theology, neither individual nor based on himself.”