ON SAINTS PHILO AND AGATHOPODES,
DEACONS, AT ANTIOCH.
SECOND CENTURY.
CommentaryPhilo, Deacon of Antioch (St.)
Agathopodes, Deacon of Antioch (St.)
G. H.
The sacred tables of the present Roman Martyrology on this 25 April commemorate the two Martyrs already named thus: "Likewise at Antioch of Saints Philo and Agathopodes the Deacons." At which place Baronius annotates this: "These seem to be those who from Syria accompanied Saint Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, Name in the Roman Calendars, and carried his Relics back to Antioch, as is clear from the Acts of his martyrdom." Philo was a Deacon of the Church of Tarsus, Agathopus of Antioch. Saint Ignatius frequently mentions them, writing to the Tarsans, to the Philippians, and to the Antiochians. We gave on the Kalends of February double Acts of Saint Ignatius, some translated from the Greek, others drawn from ancient Latin MSS, with the history of the Translation of the Relics from Rome to Antioch, but without any mention of these Deacons. Peter Halloix in volume 1 of the Lives, which he published of the illustrious writers of the Eastern Church, chapter 9 of the Life of Saint Ignatius, inserted this: "Nor was his consolation lacking in these evils. For certain eminent men accompanied him from Syria even to Rome: others, meeting him on the journey itself, spontaneously associated themselves with him. For from Syria indeed the Deacons Philo and Agathopus, men endowed with outstanding virtue, and afterwards also numbered among the Saints, and from elsewhere others also, strong and noble athletes, ready to lay down their lives for him, joined him as companions."
[2] Concerning the Epistles of Saint Ignatius the Bishop, we proposed some exercise of ours before his Life § VI; and epistles of Saint Ignatius to the Philadelphians, and in the one which we judged genuine, written to the Philadelphians, this is handed down concerning these Deacons: "Concerning Philo, a Deacon from Cilicia, a man having testimony, who now also ministers to me in the word of God, with Rheus Agathopus an elect man, who follows me from Syria renouncing the world: who also bear witness to you. And I give thanks to God for you, since you received them, as also the Lord will receive you. But let those who dishonored them be freed in the grace of Jesus Christ." So there, which in the same epistle, but perhaps interpolated, are thus read elsewhere: "Concerning Philo the Deacon, a religious man from Cilicia, who now ministers to me in the word of God, together with Gaius, and Agathopus the elect man, who follows me from Syria, I bear witness to you, that they have renounced the world, and have undertaken to perform martyrdom. And I give thanks to God for you, asking that you receive them in the Lord, so that Jesus Christ also may receive you. For those who have defamed them have been redeemed in the grace of Jesus Christ, who wills not the death of the sinner, but his repentance." So there, in which Gaius and Agathopus are given as two distinct persons, while in the former text "Rheus Agathopodes" without the connecting conjunction is given as if a single one and the same, which also those things that are connected in either text suggest. Yet in the other epistles the prefixed names Rheus and Gaius are missing. In the epistle to the Tarsans this is read: to the Tarsans, "Your Deacon Philo greets you, to whom I also give thanks for zealously ministering to me in all things. The Deacon greets you, who from Syria follows me in Christ." Namely, Agathopodes, to the Antiochians, whose name is expressed in the epistle to the Antiochians. "Philo and Agathopus," he says, "the Deacons, my followers, greet you." And to the Philippians: and to the Philippians. "Philo and Agathopus the Deacons greet you."
[3] These are the things that occur worth reporting concerning these, and therefore what the Spaniards confer from the Pseudo-Chronicle of Julian Peter seem rather to be omitted than added: Concerning these things fabricated among the Spaniards. on account of which Tamayo-Salazar formed this eulogy for them in his Spanish Martyrology: "At Antioch, the feast of Saint Agatopeus Martyr, a Freedman of Augustus, and dwelling in Gallaecia of Spain, who, converted and baptized by Blessed James the son of Zebedee and Apostle of the Spains, and made a Deacon, came to Antioch; and received honorably by Saint Ignatius, at length with the glorious praise of martyrdom he ascended crowned into heaven." He adds then "Acts of Saint Agathopus, Antiochene Martyr and Deacon, from Julian and other Writers," and piles up other inventions, which sufficiently collapse from those things which we brought forward elsewhere concerning the Pseudo-Julian recently fabricated. Bivarius also in his Notes on Pseudo-Dexter at year 70, comment. 2, no. 3, complains that "some sciolist (who but Baronius, hardly worthy to be called so contemptibly?) added him to the Roman Martyrology on 25 April, when nowhere except in the Epistles of Saint Ignatius is any mention made of him." Nicholas Brautius, Bishop of Sarsina, in his Poetic Martyrology has this: "Of the holy Martyrs Philo and Agathopodes, Deacons of Antioch:
Each having fulfilled the sacred office of Levite, Plunged in the river, each departs as a Martyr."
Whence this of their Martyrdom, and this kind of martyrdom has been taken, we so far do not know.