ON SAINT STEPHEN, BISHOP OF ANTIOCH, AND MARTYR.
In the year 479.
CommentaryStephen, Bishop of Antioch, Martyr (St.)
By G. H.
The Church of Antioch, which in the first times of the Christian affair had flourished with the distinguished sanctity of its Bishops, especially Euodius, Ignatius, and Babylas, the Martyrs of Christ, after once it began, with Bishop Eustathius driven out by the Arians, to be agitated by the billows of seditions, scarcely ever had solid peace, with new schisms or heresies springing up one after another. Full of these are the ecclesiastical histories, especially where it treats of Saint Meletius the Bishop, whose ejection not only opened the entrance to the Arian Euzoius, but also split the orthodox themselves into factions, on account of Flavian being substituted while Meletius was still living, so that there might be one to be opposed to Euzoius; concerning which we treated more fully on 12 February. More grievously the disturbances revived again in the following century, so that Martyrius the Bishop preferred to renounce the disobedient Clergy, the rebellious People, and the contaminated Church, rather than struggle longer with them: and thus place was given to Peter the Fuller, a crafty and perfidious man: whom although the Church once and again shook off her neck, convicted and condemned for heresy, she nevertheless could not shake off all his partisans: with these acting, the orthodox Bishops were harassed, and one was even killed with a cruel death, namely Stephen, and Peter himself at length was restored by fair means or foul. Sacred cult. Concerning Stephen the Roman Martyrology speaks thus on this 25 April: "At Antioch, of Saint Stephen, Bishop and Martyr, who, having suffered many things from the heretics attacking the Council of Chalcedon, was thrown into the river Orontes, in the time of the Emperor Zeno."
[2] Of two Stephens in Theophanes There were then two Bishops of Antioch successively called by the name of Stephen, and therefore it was disputed which of them should be called martyr. Wherefore we first gather the Acts of both from the Chronography of Theophanes. He therefore, when he had narrated that Zeno, before being driven out, had entered Constantinople, the time of the former, and the tyrant Basiliscus had been taken by him and sent into exile, which happened in the year 477, subjoins this: "But Zeno held Peter the Fuller in hatred, as one who had favored Basiliscus, being restored by the latter to the Bishopric of Antioch. Therefore by a decree of the Eastern Synod he was removed from dignity, and John was ordained in his place. He also after three months is cast out, and at length his successor Stephen, a man remarkable for piety, is promoted Bishop at Antioch. But the following year, in the first Indiction, Stephen, by the common vote of the followers of Peter the Fuller, is accused before Zeno as a Nestorian: him, however, as alien from the imposed charge, the Eastern Synod, gathered at Laodicea by the Emperor's command, restored to his See. Then in the 7th year of Zeno, 480 of Christ, at least after the month of August, and of the latter, whom he constitutes a Martyr. Stephen the Bishop of Antioch having fulfilled his destiny, they ordained another Stephen in his place by order of the Emperor Zeno: whom the enemies of the faith, because of their propensity for Peter the Fuller, arming fury in support of madness, having pierced and killed with sharp reeds in the baptistery of the holy Martyr Barlaam, cast into the river Orontes. Now Zeno, about to avenge the crime attempted, commanded Acacius the Bishop of Constantinople to create a Bishop at Antioch: who created Calandion. The Antiochians, ignorant of the ordination made, set over themselves as Bishop one John by name Codonatus: whom Calandion later transferred to the See of Tyre, which is first after Antioch."
So Theophanes, which Anastasius the Librarian inserted into his Ecclesiastical History, the same, but a little more briefly.
[3] Evagrius in book 3 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 10, omitting John and the other Stephen, writes this: "Peter having been driven out of the Antiochene Church, Stephen takes his See: Evagrius also mentions one Stephen and Martyr whom the Antiochians put to death with reeds, sharpened in likeness of spears, as John Rhetor writes. With him dead, Calandio took the helm of that See: who induced all who came to him to pronounce anathema on Timothy and on the letters of Basiliscus written generally to all." Nicephorus in book 15 of his history, chapter 28, and Nicephorus, following Evagrius for the most part, writes this: "In place of Peter the Fuller or Cnaphaeus, Stephen was substituted, whom the boys of Antioch, because they were still devoted to Cnaphaeus, pierced with sharp reeds as with spear-points, and cast into the river that flows past the city, as John Rhetor hands down. To Stephen in the Bishopric succeeded Calandion, from John Rhetor: who was then at Constantinople for a certain business." So there. Baronius in the year 479 no. 2, when he had narrated John's martyrdom in Evagrius's words, adds: "Mention is made of John Rhetor in Photius, who says that he continued the history of his own time: namely from the times of Theodosius until the end of Zeno. Would that Greece had preserved for us that history, so illumined by the blood of Martyrs. … After this divine Martyr Stephen, another Stephen, substituted in his place, but this one sat only one year, Nicephorus's Chronicle has: and afterward Calandion was elected, as is noted there."
[4] Saint Nicephorus agrees with Theophanes, The words of Saint Nicephorus the Patriarch are these: "Peter the Fuller, ejected by Zeno, three years. John, who after three months' time was ejected. Stephen, three years. Another Stephen, one year. Calandion, four years." Which plainly agree with what Theophanes has, who also assigns three years to the elder Stephen, and asserts that the younger Stephen was killed in the first year of his See, and that Calandion was substituted for him by Acacius; against whom the Antiochians created John, but being ignorant of the ordination made concerning Calandion, to which later when understood they acquiesced. The aforesaid Writers are venerated in the month of March; Saint Theophanes on 12 March, but both seem to be mistaken. dead in the year 820; Saint Nicephorus on 13 March, ended his life in the year 828; therefore about 350 years having elapsed after the killing of Saint Stephen, so that it would not be a wonder if the killing and time of the See of one Stephen had been attributed by them to the other Stephen.
[5] In the times of these Antiochene Bishops, Saint Simplicius the Roman Pope presided over the universal Church, The first Stephen was killed in the year 479. created in the year 467, died in the year 483, on 2 March, on which day we gave his Acts, and in them touched on the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, deferring the rest to this day to be more accurately examined. This Pontiff had received letters from the Emperor Zeno and Acacius the Bishop of Constantinople concerning the killed Bishop of Antioch; and he answers on the 10th day before the Kalends of July after the Consulate of Illus V.C., therefore in the year 479, only two years or perhaps not an entire two years having elapsed after Basiliscus had been expelled from Constantinople and Peter the Fuller from the See of Antioch; in whose place John was then substituted, but after three months ejected, and in his place Stephen constituted, but killed within the first year of his See; and at Constantinople his Successor ordained, then on 22 June, Saint Simplicius the Pope, without observance of the Decree of the Council of Nicaea, in which Saint Simplicius dispensed, having sent as we said a letter on 22 June of the year 479, which we give here, and is of this kind: "Simplicius the Bishop, to Zeno Augustus."
[6] "Concerning the Antiochene Church, I have received with joy the ever-to-be-venerated summits of your piety: by which, with the innate zeal of your Catholic religion, after the defense of the faith, writes back to Zeno concerning the understood killing, which preserves and guards you, we find the audacity of impiety and the crimes perpetrated at Antioch restrained: exulting that you have in you the spirit of a most faithful Priest and Prince, so that Imperial authority joined to the Christian religion becomes more acceptable to God, and appears more whole; when those who have engaged in the sacrilegious slaughter of Bishops are ordered to perish by fitting punishments. In this both the peace of the Church and your Empire you will consult; because the injury of God being vindicated is the grace of the avenger; and the help of divine favor is conciliated to those whose care has not left sacrilege unpunished. But, to speak confidently to a Christian Prince, if the order of the preceding letters (which I remember having long ago written concerning the name of Peter and others to my Brother and fellow Bishop Acacius) had been kept, it could not have come to this which now rightly has deserved to be avenged. For I had commanded that, a suggestion having been made to your piety, the aforesaid, as well as the others who on occasion of the tyrannical domination had invaded the Churches of God, should be driven beyond the borders of your Empire: lest with pestilent senses they should pour the poison with sacrilegious mouth on any of the simpler, and with impious words wound more innocent souls against the orthodox faith. Which is then apparent, when these things are less cared for and are believed to be trivial. It has happened that (as you report) among the altars, not so much the people by their persuasions, but the Prelates themselves and the Priests, preachers of the faith, perished by deadly swords. Whence if any other remnants are found under your Empire, order them even now to be driven into outer lands: lest there should ever after be any necessity in it and cause for punishment. Because it is better to have closed the entrance than to have exacted the penalty of sin.
[7] "And since you judged that the seditions of Antioch must be quieted with most religious purpose, he holds legitimate the election of the successor Bishop of Antioch, in no other way than that, with prejudice to that venerable Council of Nicaea, at Constantinople, at their request, a Bishop should be ordained: which in his person alone you recalled was thus taken, so that afterward according to the definitions of the Fathers the creation of the Antiochene Pontiff should be preserved to the Eastern Synod; nor do you wish it to be held in the place of an injury, that which was done for the sake of removing dissension: Blessed Peter the Apostle holds this promise of your piety, and the mind of the most Christian and most faithful Prince to have sworn to these words, that hereafter in the city of Antioch, with the old custom preserved, a Bishop be ordained by his Comprovincial Bishops: lest, what
now my Brother and fellow Bishop Acacius has carried out at your command, come into the use of posterity; and confound the statutes of the Fathers, which you especially will preserve unharmed. Whence what was holily and religiously ordained by you for the love of quiet, we cannot reject: lest the state of the Antiochene Church should seem ambiguous under our doubt, especially since he who is read to have been ordained is so supported by the testimony of your clemency, and by such great preaching, that in him, beyond the grief of these wounds, we may congratulate even the Church which has deserved him. These things with repaid words and with the office of veneration I have taken care to answer, so that such great frauds and crimes of heretics to be pursued by divine and secular laws, which you have proven again and again to be so harmful, you may command to be taken away from the memory and conversation of men; whose impiety, as you see, by no authority can be checked. Given on the 10th day before the Kalends of July after the consulate of Illus V.C."
[8] So much Saint Simplicius to the Emperor Zeno: from which letter Baronius gathers, he writes similar things to Acacius Bishop of Constantinople: in the Notes to the Martyrology, that not only Stephen, but also other orthodox Bishops were then killed by the heretics at Antioch. Saint Simplicius wrote another letter at the same time to Bishop Acacius, of which we subjoin the first part here. Thus therefore it begins: "Simplicius the Bishop to Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople. Wounded by the letters of the most clement Prince and of your affection, concerning the sacrilegious and most deadly slaughter which was made at Antioch, and greatly affected by grief, I answer, asserting that if what I had written long ago concerning Peter and his other accomplices, and what I had asked to be suggested to his piety with the other brothers who were present, had, as I had wished, been put in order; the audacity of heretics would not have come to such a crime: nor would any necessity arise, that no other way could be provided for the aforesaid Church, except that the very cure should diminish something of its right. For although it has helped to bring peace that by the command of the most Christian Prince, even without prejudice of the Canons, the Antiochene Bishop should be ordained by your charity; yet it has not been done without invidiousness: which must be avoided hereafter also, as he himself who enjoined the example testifies."
[9] Stephen II presides three years So much Saint Simplicius, by whom he who was substituted is not indicated by name expressed. And of necessity there was another Stephen, to whose See are to be attributed the three years which Theophanes and Nicephorus had wrongly attributed to the earlier Stephen. Let it then stand that the killing of Saint Stephen happened on this 25 April of the year 479, after which day the account of the matter was brought to Constantinople, and by the Emperor's order the successor Stephen was ordained; and his ordination made known to Saint Simplicius the Pope, who answered on 22 June. to whom Calandio succeeds in the year 482. Who, a whole three years having elapsed, on the Ides of July, Severinus V.C. being Consul, that is in the year 482, sent other letters to Acacius, in which he indicates that he had understood Calandion to have been consecrated Bishop of Antioch, whose election he confirms.
[10] We treated on 10 March of Saint Melito and his companion Martyrs, whose sacred bones are preserved at Venice in the temple of Saint Lazarus in the Ptochotrophium or pious house of the mendicants, Relics of Saint Stephen at Venice. under the direction of the venerable Priests of the Somaschan Confraternity, translated, as the Bull has it, from Antioch or Bithynia, called Anatolia, together with other relics, among which, after the sacred bones of the aforesaid Martyrs, in the first place are mentioned the feet of Saint Stephen, Bishop of Antioch: which we wished to indicate here. The rest may be read at the said 10 March.