ON THE HOLY MARTYRS STRATON, PHILIP, AND EUTYCHIAN, WITH THEIR COMPANIONS,
AT NICOMEDIA.
A COLLECTION.
Their cultus, companions, eulogy, and Acts.
Straton, M., at Nicomedia (St.)
Philip, M., at Nicomedia (St.)
Eutychian, M., at Nicomedia (St.)
Companions, MM., at Nicomedia
BY J. P.
The sacred calendars, Greek and Latin, honor the yearly memory of these martyrs on this day. They are noted in the Greek calendars. Our Greek manuscript of Turin announces them thus: Ἄθλησις τῶν ἁγ. μμ. Στράτωνος, Φιλίππου καὶ Εὐτυχιανοῦ. That is: The contest of the holy martyrs Straton, Philip, and Eutychian. The Menæum of Chifflet has: Στρατονίκου, Φιλίππου καὶ Εὐτυχιανοῦ — Stratonicus, Philip, and Eutychian. The great Menæa published in print add Cyprian to Straton, Philip, and Eutychian; and he is placed likewise on this day in our manuscript Chiffletian transcript, which I was citing, but separately from the other three: Κυπριανὸς πυρὶ, Cyprian by fire. The same great Menæa briefly relate their martyrdom, and append to each of them severally the following verses; and these indeed concerning St. Straton:
Ἔθεντό με βδέλυγμά φησιν ὁ Στράτων Ἄνδρες βδελυκτοὶ, καὶ πυρὶ κτείνουσί με.
They have set me as an abomination, says Straton, Abominable men, and they slay me with fire.
[2] Presently these are subjoined concerning St. Philip:
Φιλῶν Θεὸν, Φίλιππε, καὶ ψυχῆς πλέον, and by verses Κατακριθεὶς πῦρ τοῦ φιλόψυχος γίνῃ.
Loving God, O Philip, above thine own soul, Condemned to the flames, thou lovest not thy life.
Concerning St. Eutychian the following are found:
Εὐτυχιανὸς εἰς κάμινον ᾐρμένην Ὡς ἵππος εἰς πεδίον ἦν, τὸ τοῦ λόγου.
Eutychian, while gladly thou goest to the piled-up fires, Thou runnest like a horse into the plain, as the proverb says.
Finally these are fitted to St. Cyprian:
Πῦρ Κυπριανὸς καρτερήσας καμίνου Ἐξώτερον πῦρ, ὃ Γραφὴ λέγει, φεύγει.
While Cyprian endures the kindled pyre, He flees those burnings of which the sacred text speaks.
[3] they are honored. Such as these verses are — containing, as they do, little or no salt of poetic charm — they yet stand here and there in need of some moderate explanation, that they may at least be the better understood. Εἰς πεδίον τὸν ἵππον is a proverb (concerning which see among the Adages in Manutius), that is, A horse into the plain: used whenever a man is challenged to that in which he is strongest and in which he most of all delights. A horse in the field is as it were in his own arena. In Lucian's Captive, when he himself demanded judges, Plato replies, Τοῦτο ἐκεῖνο εἰς πεδίον τὸν ἵππον, that is, This is that very thing which is commonly said, a horse into the plain — meaning, plainly, a man skilled in rhetoric and practiced in pleading causes. So much from Manutius; and in what sense it is applied to our Saint is abundantly clear. But that ἐξώτερον πῦρ, which in the metre I rendered burnings, properly signifies the outer fire with which the sacred Scriptures threaten the reprobate. So they speak of the outer darkness. The Greeks, therefore, to return to what went before, wished by the yearly memory of our champions to attest their public veneration. What of the Latins?
[4] Rabanus and Notker mark them on the XV day of this month with companions, [Elsewhere they are announced on the 15th of this month; in the Roman Martyrology on this day. The eulogy from Galesinius.] whom they do not name, as neither do they name Cyprian. The same is done at that date among the Auctaria to Usuard published by us, from the Lübeck-Cologne edition of the same Martyrologist and from Molanus. Grevenus, however, mentions only the holy martyrs Straton, Philip, and their companions, as may there be seen. Galesinius, on the contrary, records four martyrs by name on this XVII day, without companions, with the following eulogy: At Nicomedia, the holy martyrs Straton, Philip, Eutychian, and Cyprian. These, having entered the theater that they might lead the people away from the shows and the rites of idols to the worship of the Christian faith, brought it about by divine help that they drew away a great multitude from thence. But the governor, when he saw the theater empty of spectators, sought the reason why this had come about, and learned that by the work of the faithful the people had been called away thence to the study of Christ's doctrine. He therefore ordered them to be brought before him; and they, when questions were put to them concerning religion, answered steadfastly and freely that they both worshiped Christ and the faith of Christ and instructed others in it. Being therefore led forth into the theater and cast to savage beasts, they were not harmed by their fierceness; afterwards, tormented in various ways, they were at last thrown into the fire; and having thus striven for Christ in the stadium, they received at last the victors' crown. The Roman Church, adorning today's martyrs with public cultus, prescribes that these things concerning them — Cyprian, however, being omitted — be read yearly in her Martyrology on the same XVII day of August: At Nicomedia, the holy martyrs Straton, Philip, and Eutychian, who, being condemned to the beasts and in no wise harmed, consummated their martyrdom by fire.
[5] It is clear from the foregoing that the holy athletes are announced neither in the same number nor on the same day in the Greek and the Latin calendars; their companions, their number and concerning this diversity we propose the following observations. Florentinius, after he had placed them from the Hieronymian transcripts on the XV day of August in these words, At Nicomedia, the birthday of Saints Stration, Philip, Euticianus, with companions (adding of theirs, which he advises should be supplied to the text in the corrections prefixed to his Martyrology), discourses thus concerning them in his notes upon that announcement: These three holy martyrs of Nicomedia are set forth in the sacred calendars also by Bede (I understand the spurious Plantinian) Rabanus and Notker, cited above; the most ancient M. adds anonymous companions as well, along with our books, which the Corbie M. passes over in silence, and, with the order only inverted from theirs, speaks thus: "VIII (rather XVIII) Kal. Sept. At Nicomedia, the birthday of SS. Straton, Philip, and Euticianus. And the Assumption of St. Mary the Mother of our Lord." Another MS. of the Queen of Sweden likewise passes over the companions, on the XVIII Kal.: "At Nicomedia, the birthday of SS. Stration, Philip, Eutychian." Another agrees entirely, adding also Thyrsus in Persia, who belongs to the following day: "At Nicomedia, the birthday of SS. Straton, Philip, Eutychian, with their companions. And in Persia, the passion of St. Tyrsus." The Roman M. treats of the three martyrs of Nicomedia on the XVII day of August, on which day Baronius testifies that the Greeks treat of the same in their Menology. But unless the great Cardinal used some other Menology than that of Sirletus or Canisius, it is only on the XIX day that Eutychian the soldier and Strategius, crowned by fire, are there treated of.
[6] and the day of their cultus: Castellanus, in his Universal Martyrology, places Straton and his companions among those added on the XV day of August. But on the XVII day, at the text of the Roman Martyrology, he indicates in a marginal note that the holy martyrs named therein belong to the XV. But we do not sufficiently see why they should belong to that day. For although they are indeed recorded then, as has been said, in various Latin copies, yet in the Greek they are commemorated on this XVII day, as we alleged above in number 1 — sources which, as we suspect, Castellanus had not all of them seen. But however that may be, we judge that they are more rightly marked on this day in the Roman Martyrology along with the Greeks (since their cultus passed from the Greeks to the Latins) than on the XV with the Latin calendars which we designated before. As regards their number, concerning the three there is sufficient agreement among the Greeks and the Latins who name them. But whether St. Cyprian is to be joined to them is not so well established from what has been said; nor is it established concerning their company, which indeed is not indicated by the Greeks but is set down by the Latins — whose example we have followed, leaving them in their ancient possession, and have joined the companions to the three martyrs named above in the title prefixed to this Collection. It remains that we note a few things concerning the Acts of the martyrs.
[7] The martyrdom, or Acts, are assigned, Lambecius, in book 8 of his Commentaries on the Imperial Library of Vienna, indicates them: Τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ. Μαρτύριον τοῦ ἁγίου Στράτωνος, Φιλίππου καὶ Εὐτυχιανοῦ. Οὗτοι οἱ Ἅγιοι ἐν Νικομεδείᾳ ὑπῆρχον, καὶ τοῦ λαοῦ ἐπὶ τὰ θεώρια ἀπιόντος &c. Which in Latin run thus: On the same day (namely the XVIII day of August, as is noted in the margin of this Greek text) the martyrdom of SS. Straton, Philip, and Eutychian. These Saints were at Nicomedia, and, when the people were going off to the shows, &c. That martyrdom I sought among very many other things pertaining to August, and from the same
codex, out of which Lambecius drew the foregoing, transcribed for us, and of which we have already so often made mention in the course of this month and shall make mention further. Nor was diligence omitted as to whether we might find it elsewhere among our own papers (for we found the names of those martyrs in our manuscript index of Greek Lives); but in vain. Since therefore that document is not at hand, we shall give in its place what the great printed Menæa record concerning our Saints. These, then, we render thus into Latin, they agreeing almost word for word with what we gave above out of Galesinius. After the announcement, therefore, and the verses of which we have treated, there follows this:
[8] and in their place a summary of them from the Menæa is recounted. While these holy martyrs were living at Nicomedia, and of set purpose went up into the theater that they might instruct the people assembled there, and lead them away from idolatry and bring them to the faith of Christ, the governor at a certain time, beholding the theater empty of men, and being informed of the cause — namely that the crowds were being taught by the holy martyrs and were sending word of refusal to the pleasures of the shows, and were leading a certain new life, despisers of their fathers' ways — commanded that the Saints be set before him without delay. When they appeared, they confessed that they held the faith of Christ, and did not deny that others were taught it by them; being led forth into the theater they were handed over to wild beasts; and not being harmed by these, and tried by various sorts of torment, they were at last cast into the fire, and, having wrestled for Christ in the stadium, obtained the crown.
[9] There shines forth neither in this our Collection nor in the annotations of Baronius upon our martyrs any mark When they suffered is not sufficiently certain. by force of which it could be fitly discerned or conveniently established in what determinate year they consummated their contest for Christ. Castellanus nevertheless attaches them to the year 303; but on what foundation he rested, let him see to it. We meanwhile frankly confess that we have nothing sufficiently ascertained in this matter.