ON ST. TATION, MARTYR,
AT CLAUDIOPOLIS IN THE PROVINCE OF HONORIAS,
Perhaps under Diocletian.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Notice of the place, the public veneration of the Saint, the time.
Tation, martyr at Claudiopolis in the province of Honorias (St.)
BY J. P.
Claudiopolis being a name common to several cities, which one is here to be understood Lambeck indicates in his Commentaries on the Most August Imperial Library of Vienna, book 8, The situation of the place is rightly placed page 212, where he brings forward the Greek text of the Martyrdom of St. Titio, as he is there called, and observes this in his notes: Here is to be understood that Claudiopolis which is the metropolis of the region of Honorias in Cappadocia. See the Menæa of the Greeks on the same day (the XXIV of August), and Abraham Ortelius's Geographical Thesaurus in the explanation of the name Claudiopolis. In the Menæa, however, for ἐπαρχίας τῆς Ὁνοριάδος there is wrongly read Ὀνοριάδος. Thus he. The Menology of the Greeks labors under the same corruption, rendered into Latin by the most eminent Sirleto and published by Canisius, in which also the name of the province is read as Onodias. Charles de Saint-Paul, in his Sacred Geography, book 9, which is on the Patriarchate of Constantinople, page 251 of the Amsterdam edition, writing of the metropolis of Honorias, says: Claudiopolis, in the ancient Greek Notitiæ, is called Bithynium in Strabo, book 12, commonly Castromena… And that you may know it to be a metropolis, Calogerus, bishop of Claudiopolis, metropolis of Pontic Honorias, subscribed the Council of Chalcedon, and Epictetus the Council of Constantinople under Agapetus and Mennas. Further, concerning this province and its metropolis the most illustrious Pierre de Marca treats in his Dissertations on the Concord of the Priesthood and the Empire, book 2, chapter 9, page 87 of the Paris edition, and writes this to our purpose:
[2] In the town of Gangra the king of that nation (namely of the Paphlagonians) Deiotarus had established his royal seat, [in Honorias; but in the Roman Martyrology the Saint is wrongly announced elsewhere.] as Strabo taught in book 12. Thence to the city of Gangra was procured the dignity of metropolis of the whole nation;
which it also constantly retained in the ecclesiastical arrangement. But it befell this province that in the times of the emperor Honorius it was diminished by several cities: which, with three towns cut off from Bithynia, passed into the name of a special province, upon which the name of Honorias was imposed. To this new province its own metropolis was not wanting, namely Claudiopolis, one of the cities of Bithynia… Out of Honorias and the rest of Paphlagonia Justinian constituted one body of a province, on this condition, that nothing should be lost of the ecclesiastical dignity of either metropolis. The often-named metropolis is exhibited in Charles de Saint-Paul, whom I mentioned, in his geographical description of the patriarchate of Constantinople, engraved on copper at page 205: where Honorias is enclosed on this side by Bithynia, on that by Paphlagonia, and is separated by its own boundaries from each of these provinces; while on the other side it looks toward the Euxine Sea. Since these things are so, it seems to me altogether strange that our holy Martyr should be announced by Baronius in the Roman Martyrology as being in Isauria; especially since he took him from the Menology of Sirleto (for this the most eminent Man used in his reformation of the aforesaid Martyrology), with which Menology what I have discussed above concerning the place plainly agrees. On the contrary, the Claudiopolis which is suffragan to the metropolis of Seleucia in Isauria — as may be seen in the cited Charles de Saint-Paul, in the Notitia of the Patriarchate of Antioch, book XI, pages 290 and 291, and in the geographical map at page 275 — that Claudiopolis, I say, does not agree with the martyrdom which we shall bring forward from a codex of the Imperial library of Vienna, from Sirleto's Menology, and from the printed Great Menæa of the Greeks; and therefore with due reverence we depart from the note of the place which is given in the Roman Martyrology. Furthermore, we do not understand how it is above understood by Lambeck to be that Claudiopolis which is the metropolis of the region of Honorias in Cappadocia. Nor do I find this in Ortelius, whom he cited; but he says: Claudiopolis, in Bithynia in the region of Zygiana, is a city in Ptolemy.
[3] He is honored Here now are some things concerning the cult of our St. Tation among the Greeks. The Menæa lately brought forward mark him thus on this day: The memory of the holy martyr Tation, with these two verses added in his honor, which we render from the Greek into Latin in this sense:
Ἕλξει μετρήσας πολλὰ πολλὰ γῆς πλέθρα, Ἐδὲμ λάβοις ἄμετρα πλέθρα, Τατίων.
Full many a plot of land hast thou measured out by drawing; Now, Tation, take the measureless spaces of heaven.
Perhaps the insipid verse means that the Saint drew men to himself, or to Christ, in very many places. Certainly I find no foundation, either for this allusion or for any other, if any be intended, in the Acts, nor among the Greeks whom I cited above. Sirleto's Menology reports and praises the Martyr in this manner: The commemoration of the holy Martyr Tation, who, being from the town of Mantineum under Claudiopolis, the metropolis of the province of Onodias, was seized by the heathen because he worshipped Christ, and stood before Urbanus the governor in the same city. And having confessed himself a Christian, he is beaten and cut with iron; and when he had come to the gate of the city, hearing a voice announcing to him the good things which were laid up for him, he commended his spirit to the Lord.
[4] among the Greeks, The like is contained in his elogium which is extant in the printed Menæa: but somewhat more is recorded in the Acts, as will presently be seen. The Arabic-Egyptian Martyrology, translated from the Arabic into Latin by Gratia Simonio the Maronite, writes: The contest of St. Datian. In our copy, which we have from a manuscript parchment Menæum of the Convent of St. Louis of the Friars Preachers at Paris, he is likewise marked; but on the XXIII day of August, and with the name slightly changed: Ἀθλ. μ. Τατιανοῦ, οἴδε Τατιῶνα αὐτὸν λέγουσιν. That is, The contest of the martyr Tatianus; (others) call him Tation. Concerning Mantineum, which occurred just now, something will be said below in the Annotations.
[5] For the rest, this holy Champion was, as I indicated before, transcribed by Baronius into the Roman Martyrology from the Menology of the Greeks: and among the Latins. When he suffered. In Isauria, St. Tation the martyr, who in the persecution of Diocletian, under Urbanus the governor, was slain with the sword and received the crown of martyrdom. The same most eminent author also mentions him in his Annals at the year of Christ 305, number 16. But upon what fit witness he affirms him to have suffered under Diocletian, is hidden from me; nevertheless I have noted above this mark of time also, with the adverb perhaps, that I might not set down none at all. Here you have, reader, these few things which have come to my knowledge concerning that holy Martyr: the rest will be given in the Annotations upon his Martyrdom, which I shall render into Latin from our Greek copy, transcribed from a codex of the Imperial library of Vienna, cited by us again and again in the course of this month.
MARTYRDOM
From a codex of the Imperial library of Vienna, J. P. translator.
Tation, martyr at Claudiopolis in the province of Honorias (St.)
Ὁ ἅγιος μάρτυς Τιτίων ἦν ἐκ τοῦ Μαντινίου, τοῦ ὑπὸ Κλαυδιούπολιν τὴν μητρόπολιν τελοῦντος. Συλληφθεὶς δὲ ὑπὸ τῶν ἑλλήνων, παρέστη ἐν τῇ εἰρημένῃ Κλαυδιουπόλει Οὐρβανῷ τῷ ἡγεμόνι. Ἐρωτηθεὶς δὲ, καὶ Χριστιανὸν ἑαυτὸν ὁμολογήσας, βάλλεται ἐν φρουρᾶ· καὶ αὖθις ὁμολογήσας τὴν εἰς Χριστὸν πίστιν, τύπτεται ξύλοις, καὶ ξέεται σιδήροις, λέγων πρὸς τὸν τύραννον· Ὅσον ἂν ξέῃς τὸ σῶμά μου, τοσοῦτον πλείους ποιεῖς τοὺς στεφάνους μοι. Καὶ αὖθις πάλιν δέρεται ξύλοις, καὶ σύρεται διὰ μέσης τῆς πόλεως· καὶ φθάσας τὴν πόλην, εσφράγισεν αὐτὴν τῷ τύπῳ τοῦ τιμίου σταυροῦ τῷ ἰδίῳ αἵματι· καὶ εὐξαμένου αὐτοῦ, ἦλθεν αὐτῷ φωνὴ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ λέγουσα· Ἀθλοφόρε Γενναῖε, ἀνέρχου εἰς τοὺς οὐρανοὺς· ἤδη γὰρ ἡτοίμασταί σοι ὁ παράδεισος τῆς τρυφῆς. Καὶ οὕτως ἀπέδωκε τὸ πνεῦμα τοῖς ἀγγέλοις, καὶ πρεσβεύει ὑπὲρ τοῦ γένους τῶν ἀνθρωπων, ὅτι τῷ Θεῷ ἡμῶν ἡ δόξα είς τοὺς αἰῶνας. Ἀμήν.
The holy martyr Tition was from Mantinium a, which is subject to Claudiopolis the metropolis b. Being seized by the heathen, he stood in the said Claudiopolis before Urbanus the governor. And being questioned, and having confessed himself a Christian, he is cast into custody; and having again confessed the faith of Christ, he is beaten with rods and scraped with iron, saying to the tyrant: "The more thou scrapest my body, the more crowns thou makest for me." And at once he is tortured again with rods, and is dragged through the midst of the city; and when he had come to the gate, he signed it with the figure of the precious cross in his own blood; and while he was praying, a voice came to him from heaven, saying: "Noble victor, depart to the heavens: for already the paradise of delight is prepared for thee." And so he delivered his spirit to the angels, and intercedes for the human race: for to our God be glory unto the ages. Amen.