ON ST. MARIAMNE, SISTER OF ST. PHILIP THE APOSTLE, APOSTOLIC VIRGIN
FIRST CENTURY OF CHRIST.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Mariamne, sister of St. Philip the Apostle, Apostolic Virgin (St.)
By the author I. B.
[1] The Greeks venerate on February 17 the Virgin Mariamne, distinguished for her Apostolic labors and the torments endured for the confession of the faith, though unknown to Latin calendars. St. Mariamne is venerated on February 17. On which day the following is read in their Menaea: "On the same day, the commemoration of St. Mariamne, sister of St. Philip."
"Leaving the earth, the Virgin Mariamne Sees Christ, born of the Virgin Mary."
After the ascension of Christ, St. Philip came to Hierapolis with Bartholomew and his sister Mariamne. And because he publicly preached the word sister and companion of St. Philip the Apostle, suspended with him, of God, he was suspended and died, having duly prayed to God: whereupon the Proconsul and those who were with him were suddenly swallowed up by the earth. The rest, terrified, implored St. Bartholomew and St. Mariamne, who were themselves also hanging from a gibbet, that they should not suffer the same fate as the Proconsul. They prayed to St. Philip on behalf of those people: and he preserved them from being swallowed up, and brought others back from the chasm, except the Proconsul, whom he left in that abyss along with a viper. Then Bartholomew and Mariamne were released; then freed, and Bartholomew indeed, having set out for India Felix, was crucified and reached the palm of martyrdom. Mariamne, however, departed to Lycaonia, and there, preaching Christ, she washed many in baptism, and at last rested in peace. So far the Menaea. The same is found in Maximus of Cythera in his Lives of the Saints, and in Francis Laher's French Menology of Virgins.
[2] To make clearer what is said about the viper, we shall add what Nicephorus Callistus writes in book 2 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 39, concerning the martyrdom of St. Philip. Syria and upper Asia fell to Philip and Bartholomew by lot: in all the cities of which, having laid the foundations of the faith, they built churches and set priests over them. Philip, having traversed the cities of Asia, came to Hierapolis in Phrygia, a wealthy and celebrated city, aptly corresponding to its name, but so given over to idols that it even honored a viper (an impure and venomous animal), enclosed in a shrine, with magnificent worship, as if it were some divinity, nourished it with certain sacrifices, and was wonderfully devoted to it. But when the Apostle, together with his sister Mariamne At Hierapolis, having overturned the idols, (who accompanied him and had long ago resolved to preserve her virginity throughout her whole life), arrived there, the worship of idols in that region was immediately extinguished and the insolence of the demons dwelling there was undermined. For that viper, which had been regarded as a kind of god, burst from its dwelling and fled as if from a burning fire, and shame was cast upon those who had previously been so devoted to it.
[3] Moreover, when very many miracles were being performed by Philip and Mariamne, she becomes famous for miracles: a sedition arose among the multitude. Some adhered to the God of Philip and Bartholomew (for Bartholomew had been sent by God from nearby to Philip's aid); others stubbornly defended the demonic superstition they had imbibed. And these, having formed a conspiracy, rushed with violence upon the Apostles, seized Philip, and suspended him by the head from a column, like some kind of victim; while they bound Bartholomew upright to a piece of wood in the form of a cross. the persecutors are struck when the earth gives way, While the Saints were being cruelly treated in this manner, they turned to prayer. Immediately the ground gave way, subsiding to a great depth, and the multitude was being engulfed, and danger threatened the whole city. Then those who remained, perceiving that this destruction and disaster were a punishment for the injury inflicted upon the sacred ministers of Christ, immediately all embraced the faith of Christ. Bartholomew was freed from his bonds they are converted, and gave Philip, who had nobly completed his martyrdom, honorable burial. Then, after the whole city was illuminated with the light of faith and dedicated to Christ, some time later Bartholomew, again crucified at Urbanopolis in the province of Cilicia, departed to his uniquely desired Christ.
[4] So Nicephorus. We shall treat of the manner and place of St. Bartholomew's death on August 24; of St. Philip's, on the Kalends of May. All assert that the latter was killed at Hierapolis: but what some say, that this occurred in the year 54 of the common era, is not entirely certain. This is indeed found in some copies of Eusebius's Chronicle, but is absent from most. Baronius, at the year 54 of Christ, denies that the Hierapolitans worshipped a viper, because Eusebius in book 2 of his Praeparatio Evangelica, chapter 4, describes other gods of the Phrygians. a viper held as a divinity, Not chapter 4 but chapter 2: he indicates two gods of the Phrygians, Cybele and Attis, who were worshipped especially at Pessinus with divine honors and sacrifices; other gods were worshipped elsewhere and there as well. How many gods, celebrated among the Phrygians, are named in the writers of the Trojan War! Bel was a god to the Babylonians: was not the dragon also, which was killed by Daniel?
[5] What Nicephorus wrote about St. Philip agrees more or less with the Acts of the same Apostle in Metaphrastes, killed or put to flight by prayers. where nearly the same things are recorded about the worship paid to "a certain prodigious viper" (echidne tini teratodei), which, however, he says was killed by prayers, not that it fled of its own accord. Concerning St. Bartholomew and St. Mariamne, the following is found there: "But since at that time the divine Apostle Bartholomew also was with him at Hierapolis and was preaching the Gospel together with him, as he had been a partner in the preaching, so also he became a partner in the suffering: and when Philip was suspended from a pillar, as we have said, Bartholomew was condemned to the cross. Moreover, his sister Mariamne, who was no less one with him in mind than by nature, and who was a Virgin both in body and in soul, stood by her brother Philip as he suffered; Mariamne stands by her brother as he dies on the cross: and as far as it was possible, she drew the suffering to herself by her will and purpose of soul, and suffered together with him."
[6] And afterward, concerning the death and burial of St. Philip, it speaks thus: "Whence also, hanging aloft upon the wood, he discoursed the whole day with those who were in the city concerning what would be useful for them, strengthening their hearts with confidence in the Lord, and interceding for them, he departed with sacred words among the Saints, and passed to the Lord whom he loved, having committed his soul into His hand. she buries him in a Christian manner. His precious body was reverently borne by Bartholomew and Mariamne, and having received what is customary in burial, was deposited with sacred hymns and honors in a notable and sacred place, on the fourteenth of November."
[7] "Bartholomew and Mariamne, having remained for a short time in that place and paid hymns and honors to those precious relics, and having again more excellently and firmly confirmed those present in the faith, and honors him with hymns: returned to their own work, preaching the Gospel of Christ." What is said about their returning to their homeland is in Greek "epo ta oikeia" -- "to their own," or "to their own affairs," namely to what the Holy Spirit commanded them to do. she dies in Lycaonia. It was stated above that Mariamne went to Lycaonia and there rested in peace. In the Latin Acts of St. Philip no mention is made of his sister, but of two Virgin daughters who were buried with their father. In its proper place we shall inquire whether this does not seem to be taken from the Acts of St. Philip the Deacon.