ON ST. PHILO, BISHOP OF CARPASIUS, AND ST. PHILIPPICUS THE PRIEST.
CommentaryPhilo, Bishop of Carpasius (St.) Philippicus, Priest (St.)
Neither did these live in the same time and place, nor do we find anywhere any occasion for conjecturing whether they were granted the palm of martyrdom. They are thus recorded in the Greek Menaion and by Maximus Cythereus: The feast of these Saints. On the same day, the memory of the holy Martyr Hermogenes and Menas, and of our holy Father Philo, who was made Bishop of Carpasius. And the memory of our Father Philippicus the Priest: and of the holy Martyr Barsimas, and of his two brothers. Concerning Hermogenes and Menas we shall treat on December 10, on which date they were slain by the sword at Alexandria under Maximinus. Did the rest triumph together with them? No mention is made of them in their Acts: unless perhaps they were of the number of those whom St. Menas converted to the faith and baptized. Certainly St. Athanasius writes in his Apology for his Flight and in his Letter to those leading the solitary life that the illustrious Confessor Philo the Bishop was an Egyptian driven into exile by George the Cappadocian, and adds that Philo was confined in Babylon, or in the desert near Babylon, and suffered persecution until his death. This occurred in the year 341, as was said in the Life of St. Antony on January 17, no. 105, letter i. But where was the episcopate of Carpasius? Calpae is a city, also called Calpeia, and Calpe a port in Bithynia, according to Stephanus, who derives the ethnic or possessive as Calpeus, Calpinos, Calpitanos, not Calpasius. Carpasia is a city of Cyprus, mentioned by Diodorus, Stephanus, and Ptolemy; called Karpathos by Xenagoras, and Karbasia by Demetrius of Salamis. Whether he was Bishop in one of these cities or elsewhere, we do not venture to guess: nor who Philippicus the Priest was, whom Cythereus calls Philip.