ON ST. SILAS OR SILVANUS, COMPANION OF THE APOSTLE ST. PAUL,
IN MACEDONIA.
Section I.
HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
On his cult, deeds, and death.
Silas or Silvanus, companion of the Apostle St. Paul, in Macedonia (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
We call St. Silas or Silvanus an Apostle—wrongly split into two by the Greeks—in that broader acceptation by which the fellow-laborers of the Apostle Paul, Barnabas, Luke, Timothy, and others, were wont to be styled apostles; Rightly called an apostle by Ado, which title I do not see why Molanus, in his second edition of Usuard, changed into the other, "bishop," contrary to what he had rightly written in the earlier edition, with Usuard, "apostle"; for there is no doubt that Ado, who first among the Martyrologists marked him, wrote thus expressly in both places where he treats of him; in the Martyrology indeed: Likewise the birthday of St. Silea the apostle, where it is sufficiently certain that by Silea is understood our Silas or Silvanus, as all the additions in the Festivities of the Apostles more clearly express in these words: The birthday of St. Silea the apostle, who, being one of the first brethren, and sent by the Apostles to the churches of the Gentiles with Barnabas and Judas, afterward taken up by the Apostle Paul, full of the grace of the Lord, earnestly fulfilled the office of preaching, and glorifying Christ by his sufferings in Macedonia, thereafter rested. From which it manifestly appears whence Usuard received his account, and thence they passed into the Roman
Martyrology, as we observed on Usuard himself; the title of apostle, however, being struck out, concerning which it is not pleasing to dispute at greater length. It will perhaps seem strange that so famous a Saint was marked by no other Latin Martyrologists, not even by Notker, who was otherwise wont to describe Ado so accurately.
[2] Baronius rightly noted that the Acts of the Apostles make mention of St. Silas in chapters 15, wrongly divided into two by the Greeks; 16, 17, and 18, from which we shall try to weave some series of his deeds; and that St. Jerome, moreover, in epistle 143, writes to Damasus that this Silas is the same as the Silvanus who is set in the inscription of Paul's epistle to the Thessalonians. These are the words of Jerome, cited also by our Thomas Massutius in the Life of St. Paul: It is to be known that Silas, colleague of Paul the Apostle, is in the Hebrew tongue called an Apostle, who writes some of the epistles together with him, and is faultily read Silvanus instead of Silas, since we do not read Silvanus in the Acts of the Apostles; so that they seem fitly to think with the praised Massutius, book 5, chapter 5, who hold that the Hebrew name of Silas was polished to a Greek or Latin inflection, as a word more familiar to themselves. Baronius observes again that the Greeks think Silas and Silvanus to be not one but two, and treat of both together in the Menology on the third day before the Kalends of August. Dorotheus likewise makes them distinct from one another, when he relates that Silas was bishop of the Corinthians, but Silvanus of the Thessalonians. But we do not delay over him or over other writers of the same worth: nor is the aforesaid division of the Menology to be made much of, nor the other additions resting on no foundation. Hear its words: The birthday of the holy apostles Silas and Silvanus and their companions, who, preaching the word of the Christian faith in the city of Chalcedon and in Gaul and throughout the world, baptized many converted from impiety to the knowledge of the true God, and rendered up their souls to God himself in peace.
[3] In the Greco-Muscovite Ephemerides, before Volume I of May, the same are likewise noted as distinct, joined with others in their Office, together with Crescens, Epaenetus, and Andronicus, on that very day, the XXX of July, on which a more solemn commemoration of them is made in the Offices, just as many things are related in the Menaea concerning those five apostles, who are taken in order from the Synopsis of Dorotheus, and are so confusedly praised in the Menology and in Maximus of Cythera, that what in Dorotheus pertains to one is there attributed to all. But it is a muddy spring, and both those preachings throughout the world, and the singular patronages of Silas and Silvanus, and various things of that kind at variance with the very words of the Acts, I judged altogether to be passed over, especially since it seems to be a festivity among the number of those which the Greeks have as arbitrary, of various Saints joined together, most of whose commemorations are treated separately among the Latins, as of Andronicus on the XVII of May; of Crescens on the XXVII of June; Epaenetus will be reckoned among the seventy on the XV of July, on which the Division of the Apostles is celebrated in many churches, when Peter de Natalibus seems to have followed the catalogue of Dorotheus with Galesinius and others. To our Silas more properly pertains, and more pleases, that cult which is rendered to him in some churches of Gaul, especially at Angers, in whose Offices there is a proper lesson concerning St. Silas. Likewise at Bayeux and Beauvais, as Tillemont testifies, volume 1, page 243. We have a Beauvais Calendar from a Breviary of the year 1554, where on the XIV of July is set "Of Silas the Apostle, 3 lessons." That he is venerated as patron at Épinay near St. Denis, in the diocese of Paris, I find noted in Castellanus.
[4] It would scarcely be worth the labor to bring in here the words of Bishop Equilinus, were it not that he expressly asserts some things, whom Peter de Natalibus followed. doubtless drawn from the Greeks, which are opposed to the most received opinion of the Latin Church. Thus he has in book 6, chapter 94: Silas, a disciple, one of the seventy-two, as most affirm; he was one of the first brethren, and, as is said in Acts 15, sent by the Apostles of the Lord with Barnabas and Judas to the churches of the Gentiles. But when Paul had been separated from Barnabas, the same Silas, taken up by the Apostle into the ministry, full of the grace of the Lord, earnestly fulfilled the office of preaching, and glorifying Christ in his sufferings, afterward rested in Macedonia on the third day before the Ides of July. For he was appointed bishop of the Corinthians by the Apostle, who is also said by some to have been Silvanus; but this is false, because the one rests at Thessalonica, the other in Macedonia. Of these I admit the eulogy of St. Ado, but the things subjoined to it, as ill-stitched, so are they plainly to be rejected; since they rest on no sure faith of the ancients; and in vain are supports sought elsewhere, whether in pseudo-Dorotheus or in others; since of the Saint nothing at all is established beyond what Ado briefly and elegantly collected from the history of the Apostolic Acts or from the Canonical epistles of SS. Peter and Paul, and which we shall subjoin a little more distinctly set forth; from which nothing could be dug out, not a word, concerning the bishopric of the Corinthians, concerning the time of his death or the place of his burial, as will presently appear more manifestly.
[5] The epistle of Peter carried from Rome into Asia; The chief deeds of St. Silas, at least those which have come down to us, are recited in those chapters of the Acts which we noted above with Baronius: but it is a fairly common opinion of the Interpreters that Silvanus, that faithful brother by whom St. Peter the Apostle says he wrote his first epistle to the elect sojourners of the dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, was that very same Silas of ours, and that he carried the aforesaid epistle from Rome, whence it was written, into Asia about the year of Christ 44 or 45: whence again they gather that he first adhered to St. Peter, and followed him to Rome, whence on such an occasion, returning through Asia to Jerusalem, he was sent from the first council of the Apostles to Antioch, as the very course of events will presently show. Nor are there wanting those who, from the illustrious eulogies with which he is adorned in the Acts, as an elder among the brethren and a prophet, plainly hold that it may not improbably be argued that he was one of the seventy disciples of Christ, and indeed a colleague of the Apostle St. Paul in preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles. That he was likewise a Roman citizen, just as St. Paul, the words to be cited a little later from Acts chapter 16 seem sufficiently to indicate, when at Philippi in Macedonia he was shamefully beaten with rods together with the Apostle himself, with which punishment it was forbidden to afflict any persons, even foreigners, who were endowed with Roman citizenship.
[6] from the first Council of the Apostles, However these things may stand, and though Paul, perhaps speaking of himself alone, used the plural number of a multitude, that I may come to the course of events, none has seemed to me safer and surer than the very narration of St. Luke, from which Baronius and others composed their own, and which here too I shall weave briefly, almost in the words of the sacred Historian himself. But just as he does not pursue the order of the things done by St. Peter outside Syria, so neither does he make mention of St. Silas, his companion in the Roman journey: but having premised, in chapter 14, the labors and sufferings of Saints Paul and Barnabas in the Asian mission, presently in the following chapter he describes the sedition that arose at Antioch on account of the Jews, because they wished the Gentiles converted to Christ to be circumcised, for whose sake the first council of the Apostles was held at Jerusalem, at which St. Silas too was present; where, the controversy being decided in favor of the Gentiles, then, says the sacred text, it pleased the Apostles and elders, with the whole Church, to choose men out of them, and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas who was surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren, writing by their hands. And here at length Silas becomes known in the number of the Apostolic men, as a chief man among the brethren. In the very decretal epistle it is repeated: We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who themselves also will tell you the same things by word: which was provided by the synod, lest perhaps the Judaizing Antiochenes should have less faith in Paul and Barnabas, with whom they had before contended.
[7] They therefore, being dismissed, the text continues, went down to Antioch; he is sent to Antioch with the synodal decree: and gathering the multitude together, they delivered the epistle: which when they had read, they rejoiced at the consolation. But Judas and Silas, being themselves also prophets, comforted the brethren with much discourse and confirmed them. And after they had spent some time there, they were dismissed in peace by the brethren to those who had sent them. But it seemed good to Silas to remain there. How long he stayed there, or what he did, is not expressed in detail: but as regards himself, a dissension having arisen between Paul and Barnabas, on account of which they were separated, Paul held nothing more urgent than to take as companion of his mission a man before most approved by Peter; and Paul, having chosen Silas, set out. And having passed through Syria and Cilicia, they came to Derbe and Lystra, where Timothy the disciple was joined to Paul. And passing through Phrygia and the region of Galatia … when they had passed through Mysia, they went down to Troas. And a vision of a Macedonian having there been shown, and St. Luke himself, in all likelihood, being joined to them, thenceforth in the first person plural, as he is wont: sailing from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothracia, and the following day to Neapolis, and thence to Philippi. Here the door of Macedonia is opened, the wrestling-ground, namely, in which the Apostle and his companions, especially Silas, nobly toiled, contending even unto prison and fetters and the shedding of blood.
[8] There follows therefore in the sacred Historian the conversion of Lydia the seller of purple, thereafter, having followed Paul, he is beaten with rods together with him, and the casting out of the evil spirit from the Pythoness; which when her masters saw, that the hope of their gain was gone, laying hold of Paul and Silas, they brought them into the marketplace to the rulers, and presenting them to the magistrates said: These men trouble our city, being Jews: and they announce a custom which it is not lawful for us to receive nor observe, seeing we are Romans. And the crowd ran together against them: and the magistrates, having rent their garments, commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them diligently. Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the wood. What that wood was, in which St. Luke says the feet of the Apostles were bound, is not sufficiently clear: Tillemont examines the matter in note 22 on Paul, page 552. To me it seems probable, as Gallonius thinks, that they were fetters, or the "nervus"; in whatever way, at last, you judge those instruments of torture to be explained. This is certain, that the martyrdom of the Apostles was hard indeed but brief: for at midnight, Paul and Silas praying, praised God, and those who were in prison heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and the bonds of all were loosed.
[9] and with the same in Macedonia. Hence the keeper of the prison, trembling, falling down at the feet of Paul and Silas, heard the word of the Lord with all who were in his house, and taking them at that same hour of the night, washed their stripes, and was baptized, himself and all his household immediately. And when he had brought them into his house, he set a table before them, and rejoiced with all his house, believing in God. And when it was day, leave to depart having been given by the magistrates, Paul expostulated over the injury done to Roman citizens, and thus, fear being struck into them, they were honorably dismissed by the magistrates themselves. And going out of the prison, they went in to Lydia, and having seen the brethren, they consoled them and departed. And when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews; in which, as Paul disputed, certain of them believed, and were joined to Paul and Silas, and of the worshippers and Gentiles a great multitude, and not a few noble women. A tumult of the zealous Jews having thereupon arisen, the brethren immediately by night sent away Paul and Silas to Berea. Who, when they had come, entered into the synagogue of the Jews. Now these were more noble than those who are at Thessalonica, who received the word with all eagerness, daily searching the Scriptures whether these things were so. And as Paul and Silas pressed on with their preaching, many of them believed, and of honorable Gentile women, and not a few men.
[10] and labors strenuously at Corinth: The text continues: But when the Jews at Thessalonica had learned that the word of God was preached by Paul at Berea also, they came thither too, stirring up and troubling the multitude. And immediately then the brethren sent away Paul, that he might go as far as the sea: but Silas and Timothy remained there. And those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and having received a command from him to Silas and Timothy, that they should come to him as quickly as possible, they departed. Yet no small delay, I suppose, was interposed, which they spent in preaching at Berea and through the rest of Macedonia, while in the meantime Paul held at Athens that most celebrated discourse in the Areopagus, by which, though few indeed were then converted, he assuredly cast seeds for founding there at some time an illustrious church. After this, having departed from Athens, he came to Corinth, perhaps there too lodging for some while with Aquila and Priscilla, before they returned, whom he had summoned from Macedonia. And when Silas and Timothy had come, Paul was pressing on with the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ: his colleague Silas, no doubt, working alongside, a faithful and constant companion of his preaching as well as of his sufferings, throughout the year and six months during which the Apostle sat there, teaching the word of God among the Corinthians.
[11] nor is more known of him. Thus far the sacred historian of the Acts speaks of St. Silas, making thereafter no word about him, so that no one can divine, much less gather from anywhere, what afterward befell him; whether he died a martyr, as Ado almost seems to insinuate, or a confessor, as the Greeks more distinctly dare to assert. St. Paul makes mention of him under the name of Silvanus, speaking of him as living, in both epistles to the Thessalonians, which it is probable were given at that time from Corinth (by the common opinion) about the year 52 and 53. Since in the later ones (for these were the first) the Apostle keeps deep silence about Silvanus, at least as still surviving, the more prudent hold, not improbably, that he departed this life a little after, either at Corinth or in Macedonia; so that I do not easily understand what Massutius says, book 10, chapter 5, that Silas could be reckoned even among the anonymous companions of Paul enumerated in Acts 20, verse 4, whom Luke would no more have passed over in silence there than in other places, since, using another person, and showing that he himself was not then present, he sufficiently shows it. Nor is it more probable that Silas is indicated by the Apostle in 2 Corinthians 7, when he speaks of the brother whose praise is in the Gospel, or elsewhere: nor do more things occur to me which can safely enough be recorded of the Saint: I have often marveled that in this age of ours there have been found men who did not shrink, by an altogether tasteless allusion, from imposing the venerable name of Silas upon one man or another, who would rather cling more obstinately, as "Silvestres" than "Silvani," to some pseudo-Paul, most notorious for his errors.
[12] Of the Saint's relics I find nothing much handed down; His relics and cult among the Morini. our fourth volume of June opportunely suggests some things, where on pages 26 and 27 it treats of St. Bainus, bishop of the Morini, whom they record to have obtained the relics of St. Silas from Pope Sergius about the year 691, and with great solemnity to have brought them into the cathedral church of St. Mary at Thérouanne, as is there a little more fully described from Malbrancq, and need not be repeated here. It is noted in the same place that in the Breviary of the church of the Morini an Office of St. Silas is prescribed on this day, the XIII of July, in the edition of the year 1542; but since we have only the winter part of that Breviary, the lessons had to be sought in the older one of the year 1518, in which is contained only the history which we gave above at number 8; with the prayer: Grant us, we beseech thee, O Lord, to glory in the solemnities of thy blessed apostle Silas, etc. This cult, no doubt, continued, and the veneration of the sacred relics, until in the year 1553, when the city was stormed, Charles V the Emperor commanded the whole of it to be cut down from its foundations, together with the most celebrated temple of the Blessed Virgin, overthrown, burned, and leveled to the ground, whence that old chronogram inscription DeLetI MorInI ("the Morini destroyed"); when also, I suppose, the memory of St. Silas perished: certainly neither in the present proper of Saint-Omer, nor in that of Ypres, which churches we know to have succeeded the older church of the Morini, does any commemoration of St. Silas anywhere survive.