Abudemus

ON ST. ABUDEMUS, MARTYR,

ON THE ISLAND OF TENEDOS.

From the Greek Synaxaria and the Roman Martyrology.

under Diocletian.

Abudemus, martyr, on the island of Tenedos (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR J. P.

Various Fasti of the Greeks record for us this Martyr today, his name being somewhat changed to Abudemius, Abudemus, and Abudimus. The Menologion rendered into Latin by Sirlet, and published by Canisius in volume 2 of the Ancient Reading, has these things: This Martyr is marked with his name somewhat changed. Of the holy martyr Abundemius (the combat) under the Emperor Diocletian, from the island of Tenedos; who, being detained, when he was compelled to deny Christ, and to taste the execrable victims, and would not suffer himself to do this, was beaten with scourges, and, having endured many other torments, remaining in the constancy of the Christian confession, adorned with the crown of blessed martyrdom, passed to the Lord. In how great esteem Baronius held that Menologion, he left attested in the amplest words in his Notations to the Roman Martyrology on the III of January; from which he thus transcribed this Martyr into it: On the island of Tenedos, St. Abudemius the martyr, who suffered under Diocletian. More things, but not everywhere probable, nor sincere, are related by a very ancient Synaxarion, collected from a Menologion compiled by order of the Emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus, as is thought, in the tenth century, and found by our Elders in the monastery of the Basilians of Grottaferrata in Latium; whose last six months are there preserved in manuscript. From the printed first volume of this month I thus render into Latin:

[2] Abudemus the martyr of Christ was under the Emperor Diocletian, from the island of Tenedos. The Basilian eulogy is not everywhere sincere. When he had been apprehended, and was much compelled to deny Christ, he could by no means be brought to it, but with greater freedom confessed his divinity. Therefore, stakes being set up, he is stretched out for scourging, and beaten by nine soldiers. But when the executioners were compelling him with all force to taste the polluted victims, he would not endure to do it. Therefore they scrape him with iron hands; and after many other torments, persisting in his purpose, they behead him. And behold, at midday the Martyr appeared to Diocletian together with angels holding swords, and struck him with heavenly fear; and said: Behold Abudimus, the man of the true God, whom thou now thinkest to be dead: but God by his help shows thee that he prevails against the demons, the helpers of thy works, and against thee. But the wicked man, who through the patience of God ought to have been changed into another man, raging the more, delivered the body of the Martyr to the fire. Tenedos is a most well-known island of Asia Minor in the Aegean Sea. Various observations upon it. Hence the Martyr was just now said to be born;

there announced by us in the title above, together with the Roman Martyrology, although the place of his arena escapes us. Πάλος in the genuine sense of the Greek language signifies a lot, a shaking, a striking; but in the barbarous sense a stake or peg, a word borrowed from the Latins, in a manner very usual among the writers of the middle age, as you will find proved by several examples in Du Cange, volume I of the Glossary to the Writers of Middle and Lower Greek, in the word πάλος. But in what manner the holy Martyrs, bound to columns and stakes, or stretched on the ground or upon sharp obelisks, or tied to four posts, were beaten, Antonio Gallonio relates in his work on the Torments of the holy Martyrs, chapter 4, page 167.

[4] By the polluted victims understand the idol-offerings (which word here the great Greek Menæa printed on the XVI of this month employed, by which its text is elucidated. and the Ambrosian, to be mentioned again a little later; and concerning which the Apostle speaks in 1 Corinthians, chapter 8, verse 1), that is, things sacrificed to idols: the root being taken ἀπὸ τοῦ εἰδώλου καὶ τοῦ θύειν. Concerning the claws, hooks, and iron combs the praised Gallonio treats, chapter 6, from page 184; and from him Ruinart in his notes on the Sincere Acts of the Martyrs, page 171 of the Wetstein impression; but nowhere there do I find iron hands; which I suppose had either the same, or certainly an equal force and use in tearing the flesh as the three said instruments, and perhaps received their name from the likeness of a hand, whose figure they bore. Certainly in both the Menæa just now named, in place of hands is put claws. The things which are said concerning the apparition of the Martyr, made to Diocletian, adorned with his words and the company of angels, seem to savor somewhat of the Metaphrast, and to be foreign to the characters of sincere acts.

[5] The great printed Menæa set down on this day the holy martyr Abudimus, Elsewhere also the Saint is recorded on the 16th of this month; the verses; whom they also repeat on the following day, Maximus, Bishop of Cythera, following, as is his wont, in the Lives of the Saints woven together in the common Greek language of this time. A little eulogy of him is in both places reserved for the following day; on the present day the said printed Menæa add to him this distich:

Ἀβουδίῳ * μαχαίρᾳ πρόξενος τέλους, Αὐτῇ δὲ τοῦτο πρόξενος καὶ τοῦ στέφους.

For Abudimus the sword procures a certain death; for the sword death procures a crown of glory.

[6] his memory from other Synaxaria and Galesinius. To the eulogy of the Menæa is consonant that which the manuscript Menæa of a library among the Milanese have today, marked with the letter O, number 148; to which add, from the things there annotated by the hand of Henschenius, the memory of our Saint in each Turin Synaxarion, that of the Duke of Savoy, cited elsewhere in our Acts by name; and in the Sirmond one, likewise there added by the same hand. The characters occurring in the eulogies just named, both on this day and on the following, agree too much among themselves with those which we related a little before from the Basilian Synaxarion, for us to admit two Abudemi. That one and the same, therefore, here occurs, though marked on two different days, is persuaded by the life passed under Diocletian, the stretching on stakes, the punishment of scourges endured from nine soldiers, the polluted victims offered to be tasted, the iron claws, and the beheading, shining forth in both places. Our Rader, in his observations on the Greek Menæa, which we have in manuscript, rightly judges with us that Abudius (as it is there expressed) marked on this XV, and Abudimus (for whom is there written Abudemius) of the day next following, are the same. The same Martyr, from the Latin Martyrologists, Galesinius relates on the XVI of this month, whom, as he has it in his notations, he learned from Greek tables.

* read Ἀβουδίμῳ.