ON THE HOLY MARTYRS
ANTIOCHUS AND CYRIACUS
AT SEBASTE IN ARMENIA.
From the Greek Fasti and the Roman Martyrology.
under Diocletian.
CommentaryAntiochus, at Sebaste in Armenia (S.)
Cyriacus, at Sebaste in Armenia (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
Sebaste, otherwise Sebastia, the illustrious arena of many Martyrs, and an episcopal city, by some assigned to Armenia, by others to Cappadocia,
as we indicated on the III of February at the Acts of St. Blaise, bishop and martyr; The holy Martyrs and on the X of March at the Acts of the Holy Forty Martyrs, as also on the XX of April, page 58, has in SS. Antiochus and Cyriacus grounds whereof deservedly to glory. The manner and day of announcing them is not everywhere the same in the sacred Fasti. On this XV both are joined in the Basilian Synaxarion, in the Menologion which Canisius edited from the interpretation of Sirlet, and in the Roman Martyrology; in which last they are thus marked: At Sebaste, St. Antiochus the physician, who under the governor Hadrian was beheaded: and when from him milk flowed instead of blood, Cyriacus the executioner, converted to Christ, himself also underwent martyrdom, the things which Sirlet relates somewhat more fully being here contracted into a compendium. But the Menæum of Dijon, that is, of our Pierre-François Chifflet, marks only Antiochus on the XVI of this month, a note of a longer eulogy being added in our copy of the same. The manuscript Supplement which we have, to the printed Menæa, from a parchment manuscript Synaxarion of Sirmond, and a paper manuscript of Chifflet, adds to him this distich: Πρὸς τὸν τὸ πᾶν βλέποντα Δεσπότην βλέπων, Ἀντέσχες, Ἀντίοχε, καὶ τομὴν μέχρι. Looking with thy gaze upon the Master who sees all things, thou didst hold out, Antiochus, even unto the severing. The allusion of the poet is clear, in the proper name of the Martyr and in the word immediately preceding it, consisting of almost the same letters and syllables.
[2] But in the Milanese Menæa of the Ambrosian library I find his name between the XVI and the XVII, [they are announced in a different manner and on a different day: of whom a eulogy is given.] uncertain to which of the two it is there to be assigned, because it is annotated to neither, as neither is Cyriacus. The version of the Syriac or Chaldean Calendar, printed at Rome in the year 1624, which Don Joseph, an alumnus of the Maronite college in the City, rendered into Latin for our Elders in 1661, on this day the XV says: St. Osius, who was called Antiochus. But these things are not in the Italian version of Simon Moses the Maronite, also an alumnus of the praised College. I know that ὅσιος is a title due to Saints, and means the same as Holy; but I do not know it to be a Saint's proper name, which could have been intruded hither in place of that. The praised Menæa weave together the following eulogy: Ἄθλησις τοῦ ἁγίου μάρτυρος Ἀντιόχου, αὐταδέλφου χρηματίσαντος τοῦ ἁγίου μάρτυρος Πλάτωνος, δι᾽ οὗ καὶ εἰς τὸν Χριστὸν πεπίστευκε. Διερχομένου οὖν τοῦ ἁγίου Ἀντιόχου τήν τε Γαλατικὴν καὶ Καππαδοκίαν, καὶ παντοῖα νοσήματα θεραπεύοντος, συλλαμβάνεται παρὰ Ἀδριανοῦ ἡγεμόνος, καὶ εὐθέως κρεμασθεὶς ἐπὶ ξύλῳ ξέεται τὰς πλευρὰς, καὶ λαμπάσι πυρὸς κατακαίεται, καὶ τῇ φρουρᾷ ἀποτίθεται· ἐκεῖθεν ἐξαχθεὶς λέβητι ἐμβάλλεται κοχλάζοντι, καὶ θηρίοις ἐκδίδοται· καὶ ἐκ πάντων τῇ τοῦ Χριστοῦ χάριτι παραδόξως ῥυσθεὶς προσευχῇ πάντα τὰ εἴδωλα εἰς γῆν κατάῤῥαξε καὶ κονιορτὸν ἀπετέλεσε· διὸ καὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν ξίφει τμηθεὶς ἀνεπαύσατο ἐν Κυρίῳ. The combat of the holy martyr Antiochus, who was the own brother of the holy martyr Plato, through whom also he believed in Christ. When, then, St. Antiochus was passing through Galatia and Cappadocia, and healing all manner of diseases, he is seized by the governor Hadrian, and forthwith, hung upon a wooden frame, his sides are scraped, and he is burned with lamps of fire, and put in prison: led out thence, he is cast into a boiling cauldron, and delivered to wild beasts; and being marvelously delivered from all things by the grace of Christ, by prayer he dashed all the idols to the ground and reduced them to dust: wherefore, his head being cut off by the sword, he rested in the Lord.
[3] At what time did they suffer? The Menæum of Chifflet has it on the XVI of this month; but the Basilian Synaxarion, the Menologion translated by Sirlet, and the great printed Menæa on the XVIII of November call St. Antiochus the brother of Plato, and record that he suffered under Agrippinus: who in the martyrdom published by Surius on the XXII of this month, and in the manuscript Acts of the same, which are extant among us, to be given on that day, and dramatically adorned in both places, is called the Vicar Agrippinus. Peter de Natalibus attaches the martyrdom to the time of the Emperor Maximian. If he suffered under a Vicar, that did not happen before the times of Diocletian, whom we gather to have first instituted that kind of office (concerning which Panciroli in the Notitia of the dignities of the Eastern empire from page 77, and concerning the vicars of first and second Armenia on page 67 verso) from Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter 7. If, therefore, that Agrippinus was not a prefect (such as in the Basilian Menologion, translated into Latin by Arcudius, and edited in Ughelli, volume 6 of Italia Sacra, he is called, that is, with the Greek of our copy of the praised Basilian and of the great Menæa published in print, ἡγεμών) but a governor, as he is called by Sirlet (in Greek προστάτης) or a vicar, as above, under whom governors were subordinate; under whom St. Plato suffered martyrdom, that can already be affixed to the empire of Diocletian, or, as the Slavo-Russian Sparwenfeld Menologion relates on the said XVIII of November, of Maximian. And these things afford us a sufficient foundation for recalling to about the same era the martyrdom of St. Antiochus, his own brother. It is otherwise if Agrippinus was a prefect; who were already instituted before the times of Diocletian, as we have from Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book 7, chapter II.
[4] St. Antiochus is solemnly venerated in the 6th century. Concerning the cult of St. Antiochus in the sixth century, it is read in the Life of St. Theodore of Sykeon, bishop of Anastasiopolis, and archimandrite of the monasteries in Galatia, written by his disciple George, and illustrated by us on the XX of April; where, page 57, number 110, when on the XVI of the Kalends of August the solemn day of the holy martyr Antiochus was celebrated in his temple, and blessed Theodore was sacrificing, a notable miracle is related. Whence you may rightly argue, with Baronius in the Annotations to the Roman Martyrology on this XV day, from the Acts of that Theodore which he cites, and which are extant in Lipomanus, volume 7, page 56 verso, that the birthday of St. Antiochus the martyr was once kept after the following day.
[5] Concerning the martyrdom of St. Cyriacus, these things Papebroch added to the Ambrosian eulogy, produced above, Concerning St. Cyriacus from the Greek manuscripts of Sirmond and Chifflet, from Sirmond and Chifflet, noting that after ἀπετέλεσε, which is read in it, in them the following are added: Ξίφει οὖν τὸν αὐχένα τέμνεται, ἐξ οὗ αἷμα σὺν γάλακτι ἔῤῥευσεν· ὅπερ ἰδὼν Κυριακὸς, ὁ τὴν ἀναίρεσιν ἐνεργήσας τοῦ Μάρτυρος, παῤῥησίᾳ ἑαυτὸν Χριστιανὸν ὡμολόγησε, καὶ ἀνάθεμα εἰπὼν Ἀδριανῷ καὶ τοῖς εἰδώλοις αὐτοῦ, ἀφαιρεῖται καὶ αὐτὸς τὴν κεφαλὴν, καὶ προστίθεται τῷ ἁγιωτάτῳ Ἀντιόχῳ. His neck, therefore (Antiochus's), is cut off by the sword, from which blood flowed with milk. Seeing which, Cyriacus, who had acted as the executioner of the Martyr, with free voice professed himself a Christian, and, having pronounced anathema against Hadrian and his idols, he too has his head cut off, and is joined to the most holy Antiochus. These things agree with those which the eulogy of the Basilian Synaxarion relates, contaminated with a fabulous metamorphosis; as is clear from the Latin interpretation, which after our accustomed manner I produce for the understanding of the Greek text, at the end of the first published volume of July.
[6] Antiochus the martyr of Christ, born at Sebastia, practiced the art of medicine. But while he was passing through all the cities, and from the Basilian Synaxarion, in part fabulous. and healing the sick, he was apprehended by the governor Hadrian, and first sustained many torments; at last, cast into a cauldron, and not burned, he is led to enter combat with wild beasts: which beasts fawned upon him, and rolling at his feet kissed him. But one panther rebuked the governor with a human voice. Then all the idols, at the Saint's prayer, were dissolved into dust. Who after these things was beheaded, milk flowing from his neck with blood. But Cyriacus, who had beheaded the Saint, seeing the miracle, professed with free voice that he was a Christian, and, having pronounced anathema against the idols of Hadrian, himself likewise had his head cut off, and was joined to Antiochus. And so, the martyrdom being consummated, they received from the heavenly and great King the kingdom of heaven. Observe here, and in Sirlet, that St. Antiochus is constantly said to have been born of the city of Sebaste; whose brother Plato, however, is in both places, with the printed Menæa, set down as of Ancyra in Galatia. Concerning the cauldron, Papebroch added in the margin of the Ambrosian eulogy these things, which perhaps he received from Sirmond and Chifflet: μεστῷ ὑπάρχοντι παντὸς δραστηρίῳ ἐλαίῳ, καὶ ἐν ἑπτὰ ἡμέραις ὑπὸ τοῦ πυρὸς ἐκφλεγομένῳ: that it was full of every active oil, and for seven days kindled by the fire.