Theemeda and Companions

ON SS. THEEMEDA AND COMPANIONS.

From the Coptic and Abyssinian Calendars.

Theemeda, Martyr in Egypt (St.) Her sons, Martyrs in Egypt (SS.) Armenius, Martyr in Egypt (St.) The Mother, Martyr in Egypt (St.)

D. P.

Related in the Ethiopic calendars The Calendars of the Alexandrian Church, praised on the preceding day; on the 8th day of the tenth month, called Sene by the Abyssinians, Baune by the Copts; that is, on the second day of June, set forth these names: Teemeda and her sons, Armenius and his mother: and in the column, midway between the Ethiopic text and the Latin version of Ludolf, where the words from the Calendars of the Copts are placed, written in the Arabic language and letters, the word "Martyrs" is read added in Latin. John Selden, in his last and posthumous book On the Sanhedrins of the Hebrews, professes that the Calendars themselves of the Copts are held by him, at the end of a copy of the Gospels, anciently written or completed most beautifully in Arabic in Egypt, on the 8th day of the Coptic month Musri, that is, 1 August Julian, in the year of the era of the Martyrs 1002, or of Christ 1286. Here, however, is read the memory of Thameda alone and of her offspring, Martyrs.

[2] and in the metrical Hagiology, Yet that Arminius is rightly joined to them, the Abyssinian Poet persuades, in his metrical Hagiology, speaking salvation to both jointly, in this way: "I salute Teemeda and her sons, Armenius and his mother, who divided among themselves her burden (Ludolf interprets it as the mother's; I should prefer to understand the yoke of Christ), written in the column with the image and name of Jerusalem"; namely of Christ and God. "Let them, by the blood of their martyrdom, be sureties, in the future retribution, for things done ill and rightly, whether the proper ones of the Poet invoking them, or of all the faithful in common." They seem, moreover, to be so named together, that they constitute a single band of Martyrs, in whom is verified that of Revelation 3, verse 12: "He who overcomes, I will make him a column in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which descends from heaven from my God."

[3] In the sense of Ludolf, who understands the mother's burden, which they divided among themselves, the daughter Theemeda with her children, and the son Armenius; perhaps those were brought to the tribunal on behalf of their mother, here anonymous, who was sought in vain by the persecutors, and professed the faith: they seem to have suffered in Egypt, upon whom she herself, coming of her own accord, was made a sharer of the common crown with her children and grandchildren. But this is my conjecture, to be judged when from the monuments of either nation a fuller account of that martyrdom shall be drawn out. Meanwhile those who are venerated commonly by both nations as Martyrs, I should ascribe rather to the Egyptians than to the Abyssinians: since these received the Christian faith from them in the time of St. Athanasius, under the Gentile Emperors. when the persecutions of the Gentile Emperors were already ended, which ought not without foundation to be extended beyond the provinces subject to the Roman Empire, such as Abyssinia or Auximitic Ethiopia never was.