ON THE HOLY BISHOPS NESTOR AND ARCADIUS, AT TRIMETHUS IN CYPRUS.
Historical Observations.
Nestor, at Trimethus in Cyprus (St.)
Arcadius, at Trimethus in Cyprus (St.)
[1] Trimethus was an inland city of Cyprus. So Ptolemy, book 5, chapter 14, table 4 of Asia: The inland cities are these: Chytrus, Trimethus, Tamassus. Suidas: Trimethus, Trimethuntis, the name of a city. Trimethus, a city of Cyprus: It seems moreover that long before the age of Suidas it was not only a single city but an ample tract of territory, such as is generally required for an Ecclesiastical diocese. Stephanus indeed, who is said to have lived four hundred years before Suidas, calls it a "village"; which word Hesychius interprets as "a small region." Furthermore, for this reason the same Stephanus has the following, which we give only in Latin: Tremithus is a place or small region of Cyprus; the inhabitants are called Tremithusians and Tremithopolitans. They say that because Venus ascended to that place, named from the terebinth trees: it was shaken with trembling on account of the presence of the deity, and thence it was called Tremithus from the trembling. It seems to us rather that because very many terebinth trees grow there, which the other Greeks call "terminthoi" but the Cypriots call "tremithoi," the place received its name, just as very many other places have received their names from the plants that grow abundantly in them: so Rhamnus in Attica, in the Peloponnesus Cyparissus, Thryon, and Elaea — namely, from the abundance of buckthorns, cypresses, rushes, and olives. Ortelius cites these three authors (though he does not quote their words) and some others.
[2] Trimethus, or Tremithus, or Trimithus, was in the flourishing times of Christianity adorned with an episcopal throne, as can be seen in the Sacred Geography of Charles Vialart, formerly an episcopal see: called a S. Paulo, Bishop of Avranches, page 306. And in the ancient Notitia published by the same from a Vatican manuscript, where among the Bishops who are subject to the Metropolitan of Constantia, the second-to-last listed is the Bishop of the Trimethuntians or Tremithusians. Among those at least before the year 381: who subscribed to the First Council of Constantinople, the eightieth is Theopompus of Tremithus, of the province of Cyprus.
[3] And there too SS. Nestor and Arcadius were Bishops, about whom the Great Menaea of the Greeks at March 7 proclaim this: SS. Nestor and Arcadius were Bishops there: On the same day, Nestor and Arcadius, Bishops of the Trimythuntians, rest in peace. The two excellent Pastors of Trimythus rejoice in the excellent meadows of Eden. About them on the same day Maximus, Bishop of Cythera, writes thus: On the same day, Nestor and Arcadius, Bishops of Trimethus of Cyprus, rest in peace. The Synaxarion of the Clermont College of the Society of Jesus at Paris: On the same day, the memory of our holy Fathers Arcadius and Nestor, Bishops of Trimethus of Cyprus.
[4] Has not the Pseudo-Dexter then wasted his oil and labor, who fabricates that Nestor was created Bishop of Palencia wrongly attributed to Spain by certain recent writers: and Arcadius of Juliobriga in Spain by St. James the Apostle, and that in the year 60 of Christ they were killed in the Cherronesian city of the same Spain by the judge Alotus, along with those seven Bishops of the Tauric Chersonese, whom we have already related above were crowned with martyrdom in the fourth century of the Christian era? I am greatly amazed, moreover, that certain learned men cling so tenaciously to that forged Chronicle that they do not even see what they read. For they confidently assert that among Ptolemy, Ortelius, and others who have written Geographies, no trace of the name Trimythus is to be found anywhere. For thus writes a man otherwise most diligent; and, what seems ridiculous to me, he conjectures that in place of "Trimythuntians" in the translation of the Menologion, one should substitute "of Triccium of the Raucones" or "of the Thermidugi." For I ask, where has he found the Raucones, Triccium, the Thermidugi? In Ortelius, Ptolemy, Pomponius Mela the Spaniard, since he cited these before? There is indeed in Stephanus a city called Tricca, but not of Spain — rather of Thessaly; Tricca, a city of Thessaly, from Tricca the daughter of Peneus; the ethnic name is Triccaeus. In Ptolemy, book 3, chapter 13, Tricca is a city not of the Thessalians but of the Estiotians, in the same Macedonia however. Triccum I find nowhere, nor the Raucones. Rhaucus is mentioned by the same Stephanus as an inland city of the island of Crete; its inhabitants are called Rhaucians. Of the Thermidugi I have found no trace anywhere: nor indeed have I searched laboriously, since the very well-known city of Tremithus or Trimethus in the island of Cyprus, of which these were Bishops, was sufficient for me.
[5] Were they buried together? One further thing I ask from the author of the Anamnesis: where did he read that the bodies of SS. Nestor and Arcadius were enclosed in a single coffin? Their Acts are still unknown to us: which it is more honest for us to confess candidly than to produce such as he gives, but composed by himself in content and words. That he joins them to the other seven Bishop Martyrs and assigns them to March 4, although we know that both are done erroneously, wrongly assigned to March 4: we reprove less, because he follows the Roman Martyrology as it was augmented by Baronius from a defective exemplar of the Menologion. For in this, quite erroneously on the fourth day, the following is appended that should have been referred to the seventh (as we said above): On the same day, of the holy Martyrs and Bishops at Cherson: Basilius, Eugenius, Agathodorus, Elpidius, Aetherius, Capito, and Ephraem.
On the same day, Nestor and Arcadius, Bishops of the Trimythuntians, having suffered martyrdom, rested in peace. The Greek Menologion corrected: We have concluded that in uncorrupted copies of the Menologion it reads thus, although we have seen no such copy; but the sense of the entire context seems to require it: namely, that after the words "Capito and Ephraem," there should be added: "of those who on the same day suffered martyrdom," or what amounts to the same thing, "who on the same day suffered martyrdom." For this is said in their Acts — except for St. Capito, who died a natural death yet is joined to the Martyrs because he was compelled to enter fire for the confession of faith: just as by St. Jerome and other Fathers, St. John the Evangelist is said to have drunk the cup of the Lord, because on account of martyrdom he was cast into a vat of boiling oil, and thence as an athlete of Christ he proceeded to receive the crown — although he afterward ended his life by a natural death. After the things we said should be corrected in the Menologion, the following then seems to need to be added: On the same day, Nestor and Arcadius, Bishops of the Trimythuntians, rested in peace. If you ask, at what time? That is hidden from us. We suspect, however, that they died after St. Capito, Bishop of Cherson: but even that is not certain.
[6] What if they were successors of that great Spiridon, or Spiridon, by whose wise simplicity, or rather simple wisdom, a certain arrogant philosopher is remembered to have been confuted and converted at the great Council of Nicaea? The Greeks celebrate him on December 12, the Latins on the fourteenth. On one or the other day we shall give his Life, which from Metaphrastes has already been published in Latin by Lipomanus and Surius. In it the following is found: [St. Spiridon, Bishop of the same city of Trimithus, attended the Council of Nicaea:] When Constantine the Great was ruling the Roman Empire, he himself was consecrated Bishop of the city of the Trimithuntians. Of the same Socrates, book 1 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 8: Who was allotted the bishopric of a certain city in Cyprus, by name Trimithus. Likewise Sozomenus, book 1, chapter 11: We have learned that in those same times Spiridon, Bishop of the city of Trimithus in Cyprus, lived. George Cedrenus under Constantine: A certain man of the saints, by name Spyridon, Bishop of the Trimithuntians. I omit many others who have mentioned both the same holy pastor of sheep and of men, and the city over which he presided. And there was no reason at all why learned men should expunge this city, as though unknown to all mortals heretofore, from the number of cities, and relegate its two Bishops to other shores.