ON ST. IRENE THE MARTYR
CELEBRATED AT CONSTANTINOPLE.
Cent. I
CommentaryIrene, Martyr, celebrated at Constantinople (S.)
G. H.
[1] Illustrious is the memory of St. Irene the Martyr among the Greeks and other Easterners. Petrus Gyllius in book 3 of the Topography of Constantinople, chapter 6, page 164, asserts Three churches at Constantinople. that he found from literary monuments that there were three churches of S. Irene at Constantinople: the first near Sophia called the Old Irene, which Socrates relates that Constantine the Great built. The same is confirmed by Georgius Codinus on the Origins of CP., page 38 of the Louvre edition. Κωνσταντῖνος ὁ μέγας ἀνέγειρε τὴν ἁγίαν Εἰρήνην τὴν παλαίαν. Constantine the Great built the old church of S. Irene, or as Gyllius has it, the church of the ancient Irene. And that this was once Metropolitan is indicated by the author of the Life of S. Isaacius buried in the same, to be reported on May XXX. Procopius in book I on the Buildings of the Emperor Justinian, chapter 2, adds that the church of Irene, which previously had burned together with the principal church next to it, Justinian Augustus built most amply, so that scarcely at Byzantium, except the temple of Sophia, is there any other to which it yields in greatness. Furthermore, in chapter 7 the same Procopius speaks thus: At the very mouth of the gulf is situated the temple of Irene the Martyr, which he built so altogether magnificently that I confess myself unequal to describing it. For he, in his eagerness ambitiously vying with the sea in adorning the gulf, just as bright gems on a round necklace, so added these temples to it. The Dedication of each of the said temples is set forth in the Synaxarium of the Collegium Claromontanum of the Society of Jesus at Paris on the XXVIII of April with these words: Encaenia of S. Irene the old and the new. Finally Gyllius places another on the third hill, which the ancient description of the regions of the city relates to have been in the seventh region.
[2] These things concerning the temples, which confirm the ancient cult of S. Irene the Martyr. But, what is to be lamented, concerning her life and miracles many fabulous things are related by the Greeks, which are plainly unworthy to be inserted into this work. Encomium from the Menology of Basil the Emperor. For the rest let it suffice the encomium, in the Menology of Basil Porphyrogenitus expressed thus. Irene, Christ's Martyr, was the daughter of a certain Regulus, by name Licinius. Since moreover she was beautiful, by her father she was shut up with thirteen handmaids in a lofty tower, then in her sixth year of age. There moreover taught the mysteries of God by an Angel, not long after by Timothy the disciple of S. Paul the Apostle, who had come to her, she was baptized. The idols indeed which her father had given her, she crushed and threw down. Wherefore her father, angered, bound her to a fierce horse, that thus she might be killed. But she suffered no harm thence: but the father was killed by the horse, which by biting tore off his hand. Then Irene, prayers being offered to God, raised him up: wherefore he embraced the faith of Christ with his wife and about three thousand others. Finally by order of Ampelianus the Governor Irene was apprehended, and tortured with manifold tortures, since she steadfastly refused to deny Christ, was beheaded with the sword and buried. Thus there: from which we gather, in the first century of Christ, in which S. Timothy flourished, she lived, and accordingly also the said Regulus or noble man, Licinius; such as also in the year of Christ LXIV existed at Rome under Nero as Consul. But S. Irene could have received the crown of martyrdom in the persecution of Domitian or Trajan. In the new Anthology, And in the new Anthology. by the authority of Clement VIII, set in type by Antonio Arcudio at the Vatican press, the same things from the Menology of Basil the Emperor are published, with a few things added at the beginning, namely, that this great Martyr was the only daughter of Regulus Lycinius and his mother Lycinia, born from the city of Magedon. Which same things, but on the preceding day, are read in the MS. Synaxarium of Claromontanum, in which toward the end are noted four cities, 4 cities ennobled by her Martyrdom. beholders of the torments inflicted on S. Irene, namely, Magedon her homeland, Callinicus, Constantina, and Mesembria, where the city Constantina seems to be Byzantium, then called Constantinople; Mesembria moreover is in the same Thrace, an Episcopal maritime city, on the shore of the Euxine Sea and the border of Lower Mysia. There also in the Chersonese of Thrace is Callipolis, perhaps above called Callinicus; nor do I doubt that in that tract or in neighboring Macedonia was Magedon her homeland: all which are confirmed by so many temples constructed for her at Constantinople, and also by the fact that those regions were illuminated by the preaching of S. Paul and his disciple and companion in pilgrimage Timothy.
[3] The Acts of her life and Martyrdom, which we judge ought not to be given here, are extant in the Vatican library both in Greek and in Latin. Of these the Greek are in codex marked 886, The omitted Acts are had in Vatican Mss. and thus begin: Κατὰ τοὺς προσλαμβάνοντας χρόνους, ὑπῆρχεν Βασιλεὺς ὀνόματι Λικίνιος. Other Greek are in codex 1190 with this beginning, Τὸν τῶν μαρτύρων ἐπικαλοῦμαι Θεὸν, μαρτιρικοὺς ἀγῶνας διεξιέναι βουλόμενος. The Latin moreover we caused to be transcribed from codex 6188 under this title, Martyrdom of the glorious and Victorious Martyr Irene, and the Acts themselves thus begin. In those times to the Emperor Licinius there was a certain daughter, by name Penelope, comely in appearance, and of such excellent bodily form, that all men admired her beauty. A compendium of these, and that long enough, is extant scattered in the Menaea both printed and in MSS., from which Cardinal Sirletus composed his Menology, memory in various calendars. and from the very long narration of S. Irene (whom they wish to have been earlier called Penelope) he transferred only these words: Day five. Of the holy great Martyr Irene. The contest of the holy Martyr Irene is celebrated in the Arabo-Egyptian Martyrology, which translated into Latin by Gratia Simonius the Maronite Athanasius Kircherus transmitted to us from Rome; likewise in the Syriac Martyrology or the Typikon of S. Sabas, the Ruthenian among Possevinus, the figured Muscovite among the most illustrious Laurentius Vander Hem at Amsterdam: and the Latins followed, Petrus de Natalibus book 4 chapter 122, bringing forth many things from the fabulous narration; Grevenus in the Additions to Usuard, Galesinius, Canisius, and Ferrarius in the general Catalog, who attributes her from Petrus de Natalibus to Ephesus, because there S. Timothy was Bishop: and then separately reports S. Herina Virgin and Martyr, under the Emperor Licinius, at Aletium in the Salentini: Cult and church at Aletium. and in the Notes judges that they are one and the same, and that the body was translated to Aletium, and that the Aletines, ignorant of her history, believed her to be their citizen, or certainly confused the acts of both. This appears from the Life of S. Herina of Aletium, which the same Ferrarius long before had published in the Catalog of Saints of Italy, where in the Annotation he indicates that by King Ladislaus in the year MCCCCXVIII, in a certain chapel, which formerly was outside the city of Aletium, images of S. Herina and S. Venera; together with lighted lamps standing about an image of the most holy Mother of God, were found: where a temple of S. Maria called of Light was constructed. But of S. Herina a notable basilica was raised by the Aletines, which the Clerks Regular hold. About which more is not at hand at this time.