Papylinus

ON SAINT PAPYLINUS

MARTYR AMONG THE GREEKS.

Papylinus, Martyr among the Greeks (S.)

D. P.

This holy Martyr is suggested to us by MS. Greek Menaea, which at Dijon in the College of the Society of Jesus with Petrus Franciscus Chifletius we found: in which these things are read: On the same day S. Papylinus, who struck by the sword, by martyrdom finished life. And these verses are added Ὁ Παπυλίνος τραῦσιν ἑυρὼν ἐκ ξίφους, Πάπους πλάνης ἔτραυσε καὶ θέρος ἅμα. While Papylinus finds a wound from the sword, the Papi of error & the harvest at the same time he kills. But the Papi or Pappi, to which here is alluded, are those down feathers, which to the falling leaves of thistles succeed, & by the wind then snatched, scatter widely evil seeds, whence ἐκπαπποῦσθαι, to depart in pappi. Aptly therefore, taken from the name of Papylus the occasion, the holy Martyr is said in the very seed to have extinguished the hope of a noxious harvest, that is of error of gentility, justly to be compared to vile & flying papi or (as I shall speak diminutively) papyli of this kind.