ON SAINT STEPHEN,
PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
Cult from the Synaxaria. Deeds from Leo Grammaticus.
IN THE YEAR DCCCXCIII
CommentaryS. Stephen, Patriarch of Constantinople.
BY THE AUTHOR G. H.
The Greeks celebrate S. Stephen Patriarch of Constantinople on this XVII of May, and first in the Menology of the Emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus, written not until one century after his death, this elogium of him stands: On the same day, XVII of May, Encomium from the Menology of the Emperor Basil. the memory of Stephen Patriarch of Constantinople. He indeed was born son of the illustrious Basil Emperor of the Romans, but on account of his own ingenuous manners, and the rest of his prudence, and the quiet of his mind, and the sublimity of his virtue, while he was still a youth, by the suffrage of the Emperor and the sacred Synod and the whole Clergy and people, and what is rather to be said, by the good-pleasure and judgment of God, he was ordained Patriarch of Constantinople. But being placed on the great and sacred throne, and the care of a great flock undertaken, he expended all his thoughts on the happy government of the Churches of God: and shone forth a most vigilant guardian and true Pastor, directing his sheep according to the laws of the orthodox religion, attending the poor with mercy, defending widows and orphans, and rescuing others oppressed by injuries from the hands of the wicked, and serving God in all things. Wherefore, since he bore himself thus, and chastised the flesh by continence, in the very flower of his age he migrated to Christ. These things are in the said Menology of the Emperor Basil: which same things thence, but at the XVIII of May, seem to have been translated into a very old Ms. Synaxarium of the Church of Constantinople, which is preserved at Paris in the Collège de Clermont of the Society of Jesus, where at the beginning it is indicated that he was the brother of the Emperor Leo the wise, in a Ms. Synaxarium, or Leo the Philosopher. Thirdly Cardinal Baronius at the year, number 888 number 9, related the same things from a certain Menology of the Greeks, asserting that he is related among the Saints, and that his anniversary natal day is kept on the XVII of May: on which day also his sacred memory is celebrated in the Greek Ms. Menaea of Milan of the Ambrosian library, and other Ms. Menaea: and the double ones of Turin of the Duke of Savoy, and also but at the XVIII in those of Dijon of the Society of Jesus, and in these is said μνήμη τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις Πατρὸς ἡμῶν: and because στέφανος in Greek signifies a crown, in the adjoined distich it is said that Stephen departed from the perishing life, and received a crown not perishing: which is thus expressed in Greek.
Ἐκ τοῦ διαῤῥέοντος ἐξέβη βίου Στέφανος, οὗ στέφανος οὐ διαῤῥέει.
Again on the XXVII of May he is celebrated in the cited Ms. Synaxarium, and another Mazarine one.
[2] Thus far concerning his cult in the Ms. fasti of the Greeks, drawn out more at length, because no mention of him is made in the printed Menaea of the Greeks or the Menology of Sirletus. For the rest, of the Greek Historians who touched these times, plainly synchronous with him was Leo Grammaticus: who, since he ends his history with the deeds of Leo the Philosopher and Constantine the Emperors, and of S. Stephen the brothers, printed by the Louvre press with the history of Theophanes: and on page 470 he describes the Acts of Basil the Macedonian Emperor, and soon inserts these: Moreover the Emperor, on the day of the Nativity of Christ, He is baptized with solemn pomp: with a celebrated apparatus of procession, having set out to the great Church, baptized Stephen his son, and with white horses yoked to the chariot sat in it with the Augusta. But Baanes the Praepositus together with them carried the boy as far as the palace, the Emperor scattering through the way a gift of coins. Basil the Macedonian Emperor died on the Kalends of March in the year DCCCLXXXVI, and to him succeeded his son Leo the Philosopher. But Stephen, says Leo Grammaticus page 475, his brother, he is consecrated Patriarch by Theophanes: was Syncellus with Photius the Patriarch, brought up and instructed by him… But Photius being compelled to abdicate the throne, and thrust into the monastery of the Armenians called Bordi, the Emperor introduced his brother Stephen into the Patriarchate: who, the Nativity of Christ being imminent, was consecrated Patriarch by Theophanes, Bishop of the first See after the Patriarch, and by the rest of the Prelates. And he lived in the Patriarchate six years and five months: and his life ended, he is buried in the monastery of the Sicelli. Thus Leo Grammaticus. But George Cedrenus in the compendium of Histories; Basil, he says, the Emperor enrolled Stephen his son, younger by birth than the rest, in the college of the Ecclesiastics. Then Leo the Philosopher, Photius being sent away to a monastery, forthwith thrust into his place his brother Stephen the Syncellus: whom, because then the Bishop of Heraclea was not among the living, Theophanes the President designated.
[3] These things are referred to the first year of the Empire of Leo, in whose third year Stephen, the Emperor's brother, is said to have departed from life, and in his place Antony, surnamed Cauleas, created Patriarch. Nearly the same things from Cedrenus John Curopalates Scylitzes described. The Life of S. Antony Cauleas, written by Nicephorus the Philosopher a coeval author, his holiness from boyhood. we have illustrated at the day XII of February, in which with the succession of him the holiness of S. Stephen his predecessor is thus proclaimed. These deeds of S. Antony moved the love of the Church the Spouse of Christ, and she burned thirsting for him whom she loved, and sought the time of conjunction: and foreseeing the time of betrothal, she was led pleasantly by sweet hope. For she knew it would be, that she would not at all be widowed of the dignity of the preceding spouse, but that, when she had transmitted the sacrosanct man who from infancy was called to God, him, I say, who was named from the Crown, Stephen, and who from the swaddling-bands is sacrosanct, she should be joined to the sacrosanct one: who will dissolve the mourning received by her from the privation of him. Besides this Life of the aforesaid Antony, we now have also another composed by another Nicephorus, namely Gregoras, indeed four whole centuries after the first, yet such as will at some time bring great light to this, and supply some things also which were omitted by Nicephorus the Philosopher. But in this latter life of Antony it is thus read: But when, Stephen the Patriarch of that time being dead, those who could not bear the solitude of the Patriarchal Throne sought one worthy of the Chair, by the tongues of all Antony was proclaimed.
[4] These things being thus deduced, there remain a few things to be briefly indicated concerning the time of the See of S. Stephen. That S. Stephen was introduced into the Patriarchate by Leo the Philosopher his brother, the time of the See. and was consecrated Patriarch the Nativity of Christ being imminent, Leo Grammaticus testifies: but this was done in the first year of the Empire of Leo, of Christ DCCCLXXXVI, and perhaps about the XVIII of December. Leo Grammaticus adds that he lived in the Patriarchate six years and five months, and therefore departed on the XVII of May in the year DCCCXCIII: to which year the beginning of S. Antony his successor Marquard Freher referred, in the Chronology prefixed to the two volumes of the Greco-Roman Law, printed at Frankfurt in the year MDXXVI. But wrongly he set the beginning of Stephen against the year DCCCLXXV, when namely Basil was still reigning, to whom only in the following year his life ended his son Leo the Philosopher succeeded, under whom all admit the Patriarch to have been initiated, even Cedrenus and Scylitzes; although wrongly the latter asserts him to have departed life the following year, the former in the third year. And thus that he presided three years is also written toward the end of book 4 of the said Greco-Roman Law, and we with Baronius at the Life of S. Antony Cauleas, where we referred the death of S. Stephen, and the succession of S. Antony, to the year DCCCLXXXVIII: which therefore we here would wish emended.
[5] Moreover to the aforesaid S. Antony succeeded at the end of the IX century Nicholas Mysticus; and to him on the XV of May Indiction III, that is in the year DCCCC of Christ his life ended, a successor is created Stephen, Metropolitan of Amasea, as Cedrenus writes: who then, as the same says, on the day of the month of July ιε΄, that is XV, not XXV, indiction sixth, one of the successors, Stephen the second, is venerated and so in the year DCCCCIII died: when he had presided over that office a biennium and eleven months. This therefore is he whose memory, with the distinctive epithet τοῦ ἐξ᾽ Ἀμασείας μετατιθέντος, translated from Amasea, is inscribed at the XVIII of July in certain Ms. Synaxaria of Milan, Turin and Paris, and also in the most illustrious of all the Clermont one
praised above: whence a doubt arises whether for ιε΄ in Cedrenus ought not to be read and written ιη΄: but it is easily solved, since Cedrenus may have noted the very day of death, the Synaxaria the day of deposition. All which things we wished to refer hither, both lest one be confounded with another; and lest concerning him, if perchance nothing else singular be found, it should again have to be treated by us in this month.