ON SS. ABERCIUS AND HELENA
GERMAN MARTYRS.
From the Synaxarium of Dijon & others. Were they born of Alphæus the father?
CommentaryAbercius, Martyr among the Greeks (St.)
Helena, Martyr among the Greeks (St.)
D. P.
The printed Menæa of the Greeks, & the Menology published by Sirletus, with Maximus Bishop of the Cythera, name on this XXVI of May, The name in the calendars. the Holy Martyrs Abercius & Helena, with no Eulogy added. The Ms. Claromontane Synaxarium at this XXVI of May also refers them, but for Abercius names Abenius. In the Ms. Greek of Dijon it is thus read: Ὁ ἀγιὸς Ἀβέρκιος, ὁ τοῦ ἁγίου Ἀποστόλου Ἀλφαίου ὑιὸς, ἑν μελισσῶνι γυμνὸς ἁπλωθεὶς καὶ δακνώμενος, ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν τελεῖουται: The kind of martyrdom. S. Abercius, son of Alphæus the Apostle, exposed naked in a bee-yard & stung by the bees, is by them slain. There is added a distich, which in the separation of the sons, ill cohering (as elsewhere said more fully), was so corrupted that it could not be read. Then is said Ἡ ἁγια Ἑλένη ἡ ἀδέλφὴ αὐτου λιθοβοληθεῖσα, S. Helena, his sister, stoned; with this distich:
Σὸς Χριστονύμφη κόσμος Ἑλένη λίθοι, Δι᾽ ὧνπερ ὠφθης ἐυπρεπὴς ἐν Κυρίῳ.
O bride of Christ, the stones are thy world, Helena: by which thou wast seen most fairly adorned in God.
Ferrarius, the tables of the Greeks being alleged I know not whence (for he seems neither to have used any Greek originals for weaving his Catalogue, nor at all to have known Greek), referred them to XXIV of May. We found also in the Combefisian Synaxarium, Was the father Alphæus? in the Fathers Preachers of the stricter observance at Paris, the same Martyrs, referred to the day XX, & elsewhere to XXVII of May. But that S. Abercius is called in the Dijon Ms. son of Alphæus the Apostle, I fear lest it be hence, that in most (as above said) Synaxaria, this man is found praised, as the father of the Apostles James & Matthew, but elsewhere he himself & his sons, the names not expressed, are commemorated; & then is subjoined the memory of these Martyrs, whom the collector of the Dijon Synaxarium could have taken for the sons. Certainly we dare not, on the faith of this one Ms., assert their kinship with the aforesaid Apostles, unknown to all other writers.