ON ST. CARPUS,
OF THE LXXII DISCIPLES, BISHOP OF BEROEA.
CENT. I
HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
Eulogies from the Greeks, his Episcopate, his Crown: is he the same as the Cretan Presbyter, praised by Dionysius to Demophilus?
Carpus, of the LXX disciples, Bishop of Berœa (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
Troas is a region of Asia, contiguous to Mysia & Phrygia, whose chief city of old was Ilium & Troy most celebrated in the fables of the Poets. In this region afterward the city of Troas was built by Alexander the Great, Mention of S. Carpus in S. Paul: a few miles from the ruins of old Troy to the South, on the coastal shore of the Aegean; then adorned with an Episcopal See under the Archbishop of Cyzicus. Of this city S. Paul the Apostle makes mention in the Second Epistle to Timothy chapter four, where at verse XIII he indicates these things to him: The cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest bring with thee, & the books, but especially the parchments. He who is there indicated, Carpus, memory in the calendars, is in great veneration among the Orientals at this XXVI of May: on which day in the Arabo-Egyptian Martyrology (which Gratia Simonius, formerly an alumnus of the college of the Maronites at Rome, made Latin for us) the memory of S. Carpus the Disciple is celebrated. But in a very ancient Ms. Greek Menology, received from the library of Fridericus Lindebrogius, he is called the Holy Apostle Carpus, as also in the Hierosolymitan Typicon of S. Sabas.
[2] In the Menology of Basil Porphyrogenitus the Emperor a eulogy is woven of him, which you have in Greek with the rest of the month of May after the first tome of this month. Eulogy from the Menology of the Emperor Basil. But in Latin it runs thus: This man was reckoned among the seventy Disciples & Apostles by Christ Himself: who, ministering to the Great Paul in preaching, and carrying his sacred epistles to those to whom he sent them, brought many of the Heathen to the faith of Christ: and having his mind illumined by the splendor of the Paraclete, like a heavenly star rising from the East, he illumined the whole orb of the lands with divine teachings. Moreover, since he daily wrought great miracles, & cast out most wicked spirits, nay led cities & peoples over to the faith of Christ; he bore many hardships inflicted by the infidels. But having with manly spirit obtained in every contest a happy success, he did not dread the angered mind of Princes. Wherefore, since he had glorified God in his members, by Him he was gloriously magnified; where he is said to have departed in peace. and departing in peace, he delivered his spirit into the hands of God. Thus there: things similar to which, concerning his life & death in peace, are related in the printed Menæa.
[3] But in a very ancient Synaxarium of the Church of Constantinople, which belongs to the Claromontane College of the Society of Jesus at Paris, another from the Ms. Synaxarium, he is held a Bishop & Martyr: whose Eulogy, although toward the beginning it be almost the same, we here repeat; and first indeed as it is read in Greek: Οὗτος ὁ τοῦ Κυρίου Ἀπόστολος, τοῖς ἑβδομήκοντα Μαθηταῖς καὶ Ἀποστόλοις ἀπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου συναριθμηθεὶς, καὶ τῷ μεγάλῳ Πάυλῳ διακονῶν ἐν τῷ κηρύματι, καὶ τὰς θείας ἀυτοῦ ἐπιστολὰς τοῖς πρὸς ὃυς ἐπέμποντο διαπορθμεύων, πολλὸυς τῶν ἑλλήνων τὴν τριάδα σέβειν ἐδίδαξε· ὃθεν καὶ θέιᾳ ἐλλάμψει τοῦ παρακλήτου καταυγασθεὶς τὴν διάνοιαν, ὥςπερ ἄδυτος ἀστὴρ ἐξ ἀνατολῶν ὁρμήσας, πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην ταῖς θείαις ἀυτοῦ διδασκαλίαις κατεφώτισε, θαυμάσια μέγιστα καθεκάστην τελῶν. Ὕστερον ὑπὸ του μεγάλου διδασκάλου καὶ κήρυκος τῆς ἀληθείας Ἐπίσκοπος τῆς ἐν θράκῃ Βεροίας προυχειρίσθη, ὅθεν τοὺς Ἰουδαίους ἐλέγξας, καὶ διδάξας ὅτι ὁ παρ᾽ ἀυτῶν σταυρωθεὶς Χριστὸς θεός ἐστιν ἀληθινὸς καὶ ποιητὴς τῶν ἁπαντων, θυμῷ συσχεθέντες ὑπ᾽ ἀυτῶν ὡμῶς καὶ ἀνιλεῶς ἀνῃρέθη, παραδοὺς τὴν ἁγίαν ἀυτοῦ ψυχὴν εἰς χεῖρας κυρίου, θαυματουργῶν καθεκάστην ἐν τοῖς ἀυτοῦ λειψάνοις, πάθη παντοια καθαίρων, καὶ ἀκάθαρτα πνέυματα ἀποδιώκων. These things there, which in Latin run thus: This Apostle of the Lord, enrolled among the seventy disciples & Apostles by the Lord Himself, & serving the Great Paul in preaching, carried his sacred epistles to those to whom they were sent: and at the same time taught many of the Pagans to venerate the most holy Trinity. Accordingly, as though suffused with divine light, & his mind illumined by the Holy Spirit, like a star never setting, risen in the East, he illumined the whole world with heavenly doctrine, & on individual days wrought the greatest miracles. At length he is ordained by the great doctor & herald of the truth Bishop of the city of Berœa in Thrace. Whence, when he reproved the Jews, & taught that Christ, by them fixed to the cross, where he is said to have died a Martyr, is the true God & Creator of all things; by them, moved with fury, & using no mercy, he was cruelly slain, and delivered his holy soul into the hands of the Lord. Through whose Relics miracles are daily wrought, & diseases of every kind are cured, & impure spirits are put to flight.
[4] Somewhat more seems able to be hammered out from the Distich, which by custom is placed before the Eulogy, & is of this kind, with an allusion to the name, since being sharpened at the end it signifies fruit. He also seems to be held a Martyr in the Office,
Κάρπος ἐνέγκων καρπούς δεκτοὺς Κυρίῳ, Φέρει καθορᾷν τὴν τελευτὴν ὡς τρύγην.
Carpus offering pleasing fruits to God, bears to behold death in place of the wheat-harvest.
Still more in some measure the third like Sticharium before the Canon asserts, running thus: Θυσίαν ἀναίμακτον Θεῷ θύων, τελεώτατα ὑπὲρ ἀυτοῦ Μάρτυς τέθυσας καὶ προσήνεξας νοετῇ τραπέζῃ θύμα ἐυωδέστατον. Immolating an unbloody sacrifice to God, for the same thou wast thyself immolated as a perfect Martyr, offered for a most sweet odor to the spiritual table.
[5] His Episcopal city, written in Greek Βεροία, which in the Menæa after the eulogy of S. Carpus in the third Strophe of Ode VII is written Βεῤῥοία, and is said to have obtained him as a most excellent Bishop from the Lord, having had him diligent in all Episcopal exercises. & Bishop of Berœa, a city of Thrace, In the Synopsis of the Seventy disciples, which is ascribed to S. Dorotheus Bishop & Martyr, Carpus is the fifty-eighth, whom Paul remembers, and this man, says the author, was Bishop of Berhœa, which is in Thrace. In another Catalogue commonly cited under the name of Hippolytus, in the 62nd place is Carpus Bishop of Βιῤῥύας τῆς Θράκης. Whether Birrhya, which to others is Bysia, an Episcopal city of Mediterranean Thrace under the metropolis Heraclea in the province of Europe? In the Macedonia of ancient Greece, published by Jansonius in part 5 of the Atlas, page 35, three cities of Berrhœa are indicated: the first in Syria, the second in the province of Emathia in Macedonia, the third in Thrace or Mœsia: whether situated in ancient Macedonia. namely that which was called Irenopolis by the Empress Irene. I have also noticed that the Thessalonian province of Macedonia, nearest to Thrace, is sometimes ascribed to the latter by later writers, where Beroea, famous for the pilgrimage & preaching of S. Paul, is mentioned in Acts chapter XVII, and which afterward was adorned with the Episcopal dignity under the Archbishopric of Thessalonica.
[6] But a greater difficulty is in ascribing martyrdom to him, since in the eulogy of the Emperor Basil he is said τελειωθεὶς ἐν ἐιρήνῃ; to have departed in peace; but in the printed Menæa ἀναπαυσάμενος τὸν γλυκύτατον ὕπνον, to have rested in the sweetest Sleep. S. Joseph the Hymnographer composed a Canon to be recited on this day under this acrostic:
Τὸν κλεινὸν αἰνῷ Κάρπον ἐνθέῳ ποθῳ. ΙΩΣΗΦ
With divine love I sing the renowned Carpus. JOSEPH.
In this Canon, since titles of encomia & praises are summoned from every side, from the fervor of his preaching, the illumination of his spirit, the manifoldness of the fruit reported, &c., no express mention is made of martyrdom: yet it is said in Strophe III of Ode II, Ἵνα, Κάρπε, τὸ σωτήριον κήρυγμα τῇ κτίσει, ὡς Ἱεράρχης θεόληπτος, καταγγείλῃς, πολλοὺς ὑπέστης διωγμοὺς καὶ θλίψεις, ἔνδοξε. That thou mightest announce the saving preaching to the creature, O glorious Carpus, thou didst undergo many persecutions & tribulations: & in Ode VII Strophe II, Θυμὸν Ἀρχόντων, Σοφὲ, μὴ δειλιάσας ὁλως, συντόμως ἐχώρεις πρὸς ἀθλήσεως ἐπίπονα σκάμματα. Nothing at all dreading the indignation of the Rulers, O Wise one, without delay thou didst run to the stadium of the contest. Finally in Ode IX Strophe III S. Carpus is praised, as Συνόμιλος τῶν Ἀγγέλων, Αποστόλων, καὶ Μαρτύρων, θαυμαστῶς ἐν εὐσεβείᾳ τελειωθέντων, a Companion of the Angels, Apostles, & Martyrs, wondrously consummated in the worship of piety. All which, since they assert nothing of certain knowledge, & the abstinence from a more express signification founds a great prejudice for the negative, in the present case; we leave to the judgment of the Reader,
whether he wishes to believe S. Carpus a Confessor or a Martyr.
[7] In the Epistle to Demophilus, the eighth among those which are attributed to S. Dionysius the Areopagite, is named Carpus a Presbyter, to whom in Crete Dionysius turned aside. He will better be distinguished from the Cretan Presbyter, S. Maximus in the scholia upon that very Epistle, and our Corderius in the Annotations, & Raderus book 3 of the Viridarium, make him the same as the one of whom we treat, the Disciple of Paul: but Benedict Justinian on Paul's epistle II to Timothy judges them different: which will be held the more certainly true, the more probable it shall be that Epistles of this kind are not of Dionysius the Areopagite, but of another far later Dionysius. But that they might be of the Areopagite himself, the title of Presbyter & the Cretan domicile seem to suffice, that this Carpus be not believed to have been an Apostle, wandering in the preaching of the Gospel everywhere after Paul's manner or with Paul himself, who first settled at Troas and then at Berœa. Yet because that vision of the Cretan Carpus, whoever at last he was, narrated by Dionysius, is of much edification, I shall gladly transcribe it from the version of our Corderius.
[8] When once I had come into Crete, S. Carpus received me with hospitality, a man if any other, by reason of the singular purity of his mind, most fit for the contemplation of God: for neither did he begin the sacred rites of the mysteries, unless first some sacred & propitious vision had appeared to him among the preparatory prayers. Him therefore (as he related) a certain infidel had once grieved, and the cause of his sadness was, of whom Dionysius narrates in ep. 8, that that man had seduced a certain person from the Church to the error of infidelity, while still the days of the festival, which received its name from Hilarity, were being kept. But when God was to be benevolently entreated for both, that by saving help He might convert the one indeed from error, and overcome the other by His goodness; and one ought not to desist from admonishing them through their whole life, until at length they should be advanced to divine knowledge; and then at last the things that seemed ambiguous & obscure should become plain to them, & they should be compelled by lawful truth to repent of the things they had rashly committed against reason; somehow, although this had never before happened to him, then having conceived a vehement indignation & bitterness he had fallen asleep: for it was evening. But about midnight, the time at which he was wont to wake for the divine hymns, being aroused he indeed rises, having taken little quiet sleep, frequently interrupted & not without disturbance: yet standing for the divine colloquies he was not religiously enough saddened, & took it grievously; saying it was unjust that impious men, & perverters of the right ways of the Lord, should still live. And saying these things, he prayed to God, that He would once break off the life of both by some thunderbolt unmercifully. These things said, he related that suddenly he had seen the house in which he stood first shaken from its highest summit, that, offended at two infidels, and divided in two parts; & a certain pyre of vast light before him; and that (for the place now seemed under the open sky) carried from heaven down even to him: but heaven itself opened, & in the vault of heaven Jesus, with innumerable Angels in human form standing by Him. And these things indeed he had beheld above, & had wondered: but looking downward Carpus asserted that he had seen the pavement itself, like a certain vast & most darksome abyss, cleft asunder, and those men (whom he had cursed with dire imprecations) standing before him at the mouth of the abyss, trembling & wretched, as though now about straightway to fall through the slipperiness of their feet: and from below out of the abyss he saw serpents emerging, and imprecating vengeance on them, about their so slipping feet, now indeed driven in a circle, & dragging them along entangled together, now also burning & fawning with teeth & tails, and in all ways striving to cast them headlong into the abyss: and there were also certain men in the midst, who together with the serpents made an onset against them, agitating together & impelling & striking them: and those men seemed to draw near to the fall, partly unwilling, partly of their own accord, by the evil thus gradually compelled, & at the same time persuaded.
[9] But Carpus related that, while he looked at the lower things, he was delighted, neglecting the upper. But when he grievously & indignantly bore that they had not yet fallen, & had often vainly applied himself to this matter, he saw them as about to fall into fire, he was indignant at them & cursed them. And when, his eyes scarcely at length recalled to the things on high, he had seen indeed again, as before, heaven, but Jesus, pitying what was being done, had descended from above from the heavenly throne; & approaching them, had stretched out to them a kindly hand; & the Angels likewise lending aid had held back one of the men on each side; & Jesus had said to Carpus himself, Strike me now with thy hand stretched out, since I am still ready again to suffer for the saving of men, to whom Christ stretched out a great hand. and that most willingly, lest at last other men sin. But consider, whether it be expedient for thee to prefer this dwelling of such a chasm & with serpents, to the fellowship of God & of the good & most clement Angels. These are the things which I, since I have heard them, believe to be true. S. Maximus in his Scholia upon this Epistle notes that there were days among the Idolaters which they called Hilaria; and these either private, the time of the Hilaria. as when one had taken a wife; or public, as when a King had been inaugurated: through which days it was lawful for no one to wear anything mournful, but spectacles & sacrifices were celebrated. Corderius adds from Macrobius, that the ancients called the day of the vernal equinox Hilaria. But what is this to the Christians? I suspect therefore that these too had their own Hilaria days, namely the eight after baptism received, on which they walked in white as a sign of gladness, & within which that neophyte newly drawn away from the faith lately received, this Carpus so grievously bore, perhaps afterward made worthy that he too should be commemorated among the Saints.