Helladius Bishop

ON ST. HELLADIUS BISHOP

MARTYR IN THE EAST.

CENTURY VI OR VII.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

In which for the lost Acts, are substituted elogies from the Synaxaria and Menaea: the time of the martyrdom, by conjecture, is sought.

Helladius, Bishop and Martyr in the East (S.)

BY D. P.

[1] Celebrated today is the cultus among the Greeks

"τοῦ Ἁγίου καὶ ἐνδόξου Ἱερομάρτυρος Ἑλλαδίου" of the Holy and glorious

Hieromartyr Helladius, Elogy from the Menaea, of whom

one and only treat the printed Menaea,

where this Distich is sung to him:

"Ἔλαιον Ἑλλάδιος ἱεροσύνης

Αἵματι συνέμιξε τοῦ μαρτυρίου."

Helladius mixed the oil of his consecration

With the blood of martyrdom.

Then this elogy is woven about him from Acts, probably lost:

"This Saint having cleansed himself from every stain of sin, and made

a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, by the suffrage of God is anointed

Bishop; by which are indicated multiple tortures borne by him: who when he had the rudder of the Christian Church

committed to him, as shepherd of his flock,

drove away the wolves (for I would not call them men); and as a wise

governor he was directing it, keeping it untrodden and inoffended

by all evils. Afterwards therefore when the tyrants

stood him bound before the people, then his virtue more shone forth,

and more clearly illustrated the minds of the faithful. For immediately

led into the stadium and contest, with Christian liberty

he professed his piety. Wherefore subjected to many

torments, he is foully lacerated in his whole body. But

every pain contracted from the bruises and weals

Christ our God, visible to his athlete, wiped away

and healed, and rendered him more eager to suffer more.

Then the tyrants filled with wrath, cast the Saint into fire:

in which remaining unburnt, he drew many to

the faith of Christ. Finally most cruelly beaten with scourges,

he gave up his spirit to God." These things in the said Menaea.

[2] On the same May XXVII the same elogy is read in the new Anthology,

published by the authority of Clement VIII, and is found

in the Ms. Synaxarium of the Constantinopolitan Church, his celebrated cultus on this day, pertaining

to the Paris College of the Society of Jesus, and on the following day in

the Menology of Emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus. On which also

day May XXVIII in the Menology of Sirleti the name of Helladius

is ineptly joined to SS. Crescens, Dioscorides and Paul,

of whom we shall then treat, and shall say they suffered at Rome.

Baronius what he had read in Sirleti, in just the same way

inserted into the Roman Martyrology, indeed having almost nothing else

to follow in the Greek, himself ignorant of Greek language,

than that whatever Menology of Sirleti, it has yielded to the new cultus of S. Therapon. too lightly

(as we have often warned elsewhere) compiled.

It is more wonderful that, when the Typicon and Ephemeris

received from Constantinople figured of the Muscovites on this day prescribe everything

to be done about S. Therapon Hieromartyr, translated from Cyprus

to Constantinople in the year DCCCVI; the Menaea omitting this

treat only of Helladius, and his alone name from the metrical Ephemeris

they suggest in this manner:

"Εικάδι ἑβδομάτῃ Ἑλλάδιον ἔκτανε πυγμή."

The fist slays Helladius on the twenty-seventh.

Nor does the cause of this diversity occur, except that the Menaea were

drawn from a more ancient than that whence the Typicon was received

copy, written before the cultus of S. Helladius

at Constantinople was obscured by the new cultus of S. Therapon, whose body was not at CP.

whose memory there was previously celebrated on May XIV.

But it seems this cultus could the more easily be obscured,

because elsewhere than in the Royal City the body of S. Helladius

was and was venerated. For neither would the Paris Synaxarium, which

still mentions Helladius and indeed in first place, treating of the double

Therapon on the previous day, have omitted to note in its custom

the church, in which his Synaxis was celebrated, if any such

was at Constantinople. The Canon also about the same Saint

reported in the Menaea is such, that it could appear one of the more ancient ones

ordered by S. Sophronius or John Damascene;

as not having the name of the author joined, and who seems to have suffered in the East. nor

annexed to any acrostic; whence anyone could suspect he suffered in the East,

and there was more known; where also some Acts of his existed:

for some are noted in the Sticharia and Odes, which partly

confirm what is said briefly in the elogy already produced, partly

supply what is omitted there. It pleases to extract some from there.

[3] Of the three Sticharia before the Canon, which I have spoken of, the second

is this: ["Θεόφρον Ἑλλάδιε, Χριστὸς ἐποφθείς σοι ἅπαντας τοὺς ἐκ μαλώπων ἰάσατο ἰχῶρας χαριτι· δι᾽ αὐτον γὰρ πᾶσαν ὑπομεῖναι κάκωσιν προέιλω, προφανῶς κλειζόμενος· δι᾽ ὃ ἱκετευε δωρηθήναι ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν τὴν ἐιρήνην καὶ τὸ μέγα ἔλεος."] God-wise Helladius, In prison visited by Christ, Christ appearing to you healed all the bruises of your

wounds with his grace: for on his account you chose to bear

every affliction, openly glorified. Therefore

pray, that to our souls be given peace and great mercy.

The same at the beginning of Ode V is thus

set forth: ["Ἐξέλαμψας ὡς ἥλιος ὀικῶν τὸ δεσμοθήριον· ὅτι ἐκεῖ τὸ φῶς τὸ ἄδυτον Χριστός σοι ἐπιφάνη, λόγους παρακλήσεως ὡς τῳ Παυλῳ φωνῶν σοι."] You shone

forth like the sun, while you stayed in the prison: because

there appeared to you the inaccessible light Christ, sounding into your ears words

of consolation, as to Paul. and bonds being broken released,

And this indeed about Christ appearing was already read

in the elogy: not so what about the bonds follows in another

stanza of the same Ode V: ["Δέσμα σοι διαρράγησαν ὥσπερ ἰστὸς ἀράχνιος ὅτι ἔν σοι ἰσχὺς ἡ ἄμαχος, συντρίβουσα δαιμόνων ἅπασαν ἐπίνοιαν καὶ σὲ μεγαλύνουσα, στρατιῶτα τοῦ Χριστοῦ."] Bonds were broken from you like

webs of spiders; because in you was the invincible virtue,

crushing all the inventions of demons, and you

magnifying, soldier of Christ.

[4] Likewise fire borne harmlessly, in the third Sticharion

before the Canon, is thus indeed proclaimed, ["Πυρὸς φύσιν ἐχαλίνασας καὶ ἀδιάφλεκτος ἔμεινας· ἡ δρόσος γὰρ Θεοῦ σε περικυκλοῦσα ἀβλαβῆ ἐφύλαττεν"]: unhurt by fire You bridled the nature

of fire, and remained unburnt. For divine dew

surrounding you preserved you unharmed. Are praised

also often the multiple torments throughout the whole Canon: but

in Ode VII of the same Canon, a certain kind of torment

not indicated by the Elogy is touched in this manner: ["Ἐν πτέρναις σοι ὑποισας πικρὰν διάτρησιν ἕτρωσας τὸν δόλιον, καὶ πτερνίσας ἔρῥιψας ὑπο τοὺς πόδας σου Μάκαρ"]: and on the soles beaten, Sustaining the bitter

bruising of the soles of your feet, O Blessed One,

you crushed the deceitful enemy; and supplanting him

stretched him beneath your feet. This is a kind of bastinado,

by which the feet of those laid on the ground are struck with sticks,

to a number prescribed by the judge, sometimes to many hundreds of strokes,

and then often inflicting death itself: which as it was unusual

to the Romans tormenting Martyrs;

so it was and is even today most usual to the Persians, Saracens, and

Turks (to be silent of the Chinese and other more Eastern peoples):

whence a perhaps not vain suspicion can be drawn, that

the Saint was killed by the Persians or Saracens.

[5] probably under the Persians, To this conjecture this can favor, that throughout the whole Canon no

mention is made of Emperors or Kings, but simply

and in the plural in the elogy are named Tyrants, namely Satraps

of the Persians or Saracens, several at the same time present at the martyrdom:

to which rejoicing the Canon Strophe II Ode IV thus invites

the faithful: ["Ἄνθεσι ψαλμικῶς καταστέψωμεν, πιστοι τὸν θεῖον Ἑλλάδιον, ὁς νικήτην ἀσεβείας καὶ Μάρτυρα στεῤῥὸν τῆς τριφαοῦς ὁμοουσίου Τριάδος"]: With flowers of psalms

let us crown, O faithful, the divine Helladius,

as victor of impiety, and noble Martyr

of the triple-light consubstantial Trinity.

Whose enemies since they are especially Saracens, who otherwise

believe in one God, I was inclined to think, that under them

S. Helladius suffered; but the Strophe II of Ode VI, where it is said,

["Τοῖς εἰδώλοις τοῦ θύειν ἀπαρνοὺμενος, θυσία ζῶσα τρισμάκαρ, Θεῷ γεγονας, εὐωδιαζων ἅπασι τὰ ἄχραντα μύρα τῶν παθηματων τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐν τῷ σωματί σου"]. Refusing to sacrifice

to idols, in the 6th or 7th century. thrice Blessed, you became to God a living host;

perfusing all with the incorruptible ointment of the passions of Christ,

fulfilled in your body. But, not Saracens,

but Persians worshipped idols, especially the sun and fire: their

incursions into Syria and Palestine are known,

especially in the VI and VII century under each Chosroes,

in the year XII of Justinian Emperor, when they intercepted

Antioch of Syria; and in the V year of Heraclius, when they reduced Jerusalem

and the whole Holy Land under their power.

But that the name of Helladius was sufficiently frequent in those

parts, persuades the Metropolitan of Tarsus and the Bishop of Ptolemais,

so named in the year CCCCXXXI, in the Conciliabulum of Ephesus.

But all these things I wish to be received as bare and slight conjecture,

as they are.