ON ST. ASCANAFER, ROMAN PRINCE,
AT AN UNCERTAIN TIME
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY
Ascanafer, Roman prince. (S.)
P. P.
[1] From where the name of St. Ascanafer is derived. St. Ascanafer (Ascanāfer) is known only to the Ethiopians, who commemorate him to this day in their synaxaria together with thirteen robbers whom he had brought to the faith. His very name, which seems to have been expressed among them consistently enough, is unheard of in other languages. Job Ludolf once had a slight doubt Commentarius ad historiam aethiopicam (Frankfurt am Main, 1691), p. 393, note c. whether perhaps by the error of copyists it stood for Onesiphorus, whose mention occurs today in the calendars of the Greeks. But in the Ethiopic synaxarion, on the 19th day of Magabit, or 15 March, there is read again, written with the same letters, the name of another St. Ascanafer [H. Zotenberg, Catalogue des manuscrits éthiopiens de la bibliothèque Nationale (Paris, 1877), p. 180; cf. F. A. Dillmann, Lexicon linguae aethiopicae (Leipzig, 1865), p. 1417.], who certainly is St. Xenophon, husband of St. Mary and father of SS. John and Arcadius [BHG. 1878–1879; BHO. 1246–1247; cf. Synax. Eccl. CP., at 26 and 30 January, pp. 423, 432.]. That St. Ascanafer in fact had for his name some significant appellation derived from ξένῳ is confirmed by the very little story that is told of him. And to the latter part of his name there corresponds, with a wonderful and indeed not fortuitous consonance, the word Abunafer (Abunāfer) BHO. 820., otherwise (Abunafer) [Ethiopic synaxarion at the 16th of Sane (10 June), ed. I. Guidi, Patrologia Orientalis, vol. I, p. 613 ff. The form Abānafer, which occurs there, is derived from another case of the Arabic name.], which is Ethiopic for Ὀνουφρίῳ, Onuphrius. Comparing both names, St. Ascanafer seems to have been first called in Greek Ξενόφρων, that is, "solicitous for guests", or "curator of guests". And Xenophron could easily be changed into Ascanafer by some peculiar art of the Arabic or the Ethiopic interpreter, or of both. Nor would you conjecture without a show of truth that this name Ascanafer was the model after whose likeness St. Xenophon too was called Ascanafer [In the codex which shows through in Ludolf's calendar (op. cit., p. 411), at the 19th of Magabit, Ascanafer (Xenophon) is missing, and at the following day asqārān is ascribed, which certainly is a corruption of asqāfān, for Xenophon.]. And so much, indeed, for the name.
[2] His fabulous history Of the man himself and his history we know nothing certain. Certainly it is manifest that the little narrative of the Abyssinian synaxarion is to be traced back through some channel to a Greek source. And this could have been nothing other than some book of spiritual doctrine, in which, among specimens of various virtues, our St. Xenophron, or, if you prefer, Ascanafer, had been brought forward in praise of hospitality. And in very truth, a few days before these things were sent to the press, when the learned Robert P. Blake, returned from Jerusalem, had most obligingly, as is his way, offered us for our use the catalogue he had made of the Georgian codices of the Patriarchal Library, there unexpectedly met us in codex 140 (13th or 14th century), fol. 171–185, , the Life (or history) of Xenophorus, son of nobles. The history begins with these words: , A certain great one among the elders told us …: which is the proper and traditional formula by which the Apophthegmata of the Fathers are introduced. it must be traced back to the Sayings of the Elders. A transcript of this little narrative, if we can obtain one, we shall publish in the Analecta Bollandiana. For the present, however, the shortness of time has not allowed us to find out anything about it. Yet there is no room for doubting that in that Georgian codex lies hidden the proper form in which Ascanafer was first invented. Invented, I say: for no one not wholly a stranger to this kind of literature will think he must laboriously inquire in what age and in what city of the Roman, that is, the Greek, empire there existed a prince whom the history of our St. Ascanafer would fit. This is, of course, a pious little fable and nothing more. Nor does it seem anywhere outside Ethiopia to have won so much credence that that invented Ascanafer should be held in the number of the saints.
[3] The month of Chedar of the Ethiopic synaxarion would perhaps long since have been published in the Patrologia Orientalis, had not the iniquity of the times brought delay to this work also: may it not be drawn out for many years. Meanwhile we have taken the elogium of St. Ascanafer from the codex of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Aethiop. 126. We have thought it superfluous to collate other codices in so slight a matter.
LIFE OF ST. ASCANAFER
From the Ethiopic synaxarion (13 Chedar), following codex 126 of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
Ascanafer, Roman prince. (S.)
Ascanafer On this day likewise rested the holy father Ascanafer, a very wealthy man, and thirteen [twelve the codex; but from what follows it is established that thirteen must be read.] robbers, who were made Christians by his faith. This Ascanafer was one of the princes of Rome Understand, in the Arabic manner: of the Greek empire., and he was accustomed to give alms to strangers, the needy and monks. In those days, robbers plotting against his life there were thirteen robbers who were accustomed to fall upon the men they found on the roads. When these had heard of the ways of Ascanafer, how he received monks with hospitality, they went to him in order to kill him by guile and plunder his goods. So, clothed in monastic garments, they stood at the doors of his gate. When he saw them, he supposed that they were the apostles, and that one of them was our Lord Jesus Christ. by a prodigy of extraordinary charity He therefore adored them, brought The codex: introduxerunt. them into his house, and prepared a table for them. Then he took the water in which he had washed their feet, and The codex: dein pedes eorum eorum lavit eaque. sprinkled with it his son, a paralytic, who had been sick for thirty-five years, and he at once recovered. When those robbers saw this they were astounded. Ascanafer said to them: "Tell me, fathers: which of you is Christ? Show Him to me, that I may adore Him." And when the citizens of the city had heard that the prince's son had recovered, they came to them, adored them and said to them: "O saints of God, bless us and cure our diseases." After they had gone away, the robbers drew out their dagger and offered it to the prince, he converts them to Christ. saying to him: "Take this
dagger, with which you may kill us, as we wished to kill you." Ascanafer said to them: "Surely you have said these things to abase yourselves!" They said to him: "Truly God would have destroyed us, had He not pardoned us at your prayer." When they had said these things to him, they kissed him. Each of them took a little lentils by measure, and they set out on a journey of twenty-five days. Those lentils they sowed in the sand; and at sunset, when they were hungry, they used to eat three lentils. In this manner of life they persevered for thirty days. Then the infidels came upon them and killed them.