ON ST. EROTEIS, MARTYR, IN GREECE,
FROM THE MARTYROLOGIES.
MORE PROBABLY BEFORE THE YEAR CCCXXIV.
CommentaryEroteis, M., in Greece. (S.)
C. B.
The Sirletian Menology of the Greeks, among the Saints whom it celebrates today, briefly commemorates also the Saint of whom we are here to treat, thus: The Saint, whose name is to be pronounced Eroteis, On the same day (6 October) of the holy virgin Erotis, who, kindled by the love of Christ, despised the flame of fire. Baronius and the other most learned reformers of the present-day Roman Martyrology, who brought several Saints into it from the Sirletian, today too confer this honour on the same Saint. The words with which they do so are these: Likewise of St. Erotis, martyr, who, inflamed by the love of Christ, overcame the burning of the fire. So they, who, although they use words somewhat different from the words of the Sirletian, nevertheless keep the same manner of pronouncing the Saint's name which the Sirletian uses; but Châtelain, inscribing this announcement, as all the others of the present-day Roman, in his Universal Martyrology, rightly advises in a little Note set in the margin that Eroteis rather than Erotis should be written. For, as he adds, in the Greek books or Fasti at this day there is read in the genitive Ἐρωτηΐδος from the nominative Ἐρωτηῒς; and just as, for example, Ἀινηῒς, the proper name of a book, is rendered in Latin Aeneis, so the proper name Ἐρωτηῒς is to be rendered in Latin Eroteis, not Erotis, as anyone who knows the value of Greek letters will easily recognize. Further, the Greek books or Fasti mentioned by Châtelain, in which at this day Ἐρωτηΐδος is read, are none other than the great printed Menaea of the Greeks, and the Menology written by Maximus Margunius, bishop of Cythera, in the vernacular tongue of the present-day Greeks and printed at Venice in the year 1529; in which indeed our Saint's name, given in the genitive case, is written Ἐρωτηΐδος from the nominative Ἐρωτηῒς, so that accordingly she is to be called in Latin not Erotis but Eroteis.
[2] But let these things suffice concerning the manner in which the Saint's name is to be pronounced; she is celebrated in the Menaea by only two little verses. let us now set out the other things that concern her. The great Menaea of the Greeks already cited celebrate St. Eroteis with no eulogy at all, but furnish only two little verses concerning her. These, with a Latin version added as well, I transcribe here. They run thus:
Ἐρωτηΐδα πυρπολοῦσι παρθένον, Ἔρωτι Χριστοῦ σὺν προπυρπολουμένην.
With fire they inflame the virgin Eroteis, Already before inflamed with the love of Christ.
By fire, then, St. Eroteis consummated her martyrdom, if these two little verses, to explain to what they coldly allude after their fashion is not worth the effort, only accord with the truth. But in what place and at what time it befell the Saint to suffer for the love and faith of Christ, they leave in obscurity; nor does either Maximus Margunius, commemorating the Saint by name only, or the Sirletian Menology (consult its words recited above) furnish anything from which you might gather it in any way; and the other sacred Fasti of the Greeks are silent about St. Eroteis, so that indeed, she being known to me from no other source than the Menaea, Maximus Margunius who followed them, and the Sirletian Menology, which from time to time reckon even the unworthy among the Saints, I would not have dared to propose her to the reader here as a Saint had I not found her inscribed in the present-day Roman, even though she more probably flourished before the Photian schism, which arose in the 9th century, as you will understand from what is now to be said.
[3] Before which time she more probably underwent martyrdom. On the 27th day of this month, in the Sirletian and Basilian Menologies, as also in the Menaea, there is celebrated Eroteis, the handmaid of St. Capitolina, martyr; and in the Basilian indeed she is said to have been cast into the fire, and, when she had come out of it unharmed, to have borne off the palm of martyrdom by the sword. Is this one perhaps the same as our St. Eroteis? For my part I would dare neither to assert nor to deny this without doubt. But whichever way the matter stands, it appears more probable that our Saint underwent martyrdom before the year 324. For if she is the same as Eroteis, the handmaid of St. Capitolina, she will more probably indeed have undergone martyrdom before the said year, since Eroteis, the handmaid of St. Capitolina, shed her blood for Christ under Diocletian, who abdicated the empire in the year 305, if only this is rightly handed down in the sacred Fasti of the Greeks just mentioned; but if she is distinct from Eroteis, the handmaid of St. Capitolina, her martyrdom is also more probably to be placed before the same said year 324 for this reason, that before this year, in which Constantine the Great finally vanquished Licinius, Christians were crowned with martyrdom both in the East and elsewhere far more frequently than after. And this is why I have written above in the margin, more probably before the year CCCXXIV. For the rest, as regards the Saint's place of contest, I can assign it on no ground at all; yet I ascribe Eroteis to Greece in the title above, because she obtains, or certainly once obtained, cult among the Greeks, as their sacred Fasti produced above give assurance.