ON SS. ALEXANDER AND COMPANIONS: ALEXANDER, BISHOP; HERACLIUS, SOLDIER; ANNA, THEODOTA, GLYCERIA, AND ELISABETH, MARTYRS,
PERHAPS IN THE SECOND OR THIRD CENTURY.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Their memory and Passion from the Menologium and Menaea of the Greeks and the Roman Martyrology. A church sacred to those holy Martyrs at Constantinople in the Cypress-grove.
Alexander, bishop, martyr. (S.)
Heraclius, soldier, martyr. (S.)
Anna, martyr. (S.)
Theodota, martyr. (S.)
Glyceria, martyr. (S.)
Elisabeth, martyr. (S.)
BY B. B.
In the Menologium of the Greeks of Basil one reads: The contest of the most holy martyr Alexander and his companions Heraclius, Anna, Theodota and Glyceria Menologium Graecorum, part I, p. 134. And there is added: Alexander, the sacred martyr, when he was a bishop, and, freely preaching Christ, was baptizing many of the Jews and Greeks brought over to the faith of Christ, was held by the prefect of the region, and cruelly tortured and torn; when he was compelled to sacrifice to idols, he could be induced to it by no art. A certain soldier, Heraclius by name, admiring his constancy, believed in Christ; wherefore he too, tormented with many tortures, is beheaded. But Alexander, having wrought many miracles, since he had been healed of his wounds by the work of Christ, drew three women also to the faith of Christ, Anna, Theodota and Glyceria; who, brought before the prefect, rebuked him, and called the superstition of idols false. Wherefore the prefect, blazing with anger, orders Alexander's head to be cut off first; then he condemned the holy Women, harassed with punishments, to death. And so they had their end. These things indeed in the Menologium; in the Menaea October, p. 132. Venice, 1843 almost the same things are read, but in place of three, four women are set down, γυναῖκας τέσσαρας, Theodota and Glyceria, Anna and Elisabeth; besides, these four also having been slain with the sword, last of all, Ὕστερον δὲ πάντῶν, St. Alexander is written to have died, beheaded.
[2] from the Menologium and Menaea. Which of the two is the truer narrative I doubt can be established with certainty. Certainly most illustrious is the Menologium of the Greeks, published in Greek about the year 984 by order of the emperor Basil, not indeed the Macedonian, as Baronius wrongly asserted At the year 886; but rather the Younger or Porphyrogenitus, who was a whole century later than the Macedonian, as Joseph Simonius Assemani, after others, rightly notes Kalendaria ecclesiae universae, vol. I, p. 100. Rome, 1755; where he declares besides that he took care of the edition of that work, and is the author of the Preface affixed to part I; which otherwise no one at all would even suspect from the Title [Menologium Graecorum … now for the first time published in Greek and Latin by the study and labour of Annibale Cardinal Albani. Urbino, 1727]. The most ancient of all, in the judgement of Zaccaria Bibliotheca ritualis, vol. I, p. 89. Rome, 1776, and most august is that Menologium; of which our predecessors also say Acta SS., vol. I of March, p. 861: this collection is … more illustrious than all the others (Menologies) that we have seen, and of greater authority. The work was published from two codices: the one, and that the most excellent, the Vatican, comprising six months from September to February. The dignity of the codex, says Assemani Menologium, Preface, p. VII, is commended above other praises by four hundred and thirty images (as many, namely, as the classes of a Saint or of Saints commemorated in the aforesaid six months) painted in miniature by illustrious artists of Basil's age; and the names of the painters are added at the margin of the several images, which we thought it of no use to repeat four hundred and thirty times in the margin of this edition; finally those pictures were accurately engraved on copper at the expense of three Pontiffs, Clement XI, Innocent XIII and Benedict XIII. Henschenius and Papebroch testify Acta SS., as above that they found the other codex in the monastery of the Basilian monks of Grottaferrata; not indeed adorned with equal (to the Vatican) elegance of characters and delight of pictures on each page … but nothing inferior in antiquity and trustworthiness. It is no wonder after this that the censure of Carlo Macri should be called injurious (by Harles, Fabricius's editor, it is even called unjust Bibliotheca Graeca, vol. X, p. 147. Hamburg, 1807) by the Assemani praised above Kalendaria, as above, who says that (the Menologium) is to be read cautiously by Catholics, because many who had been schismatics are celebrated as Saints in this kalendar. Assemani replies: But there is no schismatic there; all are orthodox; and held as Saints in both churches, namely the Roman and the Greek. Let the names of the Saints be read; let Allatius, Ughelli, the Bollandists be consulted. Macri alone it is who, though he had not seen that book, yet utters so spirited and so unjust a judgement about it.
[3] Whether three or four holy Women are to be numbered. As regards the holy Women who suffered with St. Alexander, only three are numbered in the text of the Menologium, Anna, Theodota and Glyceria, and as many are seen in the picture or image prefixed to the Passion: namely, on the reader's right St. Heraclius is shown beheaded; towards the middle St. Alexander with the executioner, who with sword drawn and raised is just about to strike the blessed man's neck; on the left side stand three holy Women. In the Menaea four are named, namely St. Elisabeth being added. Baronius (who, as he himself teaches us Menologium, Preface, at the end, had in his hands the Vatican codex, and so the month of October, such as is contained in the printed Menologium) left the question undecided. Thus, namely, he announces on this day, the 22nd of October, in the Roman Martyrology: Likewise (that is, not at Adrianople, where the preceding class is set, but among the Greeks, as Chastelain rightly notes) of the holy martyrs Alexander, bishop, Heraclius, soldier, and Companions; rather female Companions, since they are women. Four are read in the said Chastelain Martyrologe universel, 22 Oct., the order of the Menaea being changed a little: Anna, Elisabeth, Theodota and Glyceria; in the same way Seber Metrical martyrology of the Greek church, p. 345. Leipzig, 1727, in the heading to the little verses taken from the Menaea, which are of this kind:
Τμηθεὶς ὁ σεπτὸς Ἀλέξανδρος αὐχένα, Καὶ μάρτυς ἐστὶν, οὐ θὺτης Χριστοῦ μόνον. Θεοδότην ἄγχουσιν καὶ Γλυκερίαν, Θεοῦ γλυκείας ἠγαπηκύιας δόσεις. Στῶμεν καλῶς, καὶ θῶμεν αὐχένας ξίφει, Ἀθλοφόροι λέγουσιν ἀλλήλαις δύο.
The venerable Alexander is cut down by the sword, Who is at once a priest of Christ and his martyr. Theodota and Glyceria they strangle, Lovers of the sweet gifts of the good Godhead: Now we shall stand nobly, and give our necks To the steel, the triumphant ones say to one another.
Which Latin iambics indeed render the sense of the Greek text accurately enough, yet not word for word, as is manifest to the reader. In our manuscript Ambrosian Synaxaries the 22nd day of October is vacant; the Sirmond ones recite the eulogy from the Menaea, to which some things about the cult are joined, which I shall write down in the following number. For my part I should rather stand by the Menologium, if it really contradicted the Menaea: but it is not so. It is only silent about St. Elisabeth; and consequently furnishes a merely negative argument, which by its kind does not prevail over the express testimony of the Menaea; just as neither does the number two of the iambics stand in the way of the number three of the Menologium. It could also have happened that St. Elisabeth was added to the band from elsewhere and, although she suffered elsewhere, obtained a common cult. Among the Latins, the Roman Martyrology excepted, no mention of our Saints occurs: nothing in the Hieronymian martyrologies; nothing in Ado and Usuard, and in the very many Additions to the latter in Sollerius.
[4] Of their sacred Church We do not know at what time this martyrdom occurred; I should think in the second or third century. Nor do we know of what see St. Alexander was bishop. St. Heraclius is expressly called a soldier. The remaining three or four are called simply women, γυναίκες, so that it is not clear whether they were virgins or widows, or perhaps still joined in marriage. The place of Martyrdom might at first sight seem to be hinted in Sirmond's manuscript Synaxaries, where, the eulogy from the Menaea having been recited, it is added: τελεῖται δὲ ἡ αὐτῶν συνάξις ἐν τῷ μαρτυρείῳ αὐτῶν πλησίον ἁγίου Γεωργίου ἐν τῷ κυπαρισσίω, and their assembly or feast is kept in the station of their martyrdom near St. George's in the cypress-grove (a place planted with cypresses): so, namely, in a manuscript of the Paris Library are rendered into Latin those words of the Synaxary of Sirmond, or of the Collège de Clermont at Paris, afterwards called after Louis the Great. On which place I have two things to remark: the one is that μαρτυρείον, in medieval Latin Martyrium, is taken for a sacred building dedicated to God under the invocation of Martyrs Du Cange's Glossary. And if this be so, nothing is concluded from this word about the place of the passion. Faustino Arévalo writes in the Notes on the Etymologies of St. Isidore of Seville Works, vol. II, col. 982, Migne: Martyrium in Greek, Memoria in Latin, was a church built over the sepulchre of some Martyr or Martyrs. But properly the place itself under the principal altar, in which the bodies of the holy Martyrs rest, is called martyrium or confessio. Hence the Confession of the holy Apostles in the Vatican church. From these something more would be had if it were established that no translation of St. Alexander and his Companions had been made: but on this matter there is deep silence among the writers. Nevertheless I should believe in a translation chiefly for this reason, that a Μαρτυρείον set up in the very place of the passion, and that in a most celebrated city, namely Constantinople, would be recorded under the proper name of SS. Alexander and Companions. Unless someone should think that the words ἐν τῷ μαρτυρείῳ αὐτῶν Πλησίον ἁγίου Γεωργίου are to be so understood as to declare that a church was dedicated to our holy Martyrs, and this not far distant from St. George's church. Which interpretation being admitted, the place of the passion would become known clearly enough. The other thing which I had to remark is this, that the words πλησίον ἁγίου Γεωργίου ἐν τῷ κυπαρισσίῳ have already made our predecessors not a little anxious. Thus Papebroch in the Acts of St. George Acta SS., vol. III of April, p. 112
relates that in the Menaea on the 26th of November there is added, in the Synaxary of Sirmond, to the eulogy of St. Alypius: ἐγκαίνια τοῦ ἁγίου Γεωργίου ἐν τῷ Κυπαρίσσῳ, the Encaenia or Dedication of St. George in Cyparissus or the Cypress; and he adds that by these words a city of this name, Cyparissa, such as various ones are noted in Ortelius (the same is in others), is not signified, the proof being the article τῷ, which is not usually put before the names of cities in a similar construction, but before the names of particular places; and this place indeed, known by the appellation of Cyparissus or the Cypress, I think is to be sought at Constantinople or around it. If one attends to the letters, Papebroch's remark is not accurate. I have in hand that very manuscript copy of the Sirmond Synaxary which our predecessors, and so Papebroch too, used, in which in the place cited one clearly has P. 121: ἐν τῷ κυπαρισσίῳ, in the Cypress-grove, not ἐν τῳ κυπαρίσσῳ, in Cyparissus or the cypress; the same reading is in the Addition to the eulogy of SS. Alexander and Companions. But in the printed Menaea too Venice, 1843, p. 41, on the 9th day of May, I find: τελεῖται δὲ αὐτοῦ (Χριστοφόρου) σύναξις ἐν τῷ μαρτυρίῳ αὐτοῦ, τῷ ὄντι πλησίου τοῦ ἁγίου μεγαλομάρτυρος Γεωργίου ἐν τῷ κυπαρισιῳ; likewise in the same place on the 22nd day of June Ibid., p. 81: The synaxis of SS. Zeno and Zenas, martyrs, is kept ἐν τῷ ἁγιῳ μαρτυρείῳ τοῦ ἁγίου Γεωργίου ἐν τῷ κυπαρισσίῳ. Elsewhere again mention is made of other churches sacred to St. George. Thus in the printed Menaea on his name-day, the 23rd of April Ibid., p. 100: τελεῖται δὲ ἡ αὐτοῦ σύναξις ἐν τῷ ἁγιωτάτῳ αὐτοῦ μαρτυρίῳ, τῷ ὄντι ἐν τῷ Δευτέρῳ, his assembly is kept in his most holy Martyrium (church), which is in the Deuteron.
[5] near St. George in the Cypress-grove, And so much from the Menaea and Synaxaries, in which mention of St. George in the Cypress-grove occurs at least four times. From elsewhere it follows from Du Cange and Banduri that several churches sacred to this holy Martyr existed at Constantinople. The former counts five Constantinopolis christiana, book IV, pp. 124 and 125; the latter too praises several in various places, and noted accurately in the Index of vol. I Imperium orientale, or the antiquities of Constantinople. Paris, 1711; but none with them is called ἐν κυπαρισσίῳ; whence Du Cange too declares that he does not know in what place it stood Constantinopolis christiana, ibid., p. 121. Besides, in the topographical Map of the city of Constantinople divided into three parts, as it is described by an anonymous author who lived in the time of Alexius Comnenus, which Banduri presents at the beginning of vol. II of the Imperium Orientale, in this map, I say, there are two churches of St. George: the one towards the gate of the Polyandrion or in the Deuteron, so that the Menaea manifestly treat of this one on the 23rd of April; the other in the part of the city diametrically opposite to the former, namely in the Mangana. But whether, and which, of those two churches of St. George was situated in the Cyparissia is unascertained by us, says our Pinius in the Acts of St. Christopher on the 25th of July Acta SS., vol. VI of July, p. 128. Nor shall I say either. This, however, I note: from the Menaea at the 9th of May there is had a church of St. Christopher πλησίον τοῦ ἁγίου Γεωργίου ἐν τῴ κυπαρισσίῳ, and from the same at the 16th of December: τὰ ἐγκαίνια τοῦ ναοῦ τοῦ ἁγίου μαρτυρος Χριστοφόρου πλησίον τοῦ ἀγίου Πολυεύκτου, so that it seems to have existed not far both from the church of St. Polyeuctus and from the church of St. George ἐν τῷ κυπαρισσίῳ, which latter two consequently would have to be judged not far distant from one another. Now in the Map praised above the church of St. Polyeuctus is placed towards the middle of the city, almost equally distant from the Mangana and the Deuteron. Was St. George in the Cypress-grove perhaps there? Or are the Μαρτυρείον of St. Christopher and his Ναῦς different churches from one another, and situated in different places or parts of the city of Constantinople? I have nothing else to say, lest I seem to add darkness to darkness. This is certain, that so far, besides the Menaea and the Synaxaries, no other work has been found by me in which mention is made of a church in the Cypress-grove within the limits of the city of Constantinople. For the rest, the said Map seems far later in age than the Menaea, since it is to be referred to the times of Alexius Comnenus. But of which? for three emperors of the same name are numbered. The first reigned L'Art de vérifier les dates, p. 378 from the year 1081 to the year 1118; the second Ibid., p. 380 from the year 1180 to the year 1183, in which he was strangled by order of Andronicus; the third Ibid., p. 381 from the year 1195 to the year 1203, in which he was driven from the throne. A fourth too could be added, namely the son of Isaac, called the younger Ibid.. It is likely, however, from the circumstances of those reigns, that the map belongs to the age of Alexius I, and so to the end of the eleventh century or the beginning of the twelfth.
[6] praised in the Menaea, of which As regards the Menaea, their chief collectors or restorers, as Pagi asserts At Baronius's year 636, num. IV. Annals, vol. XI, p. 315. Lucca, 1742, are to be reckoned Sabas, Sophronius and Damascene, as is sufficiently plain of itself to those who read the Typicon of St. Sabas and the Menaea. And in very truth, as the same Pagi notes a little above in the same place: When the days of the Menaea are compared with the days arranged by St. Sabas in the Ritual or Typicon, it manifestly appears that all the Canticles which St. Sabas indicated in the Typicon by their first words only are placed in the Menaea with a most entire text and in exactly the same order in which St. Sabas had noted them in the Typicon or Ritual, as in a kind of Index. But since in the course of time, and above all by the fury of the raging barbarians, the Menaea, like the Ritual, had almost perished, they were restored to their former brightness first by Sophronius, then by John Damascene, very many Odes being added by both in praise of the Saints who lived after the times of St. Sabas. Further, St. Sabas flourished in the sixth century, having died in the year 532 [Oudin, Commentary on the ancient writers of the church, vol. I, col. 1395. Leipzig, 1722]; St. Sophronius in the seventh century, he was patriarch of Jerusalem when that city was taken by Omar in the year 636 Ibid., col. 1605; St. John Damascene died about the year 750 Ibid., col. 1725. Therefore, according to Pagi's opinion, the Menaea would to some extent be older than the fifth century, and, as they are now generally had, would have been arranged in the eighth century. Since, however, Pagi, as is plain from his words just recited, relies chiefly on the Typicon of St. Sabas, it is not to be passed over that altogether different things are put forward by Oudin: Cave is mistaken, he says Ibid., col. 1395, when he attributes to him (St. Sabas) the Typicon of the holy Laura … which is really a work of the most recent Greece; and he adds lower down Ibid., col. 1396: Cave … to defend his opinion about the Typicon, brings forward Cyril of Scythopolis in the Life of St. Sabas, chap. 76. But Cave is mistaken: for there it is not a question of the "Typicon of the ecclesiastical office, or of the rites of the office through the year," but "of the Coenobitic Constitutions" serving "for the formation of morals," obtaining in his monastery. And again in the same place: Cave is mistaken when he says that "the Typicon of St. Sabas, almost lost in the eighth century, was restored and repaired by St. John Damascene." An open lie, of which he is convicted from the most wretched state of the church of Jerusalem … under the Saracen dominion … which lasted from the year of Christ 636 to 1099.
[7] some notice is added. And so much Oudin, according to his custom, not a little supercilious towards his adversary Cave. Certainly Allatius agrees with Pagi On the books and ecclesiastical matters of the Greeks, p. 4 and following, who treats at length of the Typicon, citing unpublished words of Simeon of Thessalonica, and these among others: The Jerusalem Typicon … acknowledges the most holy Sabas, and after him the theologian Damascene, as authors and institutors … both of whom composed the Typicon: for when that composed by the divine Sabas had perished through the incursion of the barbarians, this great John wrote it from the beginning, as it had been of old, and ordered it Ibid., p. 9. Fabricius follows Allatius Bibliotheca Graeca, vol. X, p. 141. Note, Lambeck Bibliotheca Vindobonensis, vol. V, col. 602. Vienna, 1778, Zaccaria Bibliotheca ritualis, vol. I, p. 79. Rome, 1776; likewise our predecessors in the Treatise on the Acoluthia of the canonical office of the Greeks Acta SS., vol. II of June, p. XXIII. For the rest, Oudin's arguments are not very binding; the place invoked from Cyril of Scythopolis would at most prove that the Typicon of the ecclesiastical office is not treated there; but who would infer from this that it was not written by St. Sabas? Allatius brings forward another place from the same Cyril (somewhat obscure, however), by which he says his opinion is confirmed As above, pp. 9 and 10. Nor would anyone seriously assert that the most wretched state of the church of Jerusalem was an impediment to the Typicon of St. Sabas being restored by St. John Damascene. Finally, here as elsewhere rather often, Oudin seems to have indulged his temper splendidly against Cave Compare Biographie universelle, under the word Oudin (Casimir), nor should I think there will be anyone among the learned who, relying on Oudin's authority, would pronounce that the Typicon of the holy Laura or of Sabas is really a work of the most recent Greece. This question could perhaps be treated again in the Acts of St. Sabas, abbot, whose memory occurs in the Roman Martyrology on the 5th day of December.