ON SS. STACHYS AND COMPANIONS: STACHYS, AMPLIATUS, URBAN, AND NARCISSUS,
First century.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Stachys, mentioned by St. Paul the Apostle (S.)
Ampliatus, mentioned by St. Paul the Apostle (S.)
Urban, mentioned by St. Paul the Apostle (S.)
Narcissus, mentioned by St. Paul the Apostle (S.)
§ I. Whether St. Andrew appointed St. Stachys bishop of Byzantium. The fabrications of the pseudo-Dorotheus. The deeds of St. Ampliatus and others.
St. Stachys is praised on this day in the Roman Martyrology as follows: That the Byzantine church was not founded by an apostle Stachys … was created bishop of Byzantium by the apostle Andrew, after he had built a church at Argyropolis, in which he taught two thousand Christians… Before we undertake to discuss his Acts, it has seemed good to set first certain most weighty pronouncements of the supreme pontiffs, so that, if the outcome of our inquiry should seem to anyone less in accord with the Roman Martyrology, the fair reader may judge that we have written not against the authority of the Roman see, but have contended for the Roman see against the most cunning enemies of the Church.
St. Nicholas I, in his replies to the consultation of the Bulgarians Labbe, Concil., vol. VIII, col. 545 and following: You desire, he says, to know how many patriarchs there truly are. Those are truly to be held patriarchs who occupy apostolic sees by the succession of pontiffs, that is, who preside over those Churches which the apostles are proved to have founded, namely the Roman, the Alexandrian and the Antiochene: the Roman, which the princes of the holy apostles Peter and Paul both founded by their preaching and consecrated with their own blood poured out for the love of Christ; the Alexandrian, which the evangelist Mark, the disciple of Peter and his son by baptism, founded when sent by Peter, and dedicated to the Lord Christ with his blood; the Antiochene, in which, when a great assembly of the saints had been held, the faithful were first called Christians, and which blessed Peter governed for some years before he came to Rome. But the prelates of Constantinople and Jerusalem, although they are called patriarchs, are nevertheless not of such great authority as the foregoing. For neither did any of the apostles found the Church of Constantinople, nor did the synod of Nicaea, which is more renowned and more venerable than all synods, make any mention of it; but solely because Constantinople was called the new Rome, by the favor of princes rather than by reason, its pontiff was named patriarch.
[2] the supreme pontiffs have pronounced. The same Nicholas had written in his letter to the emperor Michael Ibid., col. 314: These, then (Peter and Paul), set by God like two great lights of heaven in the Roman Church, have wondrously illumined the whole world with the splendor of their brightness, and the West, by their presence, as by a glowing sun which gives forth its radiance both by itself and, flashing through its disciples as through certain rays of light, has been made the East: and they were not brought to Rome by princes after they had died, so as to confer on the Roman Church a greater honor of privileges, as has been done among you not reasonably but by main force, namely so that the other Churches should be deprived of their patrons and Constantinople alone be enriched with the spoils and wealth which it violently carried off, etc. Pope Leo I also, in a letter to the emperor Marcian, had long before said this concerning the ambition of the archbishop of Constantinople: Let it suffice the aforesaid (Anatolius) that with the help of your Piety and the assent of my favor he has obtained the bishopric of so great a city. Let him not disdain the royal city, which he cannot make an apostolic see; nor let him hope in any way that he can be increased through the offense of others Mansi, Concil., vol. VI, col. 191.
[3] The Fathers praise St. Stachys, Taking our stand, then, on these sayings of the Roman pontiffs, which most openly deny to Constantinople the honor of an apostolic see, we pass on to examining the acts of St. Stachys. He is mentioned in Sacred Scripture, and indeed in a manner which wins him great glory. For the Apostle, writing to the Romans Chap. XVI, v. 9: Greet, he says, Urban our helper in Christ Jesus, and Stachys my beloved. Paul's love is certainly great praise of a man, and the friendship of so great an apostle altogether suggests a splendid opinion of his virtue. It ought therefore to seem no wonder that this Stachys flourishes among the Fathers with a reputation for holiness. Yet it is worth noting that his apostolic labors are commended by none of the ancient Fathers. Origen has this [Comment. on the Epist. to the Romans, bk. X, no. 22 and following, in Migne, Greek Patrology, vol. XIV, col. 1280 and following]: Greet Ampliatus my beloved in the Lord. Although he seems to ascribe nothing outstanding to him in praise above the others, yet by the very fact that he is the beloved of Paul he is made praiseworthy and worthy of greeting. Greet Urban my helper in Christ and Stachys my beloved. He joins Stachys with him in the greeting, but put Urban first in praise. For he called the one his helper in Christ, but Stachys only his beloved, as he did Ampliatus. But a helper of the apostle in Christ is understood to be nothing other than a sharer in the apostolic work.
[4] but not as an apostolic man It is therefore plain that Origen knew nothing of any apostolic labors of Stachys. In the commentary which bears the name of Ambrose almost the same things are read about Stachys Migne, Latin Patrology, vol. XVII, col. 179. St. Chrysostom says: Again he crowns this man Stachys with the same praise (namely of love) Migne, Greek Patrology, vol. LX, col. 670. Theodoret Cf. ibid., vol. LXXXII, col. 222, Primasius Migne, Latin Patrology, vol. LXVIII, col. 505 and Sedulius Cf. ibid., vol. CIII, col. 124 make no annotation at the name of Stachys. From the commentaries of the Fathers on St. Paul, then, we learn absolutely nothing beyond the outstanding virtue of the servant of God. Nor do we find anything written about him elsewhere among the ancient Fathers, nor among the historians before the sixth century, or rather before the ninth, as will afterwards appear.
[5] or as bishop of Byzantium appointed by St. Andrew. Eusebius, that diligent investigator of ecclesiastical origins, although he wished to commit to the memory of posterity the successions, not indeed of all, as he says, but certainly of the most illustrious apostles of our Savior in those Churches which are even now held most famous Hist. eccles., bk. I, chap. I, nowhere indicates that the see of Byzantium was established by Andrew and that Stachys presided over it Yet Andrew was one of the most illustrious apostles, and the Church of Constantinople had begun at that time to be held most famous [Cf. Acta SS., vol. I of August, Hist. chronol. of the patriarchs of Constantinople, p. 2*]. St. Gregory of Nazianzus himself, archbishop of that same church, seems not even to suspect what was afterwards narrated about SS. Andrew and Stachys. For when he was speaking on his own behalf against detractors who despised him because he was a foreigner, he used the example of the apostles: What had Paul, he says, in common with the Gentiles, Luke with Achaia, Andrew with Epirus, John with Ephesus, Thomas with India, Mark with Italy? What had all the rest … in common with those to whom they went? Wherefore either rebuke them … or pardon me also Works of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, vol. II, col. 227, Migne ed.. If he had anywhere heard that St. Andrew was the founder of his see, would not the very nature of the matter he was treating have demanded mention of the fact? The same must be said of very many others, so that their silence can have the force of an express denial. Although the bishops of Constantinople, in the councils of Constantinople I and Chalcedon, and often elsewhere, left no stone unturned that their see might be held patriarchal, they never asserted (which would certainly have been an excellent argument) that it had been established by St. Andrew and that Stachys had been its first prelate; rather, they will have the bishop of Constantinople hold the first place of honor after the Roman bishop for this reason, that it is itself the new Rome [Labbe, Concil., vol. II, col. 948, vol. IV, col. 769. Cf. Andr. du Saussay, On the Glory of St. Andrew the Apostle, p. 155 and following].
[6] This was first asserted by Nicephorus Of all the historians who mention Stachys, the first in time is St. Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople: who, born in the year 758, ordained patriarch in the year 806, driven into exile in the year 815, at last ended his days as an outstanding confessor in the year 828 Acta SS., vol. II of March, p. 293 and following, and so belongs to the ninth century. This author, in his Short Chronography In Migne, Greek Patrology, vol. C, col. 1042 and following, listing all the bishops of Byzantium from the times of Christ and the apostles, begins the series thus:
1. Andrew the apostle, when he was preaching at Byzantium, built an oratory at Argyropolis across the harbor, and ordained as bishop of that city Stachys, whom Paul mentions in the Epistle written to the Romans.
2. The same Stachys, for 16 years. The authority of this Chronography seemed somewhat doubtful to Petavius Ibid., col. 866. Cf. J. Hergenröther, Photius, vol. I, p. 660, because besides Nicephorus himself it counts five of his successors down to Ignatius; although it may perhaps have happened that a later hand added them to the chronicle of Nicephorus. But the very grave errors in noting the times could also seem foreign to so learned a writer as Nicephorus proved himself to be, unless one should wish to ascribe them to the carelessness of the copyists: which, as it
is easy to say, so is it hard to believe for one who diligently inspects the various parts of this Chronography. It has certainly seemed strange to me that the deacon Ignatius, a disciple of St. Nicephorus, although he wrote out the life of the holy father in detail and assigned him praise for various sciences, indicated nothing of chronological studies of this kind. And Photius himself, who adorned the patriarch's Commentaries on events after Maurice with the fullest praises, is nowhere read to have cited this Chronography Bibliotheca, cod. 66, in Migne, Greek Patrology, vol. CIII, col. 163, although, with so great an authority as Nicephorus intervening, he could have exalted the new Rome against the old with a greater show of truth. Whatever the reason why Photius did not think fit to rely on this authority, it is most certainly established that the very narrative about Andrew and Stachys which we gave above was known at that time, from Nicetas David the Paphlagonian, who inserted that account into his panegyric of St. Andrew, an account more probable in this one point, that it maintains the church to have been built not at Argyropolis but in the Acropolis Cf. Du Cange, Christian Constantinople, bk. I, p. 41 and following In Migne, Greek Patrology, vol. CV, col. 69 and following.
[7] and Nicetas David, We think the passage should be copied out the more because in it appear the first traces of the veneration paid to St. Stachys. Πάντα τοιγαροῦν τὰ κλίματα τοῦ Βοῤῥᾶ, καὶ πᾶσαν τοῦ Πόντου τὴν παράλιον ἐν δυνάμει λόγου σοφίας καὶ συνέσεως, ἐν δυνάμει σημείων καὶ τεράτων, τῷ Εὐαγγελίῳ περιλαβών· πανταχοῦ τε θυσιαστήρια, ἱερεῖς τε καὶ ἱεράρχας τοῖς πιστεύουσι καθιστῶν πανταχοῦ, τούτῳ δὴ τῷ περιωνύμῳ Βυζαντίῳ προσεπέλασεν. Ἐνταῦθα κατὰ πάροδον ὁ θαυμάσιος γεγονώς, καὶ ναὸν παρὰ τῇ ἀκροπόλει τῇ Θεομήτορι δειμάμενος, ναὸν ὡραῖον μὲν τὴν κατασκευήν, ἀναλογοῦντα δὲ τὸ μέγεθος τῇ τῶν ἐν ἀρχῇ τότε πεπιστευκότων ὀλιγότητι· καὶ ποιμένα δὲ ἄξιον τῆς Ἐκκλησίας τὸν μέγαν Στάχυν ἐγκεκληρωκώς, ἔδειξεν τὴν εἰς ὕστερον ἐν τῇ πόλει ταύτῃ φανησομένην δαψιλῆ τοῦ Πνεύματος καρπογονίαν. Οἷα γὰρ σῖτος κόκκου ὁ ἱερὸς ἐκεῖνος Στάχυς πεσὼν ἐν αὐτῇ, καὶ ταῖς οὐρανίαις ἀρδείαις δροσούμενος, καὶ τῇ ἐπιτηδειότητι τῶν ὑποκειμένων αὐτῳ ψυχῶν καὶ διανοιῶν ἐμπλατυνόμενος καὶ αὐξανόμενος ἑκατονταπλασίω τὸν τῆς ἁγίας τελεσφορεῖ πίστεως ἄχρι καὶ τήμερον καρπόν. Having therefore embraced all the coasts of the North and the whole seaboard of Pontus in the preaching of the Gospel, in the power of the word of wisdom and understanding, in the power of signs and wonders, altars being everywhere raised, and priests and bishops everywhere appointed for the faithful, he came to this illustrious Byzantium. Coming here by the way, the admirable man, after building in the citadel a temple to the Mother of God, elegant indeed in design, but whose mass by its narrowness answered to the fewness of the faithful at that time, and after assigning the great Stachys as a worthy pastor of the Church, showed forth the abundant fruits of the Spirit that were later to be in this city. For like a grain of wheat, that holy Stachys, falling into the ground, and watered with heavenly dew, and spread abroad and increased by the aptness of the souls and minds subject to him, brings forth even now the hundredfold fruit of the holy faith in an unbroken harvest.
[8] using the commentaries of Dorotheus, It is thus established that Stachys became known at Constantinople at the end of the eighth century or the beginning of the ninth. Now it must be anxiously investigated from what source these narratives flowed. Since we have found no competent author, we are reduced to Dorotheus alone, who writes thus in the Commentary on the Seventy Disciples of the Lord Ibid., vol. XCII, col. 1061: 23. Stachys, of whom also (the Apostle) makes mention in the epistle to the Romans; whom the apostle Andrew, while he was sailing the Pontic sea, appointed at Argyropolis in Thrace bishop of Byzantium. Of Dorotheus himself we read there: This renowned man aforesaid left commentaries in Roman and Greek; for, being of a singular and excellent genius, he was exceedingly skilled in both languages and in many histories. After the death of Diocletian and Licinius he set out to his own diocese, and ruled the Church of Tyre until the times of the tyrant Julian. But since Julian was killing Christians not openly but secretly, through his prefects, he came again to the city of Odyssus; where, seized by the prefects of Julian, and after enduring many reproaches, in extreme old age he put off his life amid the torments themselves for the confession of Christ, being one hundred and seven years old. This great old man, then, left us ecclesiastical writings, in which he discoursed also on the seventy disciples of the Savior, and on where each of the prophets and apostles ended his life. And first of all he says that those are the seventy, of whom very many also became bishops in various provinces, and of whom the divine Apostle makes mention in his greetings. For he indicates that after the resurrection of our Savior from the dead, all these were sent and were numbered among the apostles; whose names he lists in these words Ibid., col. 1060.
[9] who, weaving a series of the bishops of Byzantium, After the completed enumeration of the disciples, this follows: These things the thrice-blessed and altogether happy Dorotheus, when he was living at Rome, left in commentaries in the Roman language, from which we have taken and turned into the Greek tongue this collection of the seventy disciples, and have made it known to all as faithful and altogether in accord with the truth. For the Apostle, writing of them, said: "And they were before us in the Lord." Nor let anyone think it incredible that the seventy disciples were converted and believed in Christ after his resurrection from the dead, since they gave heed to his resurrection from the dead, which was and truly is the greatest of all miracles. So the great pontiff Dorotheus himself related in his writings that the venerable temple of the holy and unconquered martyr Euphemia in Petrium was first founded by a certain Titus: which Titus, being bishop of Byzantium, and having ended his life by martyrdom in that city, was laid to rest beside the old walls, from the time when the apostle Andrew stayed in those places, to which so great a multitude of Christians flowed together that so many were by no means found in other places. For all the teachers of Byzantium, who had suffered much, having through a certain faintness of heart avoided the threats of the tyrants, were spreading the divine word among those who were of the Gentiles or of the Jews, while Titus meanwhile performed many miracles, such as the Savior had performed. While the tyranny of Licinius and Diocletian was still in force, and matters stood thus, the emperor Carus and his two sons, Carinus and Numerian, were killed; the tyrants, being thereafter free of care, proceeded more boldly to the punishment of the Christians, some thousands of them being killed each day: with whom Adrian also, son of Probus, exposed himself to death Cf. G. Cave, Scriptt. eccles., p. 105.
[10] says that the first of them was Stachys. The author then narrates the contest of St. Adrian and continues thus: When he had been slain in this confession, Metrophanes, who had lately entered on the episcopate, taking Christian companions, came to Nicomedia, and secretly carrying off … the relics of the martyr Adrian, laid them in the first church built by them, which now adjoins Byzantium, in the place which they call Argyropolis; where also Titus, who was the first bishop of Constantinople, laid the relics of Adrian, who suffered martyrdom under Maximian, as also of Natalia his wife, and of the others who ended their lives by martyrdom with them; where likewise had been placed the body of Stachys, one of the seventy disciples, whom the apostle Andrew had appointed in that same place first bishop of Byzantium. For Andrew, crossing over to Pontus, wished to announce Christ to the Byzantines. But since at that time a man of notable cruelty, Zeuxippus, governed that place, he first questioned all the strangers who put in at Byzantium about the religion of Christ, and then so permitted them to enter. But if anyone had confessed Christ, he was at once ordered into chains and then to be cast into the sea with hands and feet bound. On account of this cruelty, Andrew, sailing past Byzantium, stayed for two years in that part of Thrace which adjoins Byzantium, about one stade from Argyropolis, an assembly of men who loved the law and the truth having been gathered there. So when about two thousand had been collected there, and an altar raised to Christ at Argyropolis, and Stachys appointed bishop, he went on to Sinope in Pontus. And when Stachys had spent sixteen years in the episcopate, Onesimus succeeded him, whom the apostle Paul mentions, writing to Philemon; and after he had discharged that office for fourteen years, after him Polycarp was appointed bishop of Byzantium for three years. When he died after eighteen years, Plutarch obtained the episcopate; to whom, sixteen years having passed, Sedecion is appointed successor for nine years. After him Diogenes put off his life in the fifteenth year of his pontificate. After him the episcopal see was held by Eleutherius for seven years, then by Felix for five, and finally by Polycarp for seventeen years. The bodies of these were laid here in stone tombs, as also the body of Natalia and of Adrian, who afterwards suffered martyrdom… All which tombs stand to these present times in the underground cave in which the apostle Andrew raised an altar.
[11] A church is said to have been built at Olivet Now when a very large assembly of the faithful of Christ had been gathered, and the tyranny at Byzantium had ceased after the death of Zeuxippus, since those who presided over the Church at Argyropolis had possession of many places … and were striving to escape the assaults of the Gentiles and the Jews, they raised another church in the inland parts near Argyropolis, which the great emperor Constantine afterwards made larger, built in the form of a cross, since he had resolved that his own body should be laid in it. But when Byzantium had acquired greater extent, those who adhered to Constantine resolved that the bodies of emperors should not be carried outside the city. Whence another place was chosen for the tombs of the emperors. That church, however, was afterwards dedicated to the seven boys, strong and pious in the law, and to the pontiff Eleazar, yet retaining the old name of the place: for the place was anciently called Elaeon or Olivet; which oratory Athenodorus, who was bishop after Polycarp, first began, and he held the pontificate for four years. After these Euzoius is appointed eleventh bishop of Byzantium, who also, when he had sat for six years, left the pontificate to Laurence. After eleven years and six months had passed, Alypius took it up from him, holding it for thirteen years and a half. Again after him Pertinax becomes bishop…
[12] and at Sycae, Now as Pertinax was very rich, he raised yet another church toward the shore of the sea, in the place which is called Sycae, giving it the name of Irene. Which place, afterwards made into the likeness of a city by the Christians, with various and numerous buildings erected, Constantine ever Augustus later endowed with walls. After Pertinax, Olympian is appointed bishop in the temple named of Irene, in which he sat for eleven years. Mark becomes his successor for thirteen years; after him were bishops Cyrillian for sixteen years, and then Castinus for seven years. So Constantine in his first year raised another church within Byzantium, toward the North, where also those who had presided over Byzantium were buried; it was called the church of the martyr Euphemia, who suffered martyrdom at that time. Having then spent the rest of the time of his pontificate there, he left Titus as successor: who, when
thirty-five years with six months had been completed, appointed as successor Domitius, brother of the emperor Probus. To him, after twenty-four years and six months had passed, Probus son of Domitius was substituted in the pontificate, in which he spent twelve years. After these Metrophanes, brother of Probus and son of Domitius, becomes bishop of Byzantium; who held the see for ten years. At that time Constantine ever Augustus, having come to Byzantium on account of the war with Licinius, delighted with the seemly gravity of the man and having beheld the pleasantness of the places, when at length Licinius had been conquered and overcome through the prayers of Metrophanes, at once transferred the seat of the empire from Rome to Byzantium, and having strengthened the city with walls and roofed buildings, and given abundant largesses to the citizens, he bestowed upon it his own name.
[13] [as Dorotheus narrates; whose little work, stirred up against the Roman pontiffs and] These things, left in Latin commentaries by Dorotheus, distinguished in every kind of virtue, were translated by us in the consulship of Philoxenus and Probus, when John, bishop of Rome, came to Constantinople. For when he was urged by the archbishop of the city to celebrate the sacred rites with him on the Nativity of Christ, he refused to do so unless he himself first celebrated the rites before the bishop of the city, seeing that Rome had obtained a bishop before the city of Constantinople. A dispute having therefore arisen from these things, the men of Constantinople came together and showed from the commentaries of the great Dorotheus that the episcopate of Constantinople was older than the Roman. John, bishop of the Romans, indeed asserted that the writings of Dorotheus were true; yet he contended that he ought to be preferred, because he held the place of the prince of the apostles. For the sake of this matter, at length, the prerogative was granted to him, but not because the Roman episcopate had existed before that of Constantinople. Now St. Dorotheus at the end of his work made mention of the twelve apostles; where he indicates in what places each of them announced Christ, writing …
[14] is said to have been written out by a certain Procopius. Then follow the names of the twelve apostles, with a brief narrative added to each; after which the author proceeds thus: These things, collected in his Latin commentaries from the writings of the Greeks and Jews, Dorotheus has handed down to us. Which things, gathered together as good and rightly received, we have put forth in public, that from them might appear the beginning of the episcopate of Constantinople, and from what family Metrophanes had sprung. Then, little narratives on Simon of Cyrene, Jeremiah and Herodias having been added, the writing is concluded thus: A certain Procopius, endowed with the dignity of the presbyterate, outstanding in piety of life and speech, and ever versed in all elegance and experience concerning the Scriptures, having come upon the historical commentaries of the most holy and most blessed bishop and martyr Dorotheus, left all these things to us in writing. Let us therefore give thanks to his labors and to his immortal memory, now and always and for ages of ages. Amen. And this is that Dorothean writing as Charles du Cange rendered it into Latin. His translation, being somewhat free, we have changed a little in some places.
[15] The weightiest authors judge that no credit is to be given to it, Here then, friendly reader, you have the first author of those things which the later Greeks handed down concerning the origins of the Church of Constantinople as to be referred to Andrew, and concerning Stachys the first bishop of that city. Whether this author be Dorotheus, or Procopius, or some other lurking under a false name, will be indicated later. Now I will disclose what learned men have thought of these writings and of the author's credit. What we have copied from St. Nicephorus on the Byzantine Church, says Baronius Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year 44, no. XXXI, is taken from apocryphal writings. In the same matter he makes little of the authority of the more recent Greeks, Nicephorus Callistus and the Menology Cf. ibid., no. XII, and most openly denies that Andrew was the founder of the Church of Constantinople. Elsewhere he says [Ibid., at the year 45, no. XLV. Cf. ibid., at the year 33, no. XL, at the year 59, no. XI]: Dorotheus in his synopsis patched together a great many lies. Finally, of the very matter we are treating he speaks thus Ibid., at the year 314, no. XCIV and following: Nicephorus Callistus, however, and also Nicephorus bishop of Constantinople, weave a series of the bishops of that same city from the time of the apostles themselves, beginning from Andrew in about this manner. Then, having given the catalogue, he adds: Thus far both Nicephoruses on the succession of bishops down to Metrophanes; and they have attempted all this to show that the Byzantine Church is apostolic, although no one of the older writers is ever found to have said so; for in truth the Byzantine Church, as Gelasius testifies, was not only not an apostolic see, but not even a metropolis, but merely a parish of the Church of Heraclea.
[16] the weightiest authors, Antony Possevino, S. J., in the Apparatus sacer Vol. I, p. 486: To Dorotheus, he says, is falsely ascribed a synopsis which is full of made-up narratives and lies. For, to pass over other matters, on what ground can that author be defended, when among the seventy-two disciples he numbers the eunuch of the queen of the Ethiopians, who, it is established, was converted by Philip after the Lord's ascension; and when he makes Junia a bishop, who is nevertheless certainly known to have been a woman; and when he says that Caesar, whom Paul mentions writing to the Philippians, was a disciple of Christ and a bishop, though it is evident that Paul was speaking of Nero Caesar? Moreover, whoever that Dorotheus was, he followed the books of Clement's Recognitions, which are apocryphal… By these strong reasons it is proved that this synopsis, in which there are so many rotten things, could not be the work even of any excellent man. Moreover Dorotheus, not a bishop (as Galesinius and Sixtus of Siena supposed) but a presbyter, a Tyrian by nation (as Eusebius has it), who was also a martyr under Julian, wrote none of those books which Peter Galesinius brought forward in his notes to what he thought was the book of Dorotheus, namely commentaries on the apostles, disciples and prophets. Of this Dorotheus, says Bellarmine On Ecclesiastical Writers, works vol. VII, col. 46, Cologne 1617, I have found no mention in Eusebius, St. Jerome or Gennadius, or even in John Trithemius, who wrote on illustrious men. And the synopsis itself is full of fables; let the reader consult what this author writes in the life of Obadiah, Jonah, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Elisha. Let him consult besides what he writes in the life of James of Alphaeus and of Clement; and in sum let him know that this man numbers among the seventy-two disciples of Christ all who are named by the apostle Paul, even if they were heathens or women; and that he makes all of them not only disciples of the Lord, but even bishops. I should not have mentioned so fabulous a book, had I not seen it cited by many and made not a little of.
[17] because it swarms with errors, That the matter may be set out more clearly, we think the judgment of du Cange himself, who published the Dorothean writing, should be copied out Migne, Greek Patrology, vol. XCII, col. 519 and following: Since, he says, whatever has been handed down concerning the disciples of Christ even by certain ancient writers of equally doubtful credit, namely Hippolytus bishop of Tyre and Epiphanius bishop of Cyprus, as the manuscript codices give it, has been drawn for the most part from that supposititious Dorotheus, I have thought it not foreign to my purpose if … his little work, hitherto unpublished in its entirety, should be appended to this (the Paschal Chronicle) from the royal codex… In it … almost everything is ἀσύστατα, and falsehoods are mixed with truths; where he is nowhere consistent with himself, with no account taken of the anachronisms with which he swarms. Moreover the very name of the author is fictitious; for neither did that martyr Dorotheus ever exist in nature, as we touched on above (on this opinion cf. what Henschenius wrote Cf. Acta SS., vol. I of June, p. 436 in the Acta SS.), nor did the Tyrian himself write in Latin at Rome those things which are carried about in his name, which were made up by idle Greeklings of bad faith, who, bearing with an ill will the primacy of old Rome, have ever striven by any means to assert the prerogative of the new…
[18] ascribes false bishops to Byzantium, For he traces the catalogue of the bishops of Byzantium back from St. Andrew himself, or at any rate from Stachys, whom he says was made bishop of Byzantium by him, and invents a continuous series of successors to him, against which George Cedrenus, a man of somewhat more sincere good faith, in Severus, p. 256, and Symeon the Logothete in his manuscript Chronicle, write that under that emperor Philadelphus (of whom this Dorotheus makes no mention) was first appointed bishop of Byzantium and presided for three years, whereas for eight years before a certain presbyter had presided over the Church… The same Cedrenus says that Metrophanes was created fourth bishop of Byzantium in the ninth year of Constantine the Great: which Theophanes puts back to the sixth year, but the writer of the Chronicle to the eighth, by whom he is named first bishop of Byzantium, as Alexander his successor is named second, under the eighteenth year of the same Augustus, as if there had been no bishops of Byzantium before Metrophanes; unless this is to be understood from the time the city was restored by Constantine. But not only did the patriarch Nicephorus himself embrace this series of Byzantine bishops made up by Dorotheus, but also the author of the catalogue of the bishops of Byzantium published by Leunclavius, and some monk George or other, different from the one they call Hamartolus, who composed a Chronicle from Adam to Alexius Comnenus by copying other writers word for word; a part of which Combefis published among the writers of Byzantine History after Theophanes, although in these he writes absolutely nothing new. He speaks of Dorotheus himself thus, in almost the very words which Dorotheus himself uses in the prologue, under the year of the world 5816, of Christ 316 … It is of importance that such writers, of whatever kind and supposititious, be sometimes brought before the public, lest they should hereafter be so rashly counted among the ἁγιογράφοις or the ecclesiastical writers.
[19] and, as the non-Catholics themselves confess, After the Catholic men, let us hear a non-Catholic, whose judgment here ought to carry the more weight as in this very place he shows himself to be of a rather hostile mind toward the Roman see. Cave says G. Cave, Scriptt. eccles., p. 104 and following, Geneva 1720: Our Dorotheus is said to have written several ecclesiastical commentaries: there is carried about today under his name a Synopsis of the life and death of the prophets, apostles and disciples of the Lord… No one fails to see that it is spurious and to be relegated to the most rotten fables. I confess that for a long time the water stuck fast with me concerning this synopsis and its author, until the scene of nearly the whole fable was laid open by a Greek fragment of a certain anonymous writer, which, copied in his own hand from two Barocci manuscript codices …, Henry Dodwell in his kindness communicated to me. Then, having published this very writing which we have given above No. 8 and following, the author adds: From this fragment it may be perceived that this copyist of Dorotheus, as he gives himself out to be, wrote in the consulship of Probus and Philoxenus, that is, in the year of Christ 525, two hundred years after Dorotheus himself. For our author expressly records in the preface that Dorotheus suffered martyrdom under Julian, and so when it is said at the head of the work that he under Licinius
and Constantine was made a martyr, it must be said either that the last clause of the title came from a more recent hand, or at least that the word μάρτυρος is to be taken in a looser sense for confessor, in which sense confessors of the truth, while they were still among the living, are very often called martyrs in the writings of the ancient Fathers, even before they carried off the palm of martyrdom.
[20] it was made up for this purpose, It is very probable that this anonymous writer was the composer of the Dorothean synopsis itself. For who has made mention of any Dorotheus, bishop of the Tyrians, in the time of Diocletian or Julian? Or indeed before the year 457, when, Photius bishop of Tyre having been deposed, a certain Dorotheus was substituted in his place? Who has ever called Dorotheus a martyr under Julian, a confessor under Diocletian? Having suffered much under Diocletian, says the Roman Martyrology at June 5; punished with exile, says our anonymous writer. But could this have been hidden from Eusebius, who gathered from every side the deeds of the martyrs and confessors, himself a confessor under this persecution, and, what is still more, himself living at Tyre about this time? Who ever among the ecclesiastical writers who flourished in these first centuries has mentioned this Dorothean synopsis, or even among those who have professedly handed down catalogues of ecclesiastical writers to us? Who but a dolt with scarcely a sound head would present to us Dorotheus, a Greek man and prelate of Tyre among the Phoenicians, writing his commentaries in the Latin tongue? It remains therefore that either our anonymous writer made these things up, or at least published to the light what had been made up by his presbyter Procopius. Whence, after the custom of nearly all impostors, he pretends that these things lay long hidden and unknown, and became known to the world only nearly two whole centuries after the death of Dorotheus. Which can be believed with no probability, especially since these commentaries contained nothing but the sum of apostolic and ecclesiastical history, thoroughly useful, if only genuine.
[21] that the primacy of the Byzantine Church might be established. The origin of the whole imposture may be drawn out from the fragment itself, says Cave; who, having set forth the ambition of the Byzantine prelates and their contention with the Roman see [Cf. Acta SS., vol. I of August, p. 4*. Cf. Natalis Alexander, Hist. eccles., first century, chap. VIII, no. 3], adds this: When in the year 525 Pope John had been sent to Constantinople by Theodoric king of the Goths, … the controversy broke out afresh, John alleging the apostolic dignity and antiquity of his see; the Constantinopolitan on the contrary strenuously asserted the priority of his Church, and that it had been founded by St. Andrew the apostle, before Peter himself came to Rome. When the question on this matter had thus been raised, on the testimony of our anonymous writer himself, these Dorothean monuments were brought forward Cf. below, nos. 23 and 24; from which the men of Constantinople drew arguments to prove the antiquity of their Church, contending that it was older than the Roman. No prudent man, I think, will deny that these commentaries were first made up under the name of Dorotheus on this occasion; and perhaps the impostor pretended that they were written in Latin so that the argument might bind the Roman John the more strongly. To this finally tend the things that our author splendidly fables about the Byzantine martyrs, the translation of relics thither, the sacred buildings magnificently erected there even in these first times of nascent Christianity, and other matters which served to exalt the dignity of the Byzantine see.
[22] This narrative, which several historians formerly used, Hence it is clear from what records Nicephorus patriarch of Constantinople, in the Chronography, and Nicephorus Callistus, bk. 8, chap. 6, drew their catalogues of the Byzantine prelates from the apostle Andrew down to Metrophanes, the contemporary of Constantine the Great: namely from our author, with whom they agree to a hair, except for one or two errors in the numbers of years. Indeed Nicephorus Callistus transcribed word for word a whole and quite long period of our author. Nearly the same succession of bishops is shown in that patriarchal series which is found in the Greco-Roman Law, bk. 4, p. 296. From these the catalogue of the patriarchs of Constantinople by Philip of Cyprus, protonotary of Constantinople, departs in few things, or the Chronicle, as it is called, of the Greek Church, published in Greek and Latin not so long ago by Nic. Blancard.
[23] is today rejected by nearly all, With the judgment of these men on the authority of the same synopsis and commentary our predecessors agree above all, in various places. Among whom Cuper is to be named before the others, who wrote the Chronological History of the patriarchs of Constantinople, and denies that Andrew was the founder of the Byzantine Church, and hoots off the episcopate of Stachys [Acta SS., vol. I of August, Hist. chronol. of the patriarchs of Constantinople, § II and following; cf. vol. V of Aug., p. 811]. In our own age also, nearly all the learned to a man judge those writings to be apocryphal and fabulous, and above all the most eminent J. Hergenröther Photius, vol. I, p. 6: who indeed thinks that they were already known in the seventh century Ibid., p. 660 and following. From him also we learn that among the theologians of the West one Ambrose Gardeboschi alone lent his authority to the fabrication; all the others deny it credit. And the reason why the learned so judge is in plain view, and clearly set out in what we have thought should be excerpted from their books. For one cannot believe an anonymous writer who for ambitious ends invents things incredible, unheard of, resting on no monuments of antiquity; and much less if he hands down things openly false, things at war with each other, if in a few little pages he throws the whole of history into confusion in those parts where it is best known, and absurdly neglects the order of the times. All of which are met with in these writings we have brought forward, as will be plain to anyone who inspects them, and shines out clearer than the sun from the judgments of the learned which we have cited.
[24] and they doubt of the very controversy there set forth. We judge therefore that the whole narrative of Andrew as founder of the Byzantine Church, and of Stachys as first bishop, is to be banished among the fables, and that no credit can be given to these writings which we gave above, namely the synopsis and the commentary. Nor do we fear to call in doubt that dispute set forth by Procopius between Pope John and the archbishop of Byzantium. For why should we assent to these things, when there exists no competent authority for the matter? For neither Anastasius, nor any of the ancients, not even Photius himself, treated either of that Procopius (Photius names three other Procopiuses Bibliotheca, codd. 63, 160, 206, col. 121, 444, 676, Migne ed.) or of that controversy. I pass over other reasons Chronicle of Marcellinus, in Migne, Latin Patrology, vol. LI, col. 941. So thinks also our Stephen Morcelli: I judge Procopius himself to be fabulous, and the dispute itself fictitious Morcelli, Kalendarium Eccl. Constantinop., vol. II, p. 243; and elsewhere: We see the name of not one of these (the bishops Stachys, Onesimus, etc.) entered in our calendar, that is, the very ancient Constantinopolitan one: in which so many bishops of that city are recited, whom certainly neither nearness to the apostles nor the school of Paul commended. For this reason also I dissent from Cave, who thought that synopsis was made up at the time when John the supreme pontiff, during the principate of Justin Augustus, went to Constantinople… Clearly, if it had come out then, and credit had been given to the writing, the names at least of Stachys and Onesimus would afterward have been entered in the Calendar. For two centuries had already flowed by from the age of Justin, when the scribe put his hand to this work Ibid., p. 120. But this much can certainly be gathered: in this matter what is called the authority of Nicephorus, and also the panegyric of Nicetas the Paphlagonian, must fall together with the first author of the fable. For in no way can it happen that a fabrication passed on by one fraudulent man into the books of many should acquire another authority through the credit of writers, but it is and remains pure and simple fable. And here again it may be observed how very lying are the books of the Greeks which undertake to treat of ecclesiastical affairs, and above all of the primacy of Peter.
[25] The authority of Nicephorus counts for nothing in this place. These things being established, there is no reason why we should be moved from our opinion by the testimony of Nicephorus Callistus, a schismatic writer of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, who narrates this [Ecclesiastical History, bk. VIII, chap. 6, in Migne, Greek Patrology, vol. CXLVI, col. 28]: Andrew, he says, the apostle of the Lord, having received by lot the provinces of Thrace, Macedonia and the Euxine, preached Christ at Byzantium. And when he was sought by Zeuxippus, who was then exercising tyranny there, he crossed to Argyropolis, and holding assemblies there for two years, he drew very many to the faith of Christ. Moreover, having founded a sacred temple in that place, and ordained the apostle Stachys bishop, he withdrew to Sinope. Stachys, having administered that sacred office for sixteen years, and been buried in the same place, had Onesimus as his successor. He wrote the same things in the Account of the bishops of Byzantium Ibid., vol. CXLVII. col. 450; cf. col. 469. But, besides the fact that these things flowed from the synopsis of Dorotheus, it is admitted that Nicephorus does not seem trustworthy. For he heaps undeserved praises on prelates obstinate in schism and on unworthy men Cf. Acta SS., vol. I of Aug., p. 158*. Further, it is agreed among the critics that Nicephorus neither always used a proper selection in transcribing authors, nor subjected the assertions of each to the sharper examination that he ought Schütz, Critical Commentary on historical writers, p. 288. Among whom Pinius Acta SS., vol. III of Aug., p. 555 sharply censures his sloth, and adds: the bibliographers chastise the trifles of Callistus, that fabling Greekling. Finally, to omit others, Labbe pronounces thus Cf. Schütz, loc. cit.: Learned men have warned that the history of Nicephorus is not to be read without discrimination and keen judgment, since it contains many fables and rubbish gathered from uncertain writers of doubtful credit.
[26] The very name of Argyropolis raises a doubt. If we wish to follow Nicephorus, we shall be taught even by him how suspect that Dorotheus is to be held, whose little narratives he nevertheless received. For whereas this writer (who died under Julian the Apostate, as they say) relates that St. Stachys presided over a Church established at Argyropolis, Nicephorus says on the contrary that this name was not given to one of the suburbs before the fifth century: namely, of Atticus, prelate of Constantinople from the year 406 to 425: Of the suburbs of Constantinople too, he says, he called another Argyropolis, changing the name for a reason of this kind… Seeing a place opposite Chrysopolis conveniently situated with no ordinary pleasantness, he said that it ought to be named Argyropolis, which word at once gave the district its name Hist. eccl., bk. XIV, chap. 24. Acta SS., vol. I of June, p. 393. Socrates, a writer contemporary with Atticus, had said the same long before Hist. eccl., bk. VII, chap. 25. Yet we do not deny that a little shrine may perhaps have stood from ancient times in the place which was later called Argyropolis; or rather in the Acropolis, as Nicetas writes. Otherwise, since he records of the temple founded by St. Andrew that it was elegant but of slight size, and did not receive this from the pseudo-Dorotheus, it may be conjectured either that in his own time
traces of the church still existed, or that what he reports had been handed down by the memory of the fathers Cf. Greek Patrology, vol. CV, col. 67, note.
[27] That SS. Ampliatus, Urban and Narcissus The history of the fictitious bishop of Byzantium having been discussed, it is fitting to speak in summary also of Saints Ampliatus, Urban and Narcissus, since they became known from the same monuments as Stachys, are brought forward by the same fabrication, and in ecclesiastical cult so cohere that they almost never appear separately. St. Paul is the first to mention them: Greet, he thus writes to the Romans Chap. XVI, v. 8 and following, 11, Ampliatus, most beloved to me in the Lord. Greet Urban our helper in Christ Jesus, and Stachys my beloved… Greet those who are of the household of Narcissus, who are in the Lord. From which it is evident that SS. Stachys, Ampliatus (or Amplius, or Amplias, as several Greek codices have it Cf. V. de Vit, Onomasticon of All Latinity, under Ampliatus, Prato 1867) and Urban were at Rome in the year 58, since the epistle was sent at that time. Its words also suggest that those holy men had Paul as master and teacher; indeed that Urban was a presbyter, as being the Apostle's helper in Christ Jesus, that is, says Estius Comment. on the Apostolic Epistles, vol. II, p. 713, Louvain ed., in those things that pertain to the spreading of the faith of Christ. According to some codices, the Apostle calls him: Companion of my labor [Cf. Calmet, Comment. on the books of the New Testament, vol. III, p. 546, ed. of 1788]. But beyond these things nothing can be settled for certain, neither their condition, nor their age, nor their very homeland: for who will dare to gather from the names that Stachys and Narcissus were Greeks, but Ampliatus and Urban Romans?
[28] were disciples of Christ, In writings of a more recent age and doubtful credit more is handed down, which must now come up for examination. The pseudo-Dorotheus in the commentary on the seventy disciples of the Lord, after listing the first twenty, proceeds thus:
21. Amplias, of whom also the Apostle makes mention in the epistle to the Romans, who was also bishop of Odyssus.
22. Urban, of whom also he makes mention in the epistle to the Romans, who was bishop of Macedonia…
30. Narcissus, of whom also he makes mention in the epistle to the Romans, who was also bishop of Athens In Migne, Greek Patrology, vol. XCII, col. 1061 and 1064.
The same persons, but with mention of the episcopate omitted, occur in the series of the disciples of Christ contained in the Paschal Chronicle Ibid., col. 521:
9. Amplias.
10. Urban.
11. Stachys.
15. Narcissus.
Amplias is missing in the index of disciples which our predecessors received, copied from a manuscript synaxary of the Greeks, formerly of Father James Sirmond Cf. Royal Library of Brussels, ms. cod. 11322, fol. 128 and following. But of the others we read almost the same things as in the fictitious work of Dorotheus:
[20.] Urban, who was also bishop of Macedonia.
[21.] Stachys…
[28.] Narcissus, who was bishop of Athens.
From Dorotheus likewise seem to be taken the things we read of our saints in the treatise on the seventy disciples wrongly attributed to St. Hippolytus of Portus [In Migne, Greek Patrology, vol. X, col. 341 and following, 953. Cf. Fabricius, Bibliotheca graeca, vol. VII, p. 200, Hamburg ed. of 1801].
21. Amplias, bishop of Odyssus.
22. Urban, bishop of Macedonia.
23. Stachys…
30. Narcissus, bishop of Athens.
[29] is uncertain. But how uncertain these things are was declared long ago. For those names are nowhere read, neither in St. Epiphanius, nor in Eusebius, nor in the other very ancient writers who discourse on the disciples of the Lord. Indeed Eusebius testifies that no written series of them is to be found: τῶν δὲ ἑβδομήκοντα μαθητῶν κατάλογος οὐδεὶς οὐδαμῆ φέρεται Hist. eccles., bk. I, chap. 12, Laemmer ed.. Having discussed these and other matters, Baronius wisely wrote Eccl. Annals, at the year 33, no. XL: But some, while they have tried to set out one by one the names of the disciples who were chosen by the Lord, patching together nearly all whom they found mentioned in the epistles of Paul, who are established to have been disciples of the same Apostle, with no account at all taken of the truth, have counted them among the disciples of the Lord. And what is worse, they have mixed in those who are not known to have been even disciples of the apostles.
[30] Whether they were created bishops by St. Andrew is not established. But if not by the Lord himself, were St. Stachys and the others at least chosen and sent by the apostles? Of the first we have already shown that nothing but fables is told. Of St. Ampliatus our Daniel Farlati wrote this in the Illyricum sacrum Vol. VIII, p. 124: Having left Rome, he seems to have attached himself to St. Andrew the apostle, when he was staying in Thrace and the territory of Second Moesia; by whom he was sent to Odyssus as bishop, to cultivate the seeds of the Gospel that had been sown. This he performed not only with labors but even with his blood, with which he watered the rich field of this Church, being killed by the Jews on the day before the Kalends of November. The year of his martyrdom is altogether unknown. Yet Latins as well as Greeks venerate his name. But the writer admits that the episcopate of Ampliatus rests on the testimony of a single menology, namely the Sirletan one published by Canisius Thesaurus monum., vol. III, p. 483, Amsterdam ed. of 1725; nor in fact does Michael Le Quien bring forward anything else, when he judges that St. Amplias was the first bishop of Odessus Oriens christianus, vol. I, col. 1225. Now that menology has no greater authority in this place than the menaea of the Greeks and the Dorothean fabrications, from which this whole history of SS. Stachys, Ampliatus and the others derives its origin Cf. below, no. 37. For the same reason it is hardly more established whether St. Urban was bishop of Macedonia, and indeed, as the menaea of the Greeks report, appointed by St. Andrew. For except that he helped St. Paul [Cf. St. John Chrysostom, Homily XXXI on the epistle to the Romans, in Migne, Greek Patrology, vol. LX, col. 670. Cf. Le Quien, Oriens christ., vol. II, col. 985], nothing is known of him either from the Fathers or from the ancient historians.
[31] Narcissus is disputed. The same is to be said of Narcissus, whom indeed the pseudo-Dorotheus and his imitators pretend to have been bishop of Athens, or even of Patras in Achaia Cf. Baronius, Roman Martyrology, at Oct. 31, note; but Michael Le Quien rightly disregards him, where he inquires into the first prelates of these cities Cf. Oriens christ., vol. II, col. 169 and following. Indeed some authors, and Calmet himself, have somewhat doubted whether that Narcissus was a Christian [Cf. A. Calmet, Comment. on the books of the New Testament, vol. III, p. 547, Würzburg ed. of 1788]. For since St. Paul said: Greet … those who are of the household of Narcissus, who are in the Lord, some interpret this as though Narcissus were greeted with his household, more others as though Narcissus had no share in the greeting. But why? Perhaps, some say, because he was a pagan; or because (so very many) he had already departed from life, or because at that time he was absent from home Cf. Estius, Comment. on the epistle to the Romans, chap. XVI, v. 11. The author of the Commentary wrongly attributed to St. Ambrose certainly so thought, and therefore wrote: This Narcissus is said to have been a presbyter at that time, as is read in other codices. And because he was not present, you see for what reason he greets as holy in the Lord those who were of his household. But this presbyter Narcissus was performing the office of a pilgrim (or according to another edition, abroad), strengthening believers with exhortations In Migne, Latin Patrology, vol. XVII, col. 179 and following. Those other codices, of which Ambrosiaster speaks, no longer exist. From these moreover one could gather that Narcissus was a Christian, even if this did not follow from the epistle to the Romans. Some authors, going further, judge that he was none other than that most powerful freedman of the emperor Claudius, who, as Tacitus Cf. Annals, bk. XII, no. 65, bk. XIII, no. I, Panckoucke ed., Suetonius Claudius, no. 28, J. Graevius ed., Dio Cassius [Roman History, bk. LX, p. 674, 687 and following, Leunclavius ed. Cf. Juvenal, sat. XIV] and others narrate, in fact held the supreme power in the empire. But he certainly was not among the living when St. Paul wrote to the Romans in the year 58: for he died in the consulship of Asinius Marcellus and M. Acilius Aviola, in the year 54 after the birth of Christ. It must therefore be said with Tillemont [Mémoires pour servir à l'hist. ecclés., vol. I, p. 587 and following, ed. of 1701] that not he himself, but some of his former household, are greeted by the Apostle, or with Baronius Annals, eccles., at the year 58, no. LVI that a quite different Narcissus is meant.
§ II. Of the cult given to SS. Stachys, Ampliatus, Urban and Narcissus not before the eighth century. Their memory in the sacred calendars of the Greeks and in the martyrologies of the Latins.
St. Stachys and the others, whose cult began after the eighth century, From what has been brought forward thus far, it can easily be understood (how the supporters of the Greeks explain this, I do not know) that no church in the whole city of Constantinople was raised to St. Stachys, no honor paid to sacred relics, and no feast day assigned to the memory of so great a man before the eighth century. In vain will you turn over the very long list of temples which du Cange gave in his Christian Constantinople. Nowhere is a sacred temple of Stachys indicated. Nor even in the very place where the forgers locate the holy man, the Acropolis or, as a great many have said, Argyropolis, is any monument of his found to have existed. The Constantinopolitan Calendar too, written after the year 739, which Stephen Morcelli published, shows no mention of Stachys. The Byzantine Church therefore venerated no saint of this name before about the middle of the eighth century. Indeed before the age of Photius I find no traces of cult. The first specimens of public veneration can be detected in the panegyric oration on St. Andrew written by Nicetas the Paphlagonian, a contemporary of Photius: yet these are doubtful, and evidences more of praise than of ecclesiastical cult. But after Photius this cult appears in various places. In the tenth century or the beginning of the eleventh the name of St. Stachys occurs in the Basilian, Jerusalem and Gallipoli menologies, together with other saints.
[33] are recorded in the Basilian menology The Basilian has this: Commemoration of the holy apostles Stachys, Amplias, Urban and their companions. The holy apostle Stachys is ordained bishop of Byzantium by Andrew the most holy apostle, after he had built a church at Argyropolis on the other bank, where two thousand Christians
used to gather, and Stachys taught them. Teaching them, he held the see for sixteen years; and he fell asleep in peace. Amplias, bishop of Ulyssipolis, which is in Macedonia, was slain by the Greeks. Urban, made bishop of Macedonia, was also himself killed by the Jews and Greeks together with many others: and so it came about on one and the same day that, tortured in different ways, in different places and nations and cities, by those who did not know God, Greeks and Gentiles, they gave up their happy souls to the Lord: whose precious relics, afterwards translated to Constantinople, were laid in the place which is called the Spring Menology of the Greeks published by order of Basil, at Oct. 31, Urbino 1727.
[34] and in other sacred calendars of the Greeks Now Basil, by whose order this menology was published, reigned from the year 976 to 1025; the learned judge that the book itself was written at the end of the tenth century. On which Morcelli says: If in our calendar which belongs to the eighth century those Dorothean heroes do not appear, whereas in the Basilian menology … they are praised, it must surely be admitted that they crept into the sacred calendars from the age of Photius, since that book was written out when the Photians were already dominant …, in the tenth century itself Kalend. Eccles. Constant., vol. II, p. 244. In the Jerusalem menology of the Greeks, written in the tenth century J. Scholz, On the Menologies of Two Greek Codices, Bonn 1823, we read at October 31: of the holy apostles (that is, apostolic men) Stachys, Amplius, Aristobulus and their companions; and in the Gallipoli menology, likewise of the tenth century: of the holy apostles Stachys, Amplius and Urban. In the Calendar also Greek manuscript codices in the Nani collection, p. 369 which Mingarelli copied in part from a Greek codex of the eleventh century, mention is made of the holy apostles Stachys, Amplias, Aristobulus and their companions. Which companions, as I think, are those holy men whom St. Paul orders to be greeted in the epistle to the Romans, and above all SS. Apelles and Narcissus. The latter indeed is absent from the Basilian menology, but is brought forward by name in many sacred calendars, both of the Latins and of the Greeks, as will soon appear.
[35] of a more recent age, The difference should be noted between the calendars and the menaea of Grottaferrata at October 31 Toscani, Remarks on the Typica of the Greeks, p. 80 and following, Rome 1864:
Eclogadion of the eleventh century:
Of SS. Epimachus and Heraclius.
Menaea of Grottaferrata:
Of the holy apostles Stachys, Amplias, Urban, Apelles, Aristobulus and Narcissus.
Typicon of St. Bartholomew:
As the menaeon.
That Eclogadion was written after the year 1025 Ibid., p. 40 and following, for it records the dedication of the church of Grottaferrata performed in that year by the Roman pontiff John XIX on December 17; yet it must have been written not much later, because no mention is yet made there of SS. Nilus and Bartholomew. It is therefore certain that in the year 1025 no cult of Stachys was shown by those monks with the holy Father Nilus. He is indeed recorded in the menaea copied at the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth century by the monks of Grottaferrata, especially by Nilus II and Sophronius, and in the Typicon which was composed by St. Bartholomew (who died, as is thought, in the year 1065) and renewed in the year 1300 by Abbot Blasius II. Yet the cult of St. Stachys does not seem to have begun in the monastery of Grottaferrata before the year 1065. For that St. Bartholomew himself brought in what had not been written in the Eclogadion, and that St. Nilus did not know the name of Stachys, I can hardly persuade myself. But after the holy men had died, it could easily have been brought into the menaea and into the Typicon reformed by Blasius by common vote.
[36] as in the menology of Sirleto, The Sirletan Menology, which Basnage judged to be no older than the eleventh century, and which our William Cuper suspected to belong to the end of the thirteenth century or to the fourteenth Acta SS., vol. I of August, p. 168 *, commemorates the feast day of St. Stachys in these words: On the 31st day of October; the feast of Saints Stachys, Amplias, Urban, Aristobulus, Narcissus and the holy martyr Epimachus; of whom St. Stachys was appointed bishop by the apostle Andrew, and built a church at Argyropolis, in which there used to gather an innumerable multitude of Christians, whom the blessed bishop taught; and when he had thus lived for seventeen years, he slept in peace. Saints Amplias and Urban, ordained bishops by the same apostle Andrew, the former of Odyssopolis, the latter of Macedonia, killed by Jews and Gentiles for the confession of the Christian faith and the overthrow of idols, gave up their blessed souls to God. Blessed Narcissus, tortured in various ways, himself also commended his spirit to Christ the Lord, for whom he also shed his blood Canisius, Thes. monum., vol. III, part I, p. 483, Amsterdam 1725.
[37] which, like the menaea from which it was excerpted, This Menology, which seemed to Papebroch to be carelessly composed Acta SS., vol. III of May, p. XV, and to which no great authority is attached, is said to be excerpted and copied from the menaea. The Latins certainly had no ingrained care to increase the calendars of the Greeks with new saints; but among the Greeks, as Morcelli says Kalend. Eccles. Constantin., vol. II, p. 245, when the calendars had been violated and an entry once opened to the unknown, license easily grew with party zeal; for they wished, I believe, to pierce the eyes of crows, and to overwhelm the Latins, if they could, with the number of great martyrs and confessors. And so we afterwards see a place given in their menaea even to those who did not have the token of Catholic profession: of whom you will find no small number among the Bollandists among the Passed Over, as they call them. Indeed, what I cannot wonder at enough, not even those whom the sacred writings openly reprove displeased them, and there are celebrated in the menaea at December 19 not only Solomon, but also Rehoboam, and Abijah, and Joram, and Ahaziah, and Ahaz and others… An audacious deed indeed, from which you may easily understand what sort of men in doctrine and judgment and faith those should be thought to have been who afterwards presided over that Church: whom that unhappy nation nevertheless goes on holding, for the most part, in the number of holy men… These things, moreover, have among all the learned wholly weakened the authority of the Greek calendars, and taken all credit and value from ecclesiastical books of this kind: so that now there is scarcely anyone who can mention the menaea and commentaries of that kind without contempt; in which, however, if I have argued well, the depravity of the grandsons is wrongly attributed to their innocent grandfathers, and all are held guilty of what was wholly the fault of the younger. Better indeed the judgment of Allatius, who, when he had brought other ecclesiastical books of the Greeks to the balance, and was beginning to speak of the Pentecostarion, set out thus what he thought of their authors: Of the Pentecostarion, as we said above of the Triodion, there have been various authors, ancient and more recent. The ancient are to be venerated for their antiquity and modesty; the more recent to be despised for their schism, audacity and lust of attempting everything [On the Ecclesiastical Books of the Greeks, diss. II, p. 156, J. Fabricius ed. Cf. Acta SS., vol. I of Aug., p. 32 , 68 , 86 , 95 and following].
[38] seems not to be made much of; To this Papebroch assents: With the Triodion, he says, (the Latins would say the Proper of the Season,) much schismatic leaven has been mixed by Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopulus, who arranged it, as Allatius rightly complains, and he grieves that it, thus defiled, is permitted to be read by the united Greeks, not without their frequent scandal Acta SS., vol. I of May, in the Graeco-Muscovite Ephemerides, p. XXXI. That is, besides the Ecclesiastical History of which we spoke above and other works, Nicephorus Callistus wrote Synaxaria on the chief feasts of the Triodion [Cf. Lambeck, Comment. on the Imperial Library of Vienna, vol. V, col. 596 and following], which, as Fabricius says Bibliotheca graeca, vol. VII, p. 442, Hamburg ed. of 1801, turned into vulgar Greek by Matthew Cigala of Cyprus and Maximus Margunius, bishop of Cythera, appeared at Venice …, in the years 1607, 1637, 1648. Likewise at Venice in the year 1656 there were published in vulgar Greek the Lives of the Saints translated from the Greek tongue, that is, from the synaxaria, by Maximus, the humble bishop of Cythera: where at October 31 the same things are proclaimed of SS. Stachys, Ampliatus, Urban and Narcissus as in the Sirletan menology. In this indeed Stachys is said to have been bishop for seventeen years, in the other for sixteen years: but apart from this they so agree that it is evident that the Latin eulogy was translated word for word from the Greek. Between the ancient narrative published by Maximus Margunius, however, and that which the recent menaea of the Greeks show, there is no difference at all worth noting.
[39] likewise in Russian and Bulgarian calendars, Since our saints are praised in most of the menologies of the Greeks, it is no wonder that in the Russian, Bulgarian and Serbian sacred calendars there is found the memory of the Holy Apostles Stachys, Amplius, Urban, Narcissus, Apellius [J. Martinov, Annus Graeco-Slavicus, at Oct. 31, in Acta SS., vol. XII of Oct., p. 266]. In the Rumyantsev calendar of the thirteenth century is announced the feast of the Holy Apostles Stachys, Amplius, Urban and companions Ibid., p. 341 and 338; likewise in the Ostrog calendar of the year 1581: Of the Holy Apostles Stachys and Amplius and others Ibid., p. 349; in the pictured Graeco-Muscovite Ephemerides of Papebroch Acta SS., vol. I of May, p. XLIX: SS. Stachys, Amplias, and in the Capponi tablets [Assemani, Kalendaria Ecclesiae univ., vol. V, p. 326 and following. N. Falconius, Commentary on the Capponi tablets]: SS. Stachys, Lampius (which Lampius seems to be formed by a transposition of letters and to be the same as Amplius). We also read the name of St. Stachys in the Moscow calendar of the year 1818, in the Compendious Menology published at Moscow in the year 1850, and in other recent Russian books. Likewise in the Bulgarian calendars, as in the Tarnovo calendar of the year 1272: Of the holy apostles Stachys and Amplius and Urban, and their companions; and in the Zographou calendar of the twelfth or thirteenth century: Of Stachys, Amplius, Urban and his companions. Finally, as to the Serbian sacred calendars, the Chilandar Synaxary of the year 1331 has this: Of the holy apostles Stachys, Amplius, Urban and others Martinov, op. cit., p. 266, 338, 344, 347.
[40] and in the very martyrologies of the Latin Church. The martyrologies of the Latins do not show St. Stachys before the sixteenth century. At that time the menaea of the Greeks, printed in type, brought into the open the name of a man unknown, and from them it was brought into the additions to the martyrology of Usuard. Usuard as augmented by Molanus Ed. of 1573 has this at October 31: Of the Holy Apostles Stachys, Amplius and companions. Galesinius
however, in the Martyrology of the Holy Roman Church printed at Venice in the year 1578, says: In Greece, of Saints Stachis, Urban and companions. For Stachis was created bishop of Bizantium by the apostle Andrew, when he had built a church at Arginopolis, in which he taught two thousand Christians, and having presided for fifteen years, he rested in the Lord. And Amplius, bishop of Ulixipolis in Macedonia, was killed for the faith by the impious. Moreover Urban also himself, cut down together with many companions for the name of Christ, is crowned with martyrdom. Hence St. Stachys was received into the Roman Martyrology of the year 1583, not by ecclesiastical authority nor by any certain and fixed judgment of the Roman see, but by the opinion and choice of those who were in charge of correcting the martyrology. They wrote: Of Saints Ampliatus, Urban and Narcissus, whom St. Paul mentions writing to the Romans, who were slain by Jews and Gentiles for the Gospel of Christ… At Constantinople, of St. Stachys the bishop, who was ordained by St. Andrew the apostle first bishop of Byzantium. These eulogies passed into the same Martyrology as emended by Baronius and others, yet so that in place of bishop of Byzantium they wrote bishop of the same city. Then St. Stachys and his companions were entered in most other martyrologies and catalogues of the saints of the universal Church.
[41] They are honored with Mass and office among the Greeks only. Yet office and Mass are not celebrated in their honor except among the Greeks. Nor, so far as I know, does there exist, not even in Constantinople itself, any temple or altar dedicated to them. Which would surely seem strange, if what has long been carried about concerning St. Stachys were true. No one will be astonished that before the Photian troubles and schism no sacred temple had been built to an unknown man. But afterwards, when the schismatics were seeking not the honor of the saints but their own glory, and boasted of the one name of Stachys by pressing it against old Rome, they seem to themselves, I believe, to have had support enough for the matter from public prayers and the liturgical office. That this is recited even today by the Greeks is evident from their sacred books. In the Menaeon printed at Venice in the year 1843 (Μηναῖον τοῦ Ὀκτωβρίου … κατὰ τὴν νεωστὶ διάταξιν τῆς ἁγίας τοῦ Χριστοῦ μεγάλης Ἐκκλησίας διορθωθὲν … ὑπὸ Βαρθολομαίου Κουτλουμουσιάνου τοῦ Ἰμβρίου. Ἐν Βενετίᾳ ἐκ τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς Τυπογραφίας τοῦ Φοίνικος) we read this at October 31:
ΣΥΝΑΞΑΡΙΟΝ.
Μνήμη τῶν ἁγίων ἀποστόλων ἐκ τῶν ἑβδομήκοντα, Στάχυος, Ἀπελλοῦ, Ἀμπλία, Οὐρβανοῦ, Ναρκίσσου καὶ Ἀριστοβούλου
SYNAXARION.
Memorial of the holy apostles of the seventy, Stachys, Apelles, Amplias, Urban, Narcissus and Aristobulus.
ΣΤΙΧΟΙ.
Στάχυς δρεπάνῳ τῆς τελευτῆς, ὡς στάχυς, Ἐκ τοῦ παρόντος ἐκθερίζεται βίου.
Σιγᾷ στερήσει πνευμάτων ὡς κολλάβων, Ἡ τετράχορδος τῶν ἀποστόλων λύρα.
VERSES.
Stachys by the sickle of death, like an ear of grain, is reaped from the present life.
There is silence, as when the breath and the pegs are taken away, from this lyre of the apostles furnished with four strings Cf. U. Siberus, Metrical Martyrology of the Greek Church, p. 356.
The very brief narrative that follows does not differ from that which we copied above from the menologies, except that praise of Apelles and Aristobulus is added here. But the Menaeon further contains very many prayers and chants, from which we have thought these should be excerpted:
ΕΙΣ ΤΟΝ ΕΣΠΕΡΙΝΟΝ.
Στάχυς ὁ πανόλβιος Χριστοῦ κήρυξ καὶ ἀπόστολος, καὶ Ἀπελλῆς ὁ θαυμάσιος, … Οὐρβανός, Ἀμπλίας, καὶ ὁ θεῖος Νάρκισσος, Τριάδα παναγίαν κηρύξαντες, ἔθνη ἐφώτισαν καὶ δουλείας ἐλυτρώσαντο· οὓς ἐν πίστει πάντες μακαρίσωμεν.
AT VESPERS.
Stachys, the most blessed herald and apostle of Christ, and the admirable Apelles, … Urban, Amplias, and divine Narcissus, proclaiming the most holy Trinity, enlightened the nations and redeemed them from slavery: let us all in faith call them blessed.
ΕΙΣ ΤΟΝ ΟΡΘΡΟΝ.
ῼδὴ α᾽
Ἴχνεσιν ἑπόμενοι Χριστοῦ τοῦ σαρκωθέντος δι᾽ οἶκτον, πανόλβιοι, τούτου τε προστάξεσι θεαρχικαῖς καθυπουργοῦντες, ὤφθητε πάντων πλανωμένων καθηγηταὶ πρὸς εὐσέβειαν.
Στάχυν καὶ Ἀμπλίαν τὸν σοφόν, καὶ Οὐρβανόν, .. καὶ Νάρκισσον, … τοὺς τοῦ Χριστοῦ μαθητὰς χρηματίσαντας, πίστει συνελθόντες, χρεωστικῶς μακαρίσωμεν.
AT MATINS.
CANTICLE I.
Following in the footsteps of Christ, who took flesh through mercy, most blessed ones, and obeying his divine commands, you have appeared as guides of all who wander, toward piety.
Coming together in faith, as is fitting let us proclaim Stachys and wise Amplias, and Urban … and Narcissus, … named disciples of Christ.
ῼδὴ γ᾽
Εἰς ἅπασαν τὴν γῆν ὁ σοφὸς ὑμῶν φθόγγος ἐξῆλθεν ἀληθῶς, τοῦ Κυρίου αὐτόπται, ἀπόστολοι ἔνδοξοι, Οὐρβανὲ σὺν Ἀμπλίᾳ τε, … καὶ Ἀπελλῆ σὺν Ναρκίσσῳ, μετὰ Στάχυος, ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν τὸν Σωτῆρα ἀπαύστως πρεσβεύσατε.
CANTICLE III.
Into all the earth your wise sound has truly gone out, O glorious apostles who saw the Lord with your own eyes, Urban with Amplias, … and Apelles with Narcissus and Stachys; entreat the Savior for us without ceasing.
ῼδὴ δ᾽ …
Ἰσχύἳ τοῦ θείου δυναμούμενος Πνεύματος, τοὺς κατοικοῦντας Ὀδησσὸν υἱοὺς ἀπέδειξας φωτός, Ἀμπλία ἀπόστολε, ἐπιτελῶν θαυμάτων ἔργα παράδοξα, καὶ καταργῶν τῶν δαιμόνων τὰς φάλαγγας.
CANTICLE IV.
Strengthened by the might of the divine Spirit, you made the inhabitants of Odyssus sons of light, O apostle Amplias, working incredible miracles and breaking the phalanxes of demons.
Ναμάτων ἐνθέων πεπλησμένος ἐξέδραμες καθάπερ ῥεῦμα, Οὐρβανέ, σωτηριῶδες, τὰ πικρὰ καὶ ἄποτα νάματα ἀποσοβῶν, καὶ καταρδεύων ἐν χάριτι τῶν εὐσεβούντων παμμάκαρ τὸ πλήρωμα.
Filled with divine waves you ran forth like a saving river, O Urban, driving away the bitter and undrinkable streams, and watering in charity the most blessed company of the pious.
ῼδὴ ε᾽
Ὁ μέγας σε Βυζαντίου Ἀνδρέας κατέστησεν ἐπίσκοπον, τοὺς ἐκεῖσε πιστοὺς ἐκδιδάσκοντα, Στάχυ ἱερώτατε, καὶ κυβερνῶντα πρὸς λιμένας τοὺς γαληνοὺς θείᾳ χάριτι.
CANTICLE V.
The great Andrew appointed you bishop of Byzantium, to teach the faithful who were there, most august Stachys, and to steer them to tranquil harbors by divine charity.
ῼδὴ ς᾽
Ἐλέους θελητὴν Θεὸν ἐκήρυξας, καὶ πλάνης ἠλευθέρωσας, θεῖε Νάρκισσε, ψυχὰς τῶν ἀσεβῶν, μέγας γεγονὼς Ἀθηνῶν πρόεδρος, καὶ φυτουργὸς φυτῶν ὡραίων, θεομακάριστε.
CANTICLE VI.
You proclaimed God who wills mercy; and you freed from error, divine Narcissus, the souls of the impious, being made the great prelate of Athens and the tender of beautiful plants, O divinely blessed one.
In other liturgical books too the holy men are commemorated, as in that which is entitled Ἀνθολόγιον τοῦ ὅλου ἐνιαυτοῦ, published in the year 1719, and in the Anthologion printed at Venice in the year 1838: where the Office of Apostles is indicated to be recited for SS. Stachys, Amplias, Urban and Narcissus. Moreover no mention is anywhere made of their relics, except in the Basilian menology, in which the sacred bodies are reported to have been translated to Byzantium, and laid in the place which was called the Spring.