Acts of Martyrs and Saints (Vol 4 of 7): Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum 9781463213206

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ACTS OF MARTYRS A N D SAINTS

ACTS OF MARTYRS AND SAINTS

Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum

Volume 4

Edited by PAUL BEDJAN

Introductory Material Translated by CLAUDE DETIENNE

GORGIAS PRESS

2008

First Gorgias Press Edition, 2008 The special contents of this edition are copyright © 2008 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. Published in the United States of America by Gorgias Press LLC, New Jersey This edition is a facsimile reprint of the original edition published in 1890-1897.

ISBN 978-1-59333-682-0 (Set) ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN

978-1-59333-683-7 978-1-59333-684-4 978-1-59333-685-1 978-1-59333-686-8 978-1-59333-687-5 978-1-59333-688-2 978-1-59333-689-9

(Volume (Volume (Volume (Volume (Volume (Volume (Volume

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)

& GORGIAS PRESS 180 Centennial Ave., Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA www.gorgiaspress.com

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standards. Printed in the United States of America

Foreword Translated by Claude Detienne As we said at the beginning of our third volume of Acta Marty rum et Sanctorum, we had to interrupt this important publication to be able to give a new edition of our Handbook of Piety which we revised, corrected and increased. Immediately after the end of that work, we resumed the Lives of Saints, the fourth volume of which we are now publishing, and we hope to be able to publish two or three more volumes if God grants us life. In this new volume we give more than four hundred pages of unpublished texts which appear for the first time. At least we believe so, since we copied them from manuscripts. As for the Lives already published by other editors, we had the advantage to collate some of them with manuscripts, and we vocalized the whole of this new collection, which does not need to be praised, as the reader will be able to judge for himself. It is a real treasure for our beloved Oriental public, as well as for learned European orientalists. Some observations on the various Lives we publish in this volume. 1° We took from the second volume of Assemani's Acta Martyrum our first 127 pages, i.e. the Martyrdom: a) of Sts. Lucian and Marcian, of Sts. Victorinus, Victor, Nicephorus, Claudian, Diodorus, Serapion and Papius, c) of St. Stratonice and St. Seleucus of Cyzicus, d) of Sts. Hyparchus, Philetus, James, Paragrus, Habib, Romanus and Lulianus, of Samosata, e) of St. Agnes, of Rome, f) of St. Theodota, the Sinner, of Philippi. We had the advantage to be able to collate the Martyrdom of

1

Sts. Lucian and Marcian with the British Museum manuscript add. 14645, fol. 310 and that of St. Stratonice and St. Seleucus with the manuscript add. 12174, fol. 328. Thanks to that comparison, we could publish a more complete and accurate text. We could not find the other texts in the London or Paris manuscripts. We did our best to vocalize them and make them more intelligible. 2° We copied the first series of the Persian martyrs, i.e. from p. 128 to p. 207, from the precious manuscripts of Mgr. Abbeloos, Magnificent Rector of the University of Louvain, who was kind enough to lend them to us. This first series includes: a) the Martyrdom of St. John, Bishop of Arbil, and of St. James, Priest; b) of St. Abraham Bishop of the same city; c) of St. Ananias, Layman, of the same town. We collated it with the British Museum manuscript add. 14645, fol. 327; d) of St. Aiteilaha, former pagan Priest of Arbil, of St. Hapsay, Deacon of the village of Arbay in Adiabene, martyred in the Khuzi country; e) of St. Gubarlaha or Gubadlaha, Son of Sapor, killed in Ledan, and of his Sister St. Kazo. This Life was written by the priests Dadisho and Audisho, f) of St. Baday, Priest of the village of Argool;1 g) of the Saint Persian Guilay Martyrs; Brikhishoo, his 18 Companions and two Women, Halamdoor with her Children, and Phoebe, martyred on the bank of the Euphrates by Sapor, during his expedition against the Romans in 351. It is an incomplete account, and we could not find another copy to complete it; h) of St. Narsay, Monk of the country of Rezikay, martyred in Seleucia-Ctesiphon under Yazdegerd. We were able to collate the first eight pages of this Life with the British Museum manuscript add. 7200,2 fol. 86 which lacks 1

Mgr. Abbeloos mistakenly translates that sentence « et Argul Ao\ai lectoris. » See Acta Mar. Kardaghi, p. 6. 2 Collating our notebooks with that precious manuscript, we painfully noticed that in several places, an unskillful hand tried to repair the erased passages and damaged the true text.

2

the rest. This Life was written by eyewitnesses; i) of St. Tatac, Chamberlain of the King of Adiabene, martyred in Seleucia-Ctesiphon under Yazdegerd; k) of the Ten Martyrs of Beth-Garmay, martyred in Seleucia-Ctesiphon under Yazdegerd, whose names we know. This Life was written by a certain Abgar, p. 188; 1) of St James the Guard or the Notary. The title given to that saint is written in two different ways: ¿'¿¿v' guard or warden, and notary or scribe. In the London manuscript add. 7200, we find just a third of this Life, which ends with the words: We adopted that version because it seemed to be more in keeping with the high position the saint held next to king Bahram. Some passages of that account strengthen us in this opinion and refer to the important charge of writer or secretary he must have held, since we read p. 1 9 0 , 1 . 1 - 2 : yoao Tied isj.1 ^oaAa litij.1 NQisjJUb tJJcAa ' .

n

qoA

^ q o i ^lii^ p. 192,

1.12-15: ;->NYI i i i Till

. . . YLAAta&l iaS IX OL ' J^ixa . L I

¿OCL A LI.

'.¿NAJUAA^ ¿ACP A^KNAUA -PIO

A-» (-»ciaa NoNy» ¿i aii 643, but visibly truncated in Assemani's manucript: SAX . . . ;~>NY> AOI .si 393, would we not be allowed to say that our manuscript could well have been written before the invasion of monothelism into Syria, and, consequently, be the oldest of all? Seeing such a different writing, with an order which seemed more logical than Assemani's and a more complete story, we adopted the text of that manuscript and publish it today for the first time. We placed in square brackets [] everything that does not come from that manuscript, in order to let our new text appear in all its integrity, just as we found it. We merely need to mention that most grammatical points are missing and that we supplied them using those of manuscript add. 12174, which are very meticulous. This helped us to vocalize our text with more reliability. Here are the missing passages in Assemani's edition: a) the first paragraph of the Life, which begins on p. 507 with these words: ^ o ^ I A , and ends on p. 508 with these words: b) the passage which begins on p. 512 with these words: ^¡¡ac^ia

;oei ;ooi

imo, and ends on p. 514 with

these words: ttiajul isjja

cu£s-*io ; c) the passage which

begins on p. 520, 1. 3, with these words: