medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
22. May is also the feast day of:
Basiliscus (d. prob. early 4th cent.). B. is a poorly documented saint of ancient Comana in Pontus. In our earliest sources (Palladius' early fifth-century Bios of St. John Chrysostom, cap. 11; Sozomen, _Historia ecclesiastica_, 8. 28; Theodoret, _Historia ecclesiastica_, 5. 34) he is said to have announced in a vision at Comana to the dying St. John Chrysostom the latter's immediate entry in Heaven and to have identified himself then as a former bishop of Comana martyred at Nicomedia under Maximian at about the same time as St. Lucian of Antioch (who is recorded by Eusebius as having been martyred in 312 under Maximinus Daia).
In the seventh- or eighth-century Bios of St. John Chrysostom ascribed to George of Alexandria B. makes the same appearance but identifies himself as a military martyr. In this latter construction he has a legendary Greek-language Passio in longer and shorter versions (BHG 241 and 241a, respectively) making him a martyr at Comana under Maximian whose being brought to a pagan temple to perform ritual sacrifice resulted in the temple's being set afire by lightning and in the destruction of its idols, after which he was executed on this day by decapitation and his body was thrown into the Iris. Christians secretly retrieved B.'s remains and buried them in a freshly plowed field where later a martyrion was built in his honor. Thus far B.'s own Passio. A Byzantine menologium account of B. under today's date specifies that he had been forced to wear iron shoes studded with red-hot nails.
B. was attracted into the very popular cult of the also Pontic St. Theodore of Amasea. In the legendary Passio of Theodore's supposed comrades in arms Cleonicus and Eutropius (two versions: BHG 656a and 656b) he appears as Theodore's nephew who under Maximian is arrested with C. and E. and who is martyred separately, after the passage of some time, at Comana. Byzantine synaxaries commemorate all three saints jointly under 3. March and B. separately under today, as do modern Orthodox churches. The RM followed suit until its revision of 2001, when it dropped from B. from the March commemoration of C. and E. and changed his description in today's commemoration from a military martyr to a martyred bishop.
B. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/yl8wyjb
B. as depicted in the nave of the church of the Pantocrator at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/23de92d
B.'s martyrdom (lower register register; E. and C. above) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century (betw. 1335 and 1350) frescoes in the narthex of the church of the Pantocrator at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/yfpsfsd
Best,
John Dillon
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