medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On 08/18/11, Terri Morgan sent, reprising a notice by Phyllis Jestice from 2003:
> Timothy, Thecla, and Agapius (d. 304) Timothy was bishop of Gaza, burned alive during the Diocletian persecution. At the same time Thecla was thrown to the wild animals. Agapius actually had nothing to do with them - he was drowned in the Mediterranean at Caesarea in 306 and was listed with the other two by accident.
>
Phyllis' source for her notices for July 2003 through June 2004 was Basil Watkins, ed., _The Book of Saints_, 7th ed. (a product of the Benedictines of St Augustine's Abbey, Ramsgate), about which she said on 30. June 2004 in her annual note on sources <http://tinyurl.com/3askdsn>, "This collection has the most saints---6,790 about whom something more is said than 'nothing is known about this saint.' " That may very well be true but a great number of notices is no guarantee of their credibility. Assuming that Phyllis' notice accurately reflects the information purveyed to her by this compilation, the latter is capable of an appallingly cavalier attitude to well known sources.
Our sole ancient source for these three martyrs is Eusebius, _De martyribus Palaestinae_, chapters 3 and 6 of the short version and chapters 4, 5, and 9 of the long version (the one preserved only in Syriac), counting the long's version's introduction as its chapter 1. The long version is believed to be the slightly earlier of the two, with the shorter being a revision of perhaps two years later. Both versions agree that Agapius and Thecla were condemned at Gaza at about the same time as Timothy, that, in contradistinction to the latter, they were sentenced to be eaten by wild beasts, and that Agapius' and Thecla's sentences were not carried out until two years later, at which time, now in Caesarea (the provincial capital), they were exposed to the beasts. We are not told what then ensued with Thecla (from what follows with Agapius it seems likely that she did not survive this encounter) but we are told that Agapius rushed to meet a bear, survived mauling by it, was returned to prison, and then was drowned in the sea. For an English-language translation of the longer version see <http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/eusebius_martyrs.htm>; for an English-language translation of the pertinent chapters of the shorter version see <http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.xiv.iv.html> and <http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.xiv.vii.html>.
The statement that Thecla was thrown to wild animals at the same time that Timotheus suffered martyrdom by fire is false. Eusebius merely says that she was _sentenced_ at the same time (emphasis mine). Furthermore, as noted above, he places her in Caesarea two years later along with Agapius. The statement that Agapius had nothing to do with Timothy and Thecla is thus likewise false, at least in the case of Thecla. It is also if not false then at least seriously misleading with regard to Timothy. According to Eusebius, all three martyrs were arrested in Gaza and and were sentenced there during the same gubernatorial visit to that city. Though they perished by different means and at different times, the common circumstances of their arrests and sentencing unify them as victims of the same city in the second year of the Great Persecution.
For a similar instance of a cavalier approach to the sources evinced in one of Phyllis' notices based on the Ramsgate Abbey _The Book of Saints_, see the comments from May 2004 (Re: saints of the day 27. May) on Restituta of Sora at <http://tinyurl.com/3jej7n8>. For the same compilation's reliance on antiquated scholarship, see e.g. <http://tinyurl.com/3nc6m4n> and <http://tinyurl.com/4xf8nte>; another example, also having to do with a saint of 19. August, occurs in a notice of Magnus of Anagni (a.k.a. Magnus "of Trani") at <http://tinyurl.com/3eahre8>, where a misplaced reliance on the supposed antiquity of the _Parvum (or _Vetus_) Martyrologium Romanum_ prefixed to the martyrology of St. Ado of Vienne leads to the ignoring of important evidence from the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology and thus to a false and dismissive conclusion about the origin of Magnus' cult.
_The Book of Saints, 7th edition_ is currently available for a mere $31.95 (with a slight discount if you buy a dozen). See <http://tinyurl.com/3p6ztxc>. Any takers?
Best,
John Dillon
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