medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Herewith a link to an earlier 'Saints of the day' for 3. January (including pope Anterus; Daniel of Padua; Gordius of Caesarea; Florentius of Vienne; and Genovefa of Paris):
http://tinyurl.com/6whys4x
Further to Anterus:
The previous link to a view of Anterus' broken tomb slab from the Cemetery of Callistus is no longer available. Use this instead:
http://www.vaticanhistory.de/vh/G_Anterus.jpg
Further to Daniel of Pavia:
The previous links to views of the oratorio / sacello di San Prosdocimo in Padova's basilica di Santa Giustina no longer function. These views show its reconstructed late antique pergola:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/smbtravels/4350911521/
http://tinyurl.com/7tju6p4
Further to Genovefa of Paris:
On Genovefa's early Vitae see Martin Heinzelmann and Joseph-Claude Poulin, _Les vies anciennes de Sainte Genevieve de Paris: études critiques_ (Paris: Champion, 1986). Genovefa's earliest Vita is put to good use in Lisa M. Bitel, _Landscape with Two Saints: How Genovefa of Paris and Brigit of Kildare Built Christianity in Barbarian Europe_ (Oxford Univ. Pr., 2009; reviewed in BMCR by John Arnold at < http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2010/2010-02-09.html>).
3. January is also the feast day of:
Theopemptus and Theonas of Nicomedia (d. 303, supposedly). According to their highly legendary Passio (BHG 2443), bishop Theopemptus was one of the first martyrs of the Diocletian's persecution. Having been brought before that emperor (seemingly at Nicomedia) and having maintained the superiority of Christianity, he was thrust into a burning oven from which he emerged unscathed. After that, one of his eyes was ripped out and he was forced to drink poison. When Theopemptus was able to quell the poison's force, the _magus_ Theonas, who had mixed the foreseeably lethal draught, converted to Christianity. Theopemptus underwent further torture and at last was killed by the sword; Theonas was buried alive. Thus far their Passio.
The likewise legendary Passio of the 1003 Martyrs of Nicomedia (BHG 1219) places Theopemptus' martyrdom in the first year of Diocletian's persecution but also says that it occurred at the same time as the deaths of four officials who had been responsible for the arrest of St. Peter of Alexandria (d. 311). The same confusion of years of martyrdom exists for the better attested bishop St. Anthimus of Nicomedia, said to have been put to death either under Diocletian just after the start of the Great Persecution in 303 (so Eusebius, _Historia ecclesiastica_, 8. 6 and 13) or under Maximinus in 311 (so St. Lucian of Antioch in a frgment preserved in the _Chronicon Paschale_). Assuming that Theopemptus had some historical existence, he could have been either a bishop of Nicomedia martyred in whichever of these years is wrong for Anthimus or a bishop from some other see who happened to have been executed in Nicomedia. Theonas, who occupies a role that recurs in legendary narratives of this sort, seems completely fictional.
Theopemptus' name is sometimes given as Theopompus or Theopontus. Under those name forms he is one of three patron saints venerated at Radolfzell am Bodensee (Lkr. Konstanz) in Baden-Württemberg since at least the later Middle Ages and, traditionally, since Radolfzell's founding in the tenth century. Putative relics of these three are kept in Radolfzell's originally fifteenth-/sixteenth-century Münster Unserer Lieben Frau in the wooden reliquary chest from 1540 shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/7qjsoa6
While we're here, an illustrated, German-language page on the Münster in Radolfzell:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radolfzeller_M%C3%BCnster
More views of this church:
http://tinyurl.com/89mjxp5
Theopemptus and Theonas were entered the RM under today by the RM's first editor, Pietro Galesino. Orthodox and other eastern-rite churches commemorate them on 5. January.
Best,
John Dillon
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