medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
From 2010 (but correcting a slip in the passage references to Eusebius and dropping a final sentence whose accuracy I'm in no position to check at the moment):
"Today (12. December) is the feast day of: 1) Epimachus and Alexander (d. 250 or 251). We know about E. and A. from St. Dionysius of Alexandria's report on the martyrs of his city as quoted by Eusebius (_Historia ecclesiastica_, 6. 41-42; these two at 6. 41. 17). They were held in prison for a considerable period of time, during which they were tortured in a variety of ways. Their end came when they were doused with quicklime. E. and A. entered the historical martyrologies with Florus of Lyon, who gave all the Alexandrian martyrs of this persecution a single, lengthy entry under 20. February. St. Ado of Vienne broke that elogium up, entering individuals and small groups under different days. It is down to Ado that this pair is commemorated today."
The illustration in the _Godtvrugtige Almanach_ (Amsterdam, 1730) shows a pyre giving off flames and smoke. Our sole source, Dionysius (ap. Eusebius), says that this pair of martyrs and others named at 6. 41. 15 were burned in an "unquenchable fire". Whereas medievally that was assumed to mean fire by means of combustion, more recent scholarship, taking Dionysius' "unquenchable" literally, has instead interpreted his phrase to mean quicklime (so already Samuel Parker's English-language translation of Eusebius [1703 and later eds.]; more recently still, Günther Zuntz, "A Textual Note on Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._ VI. 41. 15", _Vigiliae Christianae_ 5 [1951], 50-54, and Paul L. Maier's English-language translation of Eusebius [1999 and later eds.]). But I'm no longer sure that's accurate here. Dionysius may well have been thinking of Matt 3:12, which employs the same phrase (πυρὶ ἀσβέστῳ) and where quicklime clearly is not meant.
Odd that in _The Oxford Dictionary of Saints_ Farmer should have assigned Epimachus and Alexander to 22. August. One would have expected him to follow the Roman Martyrology, which latter has always entered E. and A. under 12. December (so, double-checking just now, the revisions of 1748 and 1962). On consulting Farmer (4th ed., 1997; p. 14), I see that his source for this unusual date is given as "_Propylaeum_, s.d. 22 August". That's a reference to Delehaye's critical edition of the RM published in 1940 (in a preliminary volume for December in the _Acta Sanctorum_) incorporating his proposed alterations to its traditional calendrical order, lemmata, and elogia. Farmer may have been expecting that this edition might one day become an officially promulgated revision of the RM. But that never happened and those proposals that were not accepted in 2001 or in 2004 (and this August date of commemoration for Epimachus and Alexander apparently is one of them) are in no way standard.
Best,
John Dillon
On 12/13/14, Matt Heintzelman wrote:
>
> With apologies for being tardy! I was away from home and office all day yesterday. So here is the link a day late:
>
>
>
> https://www.facebook.com/604882972899463/photos/a.624764970911263.1073741830.604882972899463/747361528651606/?type=1&theater
>
>
>
> "Epimachus and Alexander, martyred at Alexandria in the persecution of Decius, commemorated in the Latin Church on 12 Dec."; <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Epimachus>
> The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (3rd ed., 1992) gives their feast day as August 22. There are many saints with either of these names, but only these two from Alexandria are paired in this way.
>
>
>
> Peace,
>
>
>
> Matt H.
>
>
>
> Curator, Austria/Germany Study Center; Rare Book Cataloger, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML)
> Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321-7300
>
> Phone: 320-363-2795; Fax: 320-363-3222
>
> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion(http://www.hmml.org/" target="1">http://www.hmml.org
>
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: subscribe medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: unsubscribe medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion
|