medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Arethas (d. 523) was the leading noble of Nagrana (today's Najran in southernmost Saudi Arabia) when the king of the Himyarite realm to which the city belonged converted to Judaism and attempted to enforce his religious choice either upon his entire populace or at least upon the populace in those portions of the kingdom in which influence from neighboring and now Christian Abyssinia was strongest. Arethas refused and was decapitated on this day for resisting. The principal sources for this event are later sixth-century accounts by bishops Simeon of Bet Arsam and Sergius (or Georgius) of Resafa (BHO 99-106). According to these, Arethas was followed in martyrdom by three hundred and forty others including his six daughters and his wife Ruma.
Arethas et socc. have a Greek-language Passio in several versions (BHG 166, 166b-166z) that in the tenth century was expanded by Symeon Metaphrastes (BHG 167). In addition to being today's saint of the day in the Metaphrastic Menologion Arethas and companions have today's first entry in the originally also tenth-century Synaxary of Constantinople. In the Latin West, Arethas is entered under today in the earlier ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples. Also from Naples and ascribed to its duke-bishop Athanasius (d. 898; as bishop, Athanasius II) is a fragment of a Latin version of these saints' Passio.
Today (24. October) is in Byzantine-Rite churches the feast day of St. Arethas and other martyrs. In the Roman Martyrology this is the day of commemoration of St. Arethas of Najran and 340 companions.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Arethas of Najran and companions:
a) Arethas as depicted in a tenth-century glazed ceramic portrait of Byzantine origin now in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore:
http://tinyurl.com/nbjv3vj
b) Arethas as portrayed in relief (at lower right; at lower left, St. Eustratius) on a leaf of the mid-tenth-century Harbaville Triptych in the Musée du Louvre in Paris:
http://tinyurl.com/2fxlfnn
c) Arethas and companions as depicted (martyrdom) in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, cod. Vat. gr. 1613, p. 135):
http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1613/0157
http://tinyurl.com/nq3lxp7
d) Arethas as depicted in the earlier eleventh-century frescoes of the crypt of the katholikon in the monastery of Hosios Loukas near Distomo in Phokis:
http://tinyurl.com/pendcyh
e) Arethas as depicted (detail view) in the late thirteenth- or very early fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1290-1305) attributed to Manuel Panselinos in the Protaton church on Mt. Athos:
http://tinyurl.com/zsdtkxf
f) Arethas as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1313 and 1318; conservation work in 1968) by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the church of St. George in Staro Nagoričane in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/q8h9nuo
g) Arethas as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) of the narthex in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/jfsvf3c
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/4bxjjtm
h) Arethas as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1313 and ca. 1320) by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the nave of the King's Church (dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne) at the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška district) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/94vdzrf
i) Arethas and companions as depicted (panel at upper left; martyrdom) in an earlier fourteenth-century pictorial menologion from Thessaloniki (betw. 1322 and 1340; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Gr. th. f. 1, fol. 14v):
http://image.ox.ac.uk/images/bodleian/msgrthf1/14v.jpg
j) Arethas as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (1335-1350) of the north choir in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/6shzp6s
k) Arethas and companions as depicted (martyrdom) in an October calendar scene in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/yhwgpn6
l) Arethas as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) of the west bay in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/9h49cx2
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/96oyp4g
m) Arethas as depicted (at left; at center, St. Nestor; at right, St. Nicetas the Goth) in the early fifteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1406 and 1418) in the church of the Holy Trinity at the Manasija monastery near Despotovac (Pomoravlje dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/3box76o
Best,
John Dillon
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