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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture On Saturday, February 12, 2011, at 8:50 am, Terri Morgan sent: > The 10,000 martyrs (d. c300) Two different groups of martyrs have the > same > name. The group celebrated today appears in the Martyrium Romanum as a > large > group of soldiers executed along with Bishop Anthimos of Nicomedia by > being > thrown off a cliff at Diocletian's orders. (There's a great Albrecht Durer > painting on the theme.) The other group, celebrated on 22 June, is a group > of 10,000 soldiers who according to legend were crucified on Mt. Ararat. > This notice of the 10,000 martyrs of Nicomedia was originally posted by Phyllis Jestice in 2002 in "saints of the day (12. February)". See: <http://tinyurl.com/5wuvqhb>. It raises some questions that seem not to have been put to the list then. 1) Who celebrates (alternatively, who once celebrated) this particular feast of 10,000 martyrs on 12. February? Until its removal from the Roman Martyrology in the latter's revision of 2001 it had always occurred there under 18. March, the date assigned to it by cardinal Baronio when he adopted this commemoration from the _Menologium Graecorum_of cardinal Sirleto (a work derived in very large part from the Synaxary of Constantinople via early printed Menaea) in which it also occurred under that date. That is the date under which one finds it in the _Acta Sanctorum_ and under which it still occurs in calendars of Orthodox churches. 2) The wording "along with Bishop Anthimos of Nicomedia" might imply that St. Anthimus of Nicomedia is included among those commemorated. Is there any medieval support for his inclusion in this commemoration? Baronio in his note quoted in the _Acta Sanctorum_ (s.v. Decies mille Martyres Nicomediæ in Bithynia) considered the latter to have been other victims at Nicomedia of the same persecution: _Huic [Anthimo] ingens ac frequens Martyrum turba adiuncta fuit_. In Roman-rite martyrologies Anthimus was commemorated under 27. April from very late antiquity until the Roman Martyrology's revision of 2001. The later fourth-century Syriac Martyrology (followed in this particular by the revised RM of 2001) enters him under 24. April. From at least the early Middle Ages onward Anthimus has been commemorated in the Greek church on 3. September, the date of his execution as given in his metaphrastic Passio (BHG 135; an originally earlier Greek Passio exists in several versions but remains unedited). The latter ascribes this persecution at Nicomedia to Maximian, not Diocletian. 3) Is there any late antique or medieval source for the notion that these martyrs were soldiers and that they were executed by being hurled off a cliff? In the Greek liturgical sources for their commemoration of 18. March and in the martyrs' commemoration under that date in the RM their occupational status is not given and they are said to have been decapitated (so the Greek menaea; in Sirleto's version, the implement named is an axe) or, at least, killed by the sword (so Baronio in the RM). It would appear that Phyllis' source has transferred to this group of 10,000 details of the also 10,000 soldiers legendarily martyred on Mt. Ararat (whose most recent "saints of the day" notice is at <http://tinyurl.com/67eoenx>, s.v. Acacius). 4) Are Dürer's painting and his similarly-themed woodcut of ca. 1497 still thought of by serious scholars as illustrating the suffering of these martyrs of Nicomedia rather than that of the 10,000 Martyrs of Ararat? Though these continue to be so described by reproduction houses and other purveyors of dated knowledge, Christoph Stöcker, "Dürer, Celtis und der falsche Bischof Achatius. Zur Ikonographie von Dürers Marter der Zehntausend", _Artibus et historiae_, Nr. 9 (1984), 121-137, ought to have put paid to that notion. Here's a reproduction of the painting (in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna): http://tinyurl.com/47obfvs A reproduction of the woodcut: http://images.zeno.org/Kunstwerke/I/big/HL10659a.jpg 5) Should one now say of the Martyrs of Ararat that they were _formerly_ celebrated on 22. June? Has their cult, which medievally was Latin-rite only, survived its dropping from the general Roman calendar in 1969 and from the Roman Martyrology in 2001? Best, John Dillon ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join 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: leave 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/lists/medieval-religion.html