medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (31. October) is also the feast day of:
Stachys, Amplias, Urban, Narcissus, Apelles, and Aristobulus (d. 1st cent.). This commemoration of six of the Seventy apostles (in Latin-rite churches, disciples), widely observed in Orthodox and other Byzantine-rite churches, brings together two groups of individuals from pseudo-Hippolytus of Rome, _De septuaginta apostolis_, 21, 22, 23 (Amplias, Urban, Stachys) and 28, 29, 30 (Apelles, Aristobulus, Narcissus). These plus Herodion (commemorated on 8. April) are the named disciples to whom Paul sends greetings at Rom 16: 8-11, where the order of appearance is Amplias (var.: Ampliatus), Urbanus, Stachys, Apelles, Aristobulus, Herodion, Narcissus. In a testimony that now appears very dubious (in large part because of the modern understanding that the earliest Christian communities were not headed by bishops) but that was accepted medievally (when it was assumed that there always had been bishops), pseudo-Hippolytus of Rome calls Amplias bishop of Odyssus (an obscure reference variously explained), Urban bishop of Macedonia, Stachys bishop of Byzantium, Apelles bishop of Smyrna, Aristobulus bishop of Britain, and Narcissus bishop of Athens. These episcopal assignments recur in these saint's Byzantine synaxary notices. Orthodox churches also commemorate Aristobulus separately in March, usually on the 16th. From the late sixteenth century to its revision of 2001 Stachys, Amplias, Urban, and Narcissus could be found in the RM under today and Aristobulus could be found therein under 15. March.
Tradition made these saints companions of one or another of the Twelve apostles. It was also presumed that some or all had been martyred. That Stachys was thought of as the first bishop of what became Constantinople probably explains why it is that, in the Synaxary of Constantinople, he leads the list rather than coming in third place as he does in Paul and in pseudo-Hippolytus of Rome.
The martyrdom of Stachys, Amplias, Urban (and three others) as depicted in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. gr. 1613):
http://tinyurl.com/9ma9x3o
The martyrdom of Stachys, Amplias and Urban as depicted in an October calendar composition in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) 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/8l2nt9h
Best,
John Dillon
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