Next in order comes a Calendar of the North African Church belonging to the fifth century, and edited by Mabillon from a codex of the seventh century formerly belonging to the Monastery of Cluny. The original must have been completed after 505, for Bishop Eugenius of Carthage is mentioned in it. It contains St John the Baptist, some apostles and martyrs not belonging to North Africa, Sixtus, Gervasius and Protasius, Lawrence, Clement of Rome, Eulalia, Felix of Nola, Agnes, Agatha, Vincent, and the Machabees, who belong to the Churches of Rome and Spain. Unfortunately, the list is not quite perfect owing to the bad state of the MS.
The Calendar of Philocalus for the year 352 contains nothing definitely Christian.[751] On the other hand, the Calendar of Polemius Silvius, Bishop of Sion, drawn up between 435 and 455, is interesting as showing a mixture of Christian and heathen entries. Destination, character, place, and time of the compilation can be learnt from the calendar itself; it was not drawn up for one particular year, at least there is nothing by which to determine the year, for Dominical letters, movable feasts, etc., are all wanting; among heathen festivals we have the Carmentalia, Lupercalia, Terminalia, Quinquatria, and Lavatio Cereris, all of which recall heathen religious customs. The Saturnalia are included on account of their popular, not on account of their religious significance, and appear as feriæ servorum on the 17th December, as well as feriæ ancillarum on the 7th July. In addition, there are many other popular commemorations, such as the 7th January, 13th September, etc., and a great number of natales of emperors. The number of ecclesiastical feasts is very small, being limited to Epiphany, the 25th and 27th of March as the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Christmas, and six saints’ days—Depositio Petri et Pauli on the 22nd February instead of the 29th June, Vincent, the Machabees, Lawrence, Hippolytus, and Stephen on their usual days. Besides these we have the natales of authors—Cicero and Virgil, and finally, the days are marked on which the Senate usually held sittings and games were given in the circus. In comparison with the Calendar of Philocalus, the number of such days is much reduced; in the former there are over a hundred, here only fifty-three. The meteorological entries are numerous. The calendar was evidently intended for the provinces of the western half of the empire, and takes into account both the ecclesiastical and civil requirements, although it deals with the former to a limited extent.
3. The Arian Calendar of the Fourth Century
(About 370-380)
One of the most interesting documents in connection with our subject in virtue of its age, contents, and plan is the Arian martyrology, published by W. Wright in 1865.[752] As is well known, the Arians were an active party who, until about 380, attempted with some success to gain the upper hand in the Church. As a means to this end, it was to their interest to invest their followers as much as possible with the appearance of sanctity, and the Arian historian Philostorgius devoted himself especially to this; he characterises as saints and workers of miracles Agapetus and a certain Theophilus who worked in India, and also Aëtius, Eunomius, and Leontius, the ringleaders of thorough-going Arianism.[753] As a consequence of this the Arians encroached in various ways upon the domain of liturgy also. It goes without saying that they did not wish to figure as heretics, but as forming the true Church, and so they exhibited a corresponding activity in hagiology.
While, generally speaking, the local churches confined themselves each to its own diocese, and the principle of individualism continued to hold its own for a long time throughout the whole Church, the Arians early abandoned this method, and even while they did not completely adopt the principle of universality, yet they did so partially, their position as a minority among Christians giving them an impulse in this direction. Thus we find their martyrology embraces Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece, Mœsia, Illyria; in fact, the entire eastern half of the empire, and even Italy and North Africa are not passed over altogether.
We must first of all turn our attention to the external and historical side of the document. Wright found it in a Syrian MS., belonging to Nitria in Egypt, of the time of Porphyrius, Bishop of Antioch (404-413), and written in the year 411.[754] It consists of two different parts, of which the first is a martyrology drawn up in accordance with the calendar, and originally composed in Greek. Unfortunately, the section from the 1st to the 25th December is missing. This part is the original document, and was early translated into Syriac, although, as we shall see later, it is full of defects. The fact that, nevertheless, it was considered worthy of being translated, and that by an orthodox translator, shows that it was regarded as a remarkable piece of work. What impressed its contemporaries was its universal character, then quite a novelty. At the end, there is a somewhat mutilated appendix consisting of a list of Persian martyrs arranged, not by the date of their death, but according to their rank in the hierarchy, into three groups—bishops, priests, and deacons.
The second part, originally composed in Syriac, was an addition of the Syrian translator. Among the persons named in this part, it is noticeable that there are no Arians, nor even Nestorians, who, when expelled from the Roman Empire by Theodosius II. in 435, made themselves masters of the Persian Church. Of the sixteen bishops mentioned in the first section, at least eight are known to have been orthodox Persian martyrs, all belonging to the period before 400, e.g. Simon Bar-Sabai, Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon († 17th April 344), his successor, Schahdust († 346), and Sapor, Bishop of Beth Gormai.[755] Miles (Milles), Simeon, Barbasimas, Joannes, Sapores, Gudiab, Sabinus, Abdos, Paul, and Ebedjesus are mentioned by Sozomen as Persian martyrs of the reign of Sapor I.[756] This very primitive calendar contains only the names of martyrs to the exclusion of other persons who were even regarded as saints, such as Mares, the second bishop of Seleucia († 82).[757] The compiler calls those whom he included in his calendar the Holy Martyrs who had been put to death in the East, while he regards those named in the first part as the Holy Confessors of the West, regarding the Roman Empire as the West in respect to Persia.
The first part, which concerns the West, differs from the second in many respects. It was drawn up by another hand, and was written originally in Greek. The latter is a document entirely historical in character, while the former is liturgical; the one belongs to Persia, the other to the Roman Empire, and probably to Nicomedia. It was then employed in Antioch, where it was enlarged, and finally, as it appears, was translated into Syriac at Edessa. It forms one of the most remarkable documents of ancient Christian literature.
That this Arian martyrology belonged to the Roman Empire, and especially to its eastern part, is proved by the calendar employed therein, i.e. the Julian, with the addition of the Chaldean names for the months, the days of the month being given simply without reference to calends and nones and ides. The author is well-informed with regard to the eastern half of the Roman Empire; he knows names and date of death of eight bishops of Antioch, the name Antioch occurs in all twenty-four times, Nicomedia is named thirty-two times, but the name of no bishop of Nicomedia is given, Alexandria is mentioned nineteen times, Constantinople, Rome, and Jerusalem only twice.
The date of this work is fixed by the mention of the celebrated Bishop James of Nisibis on the 15th July. He was alive after 350, when the Persians besieged Nisibis, and flourished, according to the somewhat vague expression of the Chronicle of Samuel of Ani, in the 283rd Olympiad, i.e. 353-356.[758] Thus the martyrology was written in the period between 370 and 400, and sometime about 380, when Arianism was the dominant religion in the eastern half of the empire.