ACTS OF THE MARTYRS. — I. A. OF THE GREEK AND LATIN MARTYRS. — By the term a. of the martyrs (acta martyrum) we understand all that abundant literary production which has as its subject the narration of the sufferings of the martyrs of the first Christian centuries in giving testimony to their faith. Less properly, therefore, we might include with it the inscriptions, the panegyrics, and the lyric poems that were composed in honor of the martyrs themselves. Such narrations are usually divided into three groups: 1) official documents drawn up by public clerks during the judicial proceedings, to be preserved in the archives (acta, gesta); for the most part they have come down to us framed by Christian writers in such a way as to render them edifying narratives: the best example is that of the a. of St. Cyprian; 2) narrations by eyewitnesses or by writers who had direct communication with eyewitnesses, always originating from Christian writers, who sometimes speak in the name of an entire Christian community, such as the a. of St. Polycarp, and thus offer the best guarantee of authenticity; 3) stories (passiones) by authors not contemporary, and often posterior by centuries to the events they narrate; in this case it will be for the critic to examine whether they worked from good sources and to extract from those narratives those kernels of reliable information that may have been preserved in them, discarding all that is fantastic, anachronistic, or unhistorical, and rejecting those compilations that preserve nothing genuine. A simpler and clearer division, however, is that of all this literature into truly historical and original narratives; narratives reworked in various ways by later writers; and fantastic narratives, i.e., true sacred romances.
It should be noted at once that the historical existence of a martyr is in no way compromised by the lack of any narrative concerning him, or by a clearly fabulous narrative, or even by an entire literature of fantastic tales about him, often in full contradiction with one another. The Church never had a particular office that fostered or encouraged the compilation of a. of martyrs or was concerned with their genuine preservation; and in particular this preservation is due to various circumstances according to the individual documents. It is true that in the Liber Pontificalis of the Roman Church mention is made of seven notaries instituted by Popes Clement (d. c. 97) and Fabian (d. 250), also recalled in the biography of Anterus (d. 236), for the purpose of collecting the memories of the martyrs; but this notice, if reliable, would apply only to the Roman Church. Instead, it is now established that those notaries were instituted later and for quite another purpose. The Church sometimes intervened in a quite contrary sense: to repress, namely, the boldness of writers who compromised the seriousness of genuine tradition with their imagination. The first hagiographer of whom we have memory is a thoroughly discredited figure: having hastened to compile the Acts of Paul and Thecla with the aim of honoring the apostle more greatly by working from imagination, he was removed from the presbyteral office (Tertullian, De baptismo, 17; Jerome, De viris illustr., 7). He had imitators who fared better, but were not encouraged. The Decretum Gelasianum (ed. E. von Dobschütz, Leipzig 1912), clearly expresses the distrust inspired by the a. of the martyrs then circulating: “therefore, according to ancient custom and with singular caution, they are not read in the Holy Roman Church, since the names of those who wrote them are entirely unknown and they are supposed to be by unbelievers and private individuals... for example, the passions of Sts. Quiricus and Julietta or those of St. George and others similar, which are found to have been composed by heretics. Therefore, as has been said, so that not even a shadow of derision may arise, in the Holy Roman Church they are not read.” St. Gregory the Great, in his letter to Eulogius, almost comments on this provision: in the Roman Church the martyrs were commemorated on the anniversary of their martyrdom, but in the list kept of them only the name, place, and day of martyrdom were indicated; as for their deeds, none were preserved in the papal archives or in the libraries of the city “except for a few in a single codex” (Registrum, VIII, 28).
Not only were the a. of the martyrs at Rome excluded from liturgical reading, but they were ignored. They were introduced very timidly into the office: only under Pope Adrian I did they begin to be read in the Vatican Basilica; previously they were read only in the churches that bore their title. In Africa, Gaul, and Spain the practice was much older. St. Augustine, in one of his sermons, summarizes the passion of St. Frutuosus, which had been read to the people; on the day of St. Stephen the account from the Acts of the Apostles had been read, and the same holy doctor was forced to say that “of the a. of the martyrs very few can be found to be read on their solemnities” (Sermo, 315: PL 38 1426). And yet in Africa we find a body of excellent documents, indeed the best that ancient Western hagiography has preserved for us.
In Gaul, alongside the Scriptures, the lives of the saints were admitted into the liturgy. Avitus of Vienne (MGH, Auctores Antiqui., VI, 11, p. 145) and St. Gregory of Tours (In Gloria Martyrum, 85; De virtutibus s. Martini, II, 29, 49) make mention of this. For Spain, Braulio, bishop of Saragossa, bears witness, speaking of a life of St. Emilian that he wrote to be read on the day of his feast (PL 72, 208).
Even in the Greek Church, at first hagiographic literature did not meet with official favor. With canon 63 of the Council in Trullo of 692, the diffusion of apocryphal accounts of the martyrs was forbidden, as they gave occasion for contempt and disbelief among the hearers, and it was ordered that they be burned, and those who accepted them as truthful were excommunicated. At the beginning of the 9th century, Patriarch Nicephorus repeated such a condemnation, particularly targeting the a. of St. George and those of Sts. Quiricus and Julietta. It is certain, however, that hagiographic texts entered the office relatively early thanks to liturgical poetry.
An attempt to compile a history of the martyrs was planned by the historian Eusebius of Caesarea, but only the part concerning the martyrs of Palestine has survived; of the great work itself we know that in the time of St Gregory the Great it was unknown both in Rome and Alexandria. In his Historia ecclesiastica, among other documents which he records, there are also those of famous martyrs such as St James the Apostle, Simeon of Jerusalem, and the martyrs of Lyons, or of persons who, like St Dionysius of Alexandria, though they did not suffer martyrdom, were tried and persecuted. After him no one was able to take up the subject seriously as a historian, and for this reason many documents, especially of the Western Church, were lost or shamefully distorted. In any case, it is striking that while Eusebius in the Historia repeatedly speaks of the great number of martyrs, there are not many of whom he gives particular accounts; and far from numerous are the authentic and reliable ones. Many of these were certainly lost, but the majority were never written down. The trial, condemnation, and execution of the martyrs were most often of a very dry and uniform simplicity; only some special and extraordinary circumstance could enliven the narrative; yet even in these cases it is not certain that a written record was always preserved. The title of martyr was more than sufficient to recall to mind a general, but no less glorious, scene of a Christian who defies death so as not to betray the faith, who obeys God’s law without regard for that of men. Contemporaries easily completed the scene with their personal memories; it was posterity that reconstructed it according to their tastes and historical and literary capabilities. In compensation, Christian antiquity has handed down to us sincere accounts of inestimable beauty; while some, in their official dryness, give us only good testimony of the manner in which proceedings were conducted when the legal forms against Christians were observed, and serve as a standard of comparison for judging the authenticity of others. The first document of this kind to reach us intact is the Martyrium Polycarpi, a letter which the Church of Smyrna sent to that of Philomelium and to the other Churches of Asia in the very year of the saint’s martyrdom (in 156). In his second Apology St Justin recounts the martyrdom of SS. Ptolemy and Lucius and a third unknown person. Contemporary with these are the Acta SS. Iustini et sociorum, written in Greek, which reproduce in their central part the record of the trial; the martyrdom took place at Rome under Junius Rusticus, prefect of the city. In 177–78 the Christian community of Lyons and Vienne sent to the East a letter in which it narrates the persecution then suffered and the heroism of its martyrs. More controversial as to the original text are the Acta SS. Apollonii, an illustrious and respected figure who defended the faith before the Roman Senate and was condemned by the prefect of the praetorium Perennis (185), and who is also mentioned by Eusebius in his history. These Acta exist in Greek and in an Armenian version. According to Fr. Delehaye and other critics, the Acta SS. Carpi, Papyli et Agathonicae, martyrs at Pergamum, and the Acta SS. Pionii, martyr at Smyrna—which others would place back in the time of Marcus Aurelius—are to be attributed to the persecution of Decius. Eusebius tells us of the martyrdom of Potamiaena and Basilides in Alexandria and of Marinus the centurion at Caesarea in Palestine (Hist. eccl., VI, 5; VII, 15). The Acta of the martyrdom of Maximus in Asia under Decius, of Conon the gardener at Magydus in Pamphylia, of Claudius, Asterius, Neon, Domnina, and Theonilla at Aegae in Lycia are considered questionable. As for the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste in Armenia, only their testament is regarded as genuine. For Illyricum we have the Acta of Julius the veteran, martyr at Durostorum in Moesia, those of SS. Agape, Chione, and Irene at Thessalonica, and those of Irenaeus, bishop of Sirmium, all under Diocletian. Spain has preserved the Passio Fructuosi, Augurius, and Eulogius, martyrs at Tarragona in 259; Sicily, in Greek and Latin, that of Euplus at Catania during the Diocletian persecution. To the second half of the 4th century belong the martyrs of Anianus and St Vigilius, bishop of Trent, killed by fanatical pagans.
Africa is the region which has preserved the greatest number of authentic documents concerning its martyrs. First in chronological order are the Acta Martyrum Scillitanorum, put to death at Carthage on 17 July 180; the shortest Latin text essentially contains only their examination before the proconsul. The Acta Perpetuae et Felicitatis (202) and their companions in martyrdom are one of the most moving documents of the hagiography of the early centuries; embedded in it is the account which the martyr Perpetua herself made of her sufferings, to which an eyewitness added the narrative of the final ordeal in the amphitheatre. To the persecution of Valerian (258) are attributed the celebrated Acta of St Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, of SS. Montanus, Lucius, and companions also put to death at Carthage, and the Passio Mariani et Iacobi, martyrs at Lambesa. The Acta Maximiliani, martyr at Teveste in 295, and the Passio Marcelli, a centurion killed at Tingis in Mauretania in quite extraordinary circumstances in 298, bring us to the end of the 3rd century. Under Diocletian in 304 we have the brief Passio Crispinae, martyr at Teveste; at Abitina the Acta Saturnini, Dativus, and companions were altered by a Donatist according to the conceptions of his sect. On the other hand, the Passio Donati, the Passio Marculi, and the Passio Isaac et Maximiiani are of Donatist origin. It is generally agreed that the early use made in the African Church of these narratives in the liturgy contributed to their preservation, for they were thus withdrawn from the audacity of redactors who have exercised their pernicious activity so widely elsewhere. It must not, however, be forgotten that even these accounts, considered authentic, did not always pass through the centuries in their original and genuine integrity: they have been subject to abridgments or expansions, have undergone revisions, and have thus given rise to versions more or less different from one another which have sometimes sorely tried the acumen of critics.
There are also cases of narratives in which an important part must be considered original and authentic, while the rest cannot be accepted as historical, since it was not introduced into the document except to complete what seemed to be lacking or was actually incomplete. To this special group may be assigned the Acta of St Dasius, martyr at Durostorum in Moesia, those of the Four Crowned Martyrs in Pannonia, the Disputatio Acacii before the consular Marcianus, after which Acacius was released by Decius, and the Passio S. Sabbae de Gothia (Scythia), which refers to an episode at the end of the 4th century.
Sometimes the writer, though well informed, compiling his account from good sources, cannot entirely free himself from the circumstances of his own time and cannot accurately reproduce those of the time of his hero; he thus produces a work that is not entirely accurate, completing the original narrative with his own suppositions and additions. This is the case with the compiler of the *Passion of St. Philip, Bishop of Heraclea*. He who compiled the *Passion of St. Theodotus of Ancyra* toward the end of the 4th century worked with even greater freedom. Pope Damasus, in his metrical epitaphs, and Prudentius, in his hymns in honor of the martyrs, sometimes proceeded with less critical rigor.
As for the legends of the martyrs of Rome and its surrounding places, it is easy to observe that, for the most part, they attempt to group into a single narrative characters who had no real connection with one another, usually assigning the leading role to one of them, who thus becomes the hero of a cycle; sometimes imaginary characters are added as necessary background, or family ties are established. The most characteristic example of this method is the *Passion of St. Sebastian*. Some of these *passiones* date back to the 5th and 6th centuries and gained popularity thanks to the boldness of their inventions and a certain vividness of style that ensured them widespread credence.
When the custom of reading the *passiones* began in Rome, it would have been necessary to make a careful selection of what could be accepted from the abundant literature of this kind that had developed at the expense of historical truth; but no attention was paid except to what could edify, and everything was admitted without the prudence that had been recommended by St. Gregory the Great. The popularity of these accounts increased still further when, entering into the liturgy of the martyrs, they became known throughout Europe, and when the translation of genuine or supposed relics led to the founding of new shrines.
What happened in Rome was repeated widely in the West and the East, where there were memories of martyrs. For very many of them, local tradition could say no more than that they had borne witness to the faith by their death; and even when some characteristic episode might occasionally have been recorded, none of the contemporaries troubled to leave a written account, while what remained entrusted to oral tradition soon underwent those corruptions and transformations that are wont to occur in such cases. But those who in later ages flocked to venerate the martyr at his tomb or who, in more distant lands, heard of him or believed they possessed his relics (when the anxious search for these began) were not satisfied with so little; they demanded more extensive accounts, more in keeping with the martyr’s renown, since this stirred them more deeply to veneration and glorification. The writers who set about satisfying these demands were anything but learned men or historians of value, conscience, or genius; and just as relics were multiplied without scruple to satisfy devotion, so too were the narratives compiled without any concern for research, which, moreover, in most cases would not have yielded noteworthy results. We may even sometimes wonder whether truth was deliberately set aside to satisfy other concerns.
Mostly poor and unknown writers undertook such compilations; they were not contemporaries of the events they sought to narrate and were forced to work from distant memories, scanty information, and unsubstantiated rumors; they generally had no more than the vaguest notion of the times and historical events in which the martyrs lived—hence the puerile conceptions and historical anachronisms. Lacking taste and good literary traditions, they resorted to tawdry rhetoric, employing a worn-out imagination and hackneyed commonplaces deemed necessary for this genre. Often, at a loss for literary devices, they did no more than transcribe or adapt, more or less poorly, writings composed for other heroes. In this process of borrowing, the compilers of *passiones* have sometimes rendered us an excellent service by including in their texts documents that we would otherwise no longer possess: thus the author of the legendary *Life of Abercius* inserted the text of his funerary inscription, which was also considered apocryphal until a large fragment of the stone on which it was carved was discovered in recent times. He who wrote the *Passion of Barlaam and Josaphat*, even drawing on Buddhist elements, interpolated the *Apology of Aristides*, which would otherwise have been lost. The legend of St. Ariadne (v.), spurious in its first and last parts, preserves in its center a fragment of excellent origin; something similar occurred also in the case of St. Tryphon. At other times, the unskillful writer even resorted to pagan tales: thus the episode of the tyrant Phalaris recurs in the *Passion of St. Eustace*; that of the punishment of the traitor schoolmaster of Falerii from early Roman history reappears in that of St. Cassian of Imola; the fate of Hippolytus torn apart by horses is inserted by Prudentius into the martyrdom of St. Hippolytus; the rescue of Arion by a dolphin is repeated for St. Lucian, and other similar examples could be adduced.
Nor is it permissible to conclude critically that, once the inadmissible, extravagant, and, let us admit it, repugnant elements are removed from such a narrative, what remains can be accepted, for the compiler may have worked from a good framework but may also, in other cases, have borrowed from another document that was readily at hand. Similarly, it has happened that while many panegyrists have resorted to *passiones* to find a way to exalt their heroes, the authors of the *passiones* themselves have drawn on panegyrics to find material for their narratives—this is precisely what occurred in the case of the panegyric of the Forty Martyrs, written by St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nyssa; that of SS. Juventinus and Maximus, composed by St. John Chrysostom; and that of St. Theodore the Recruit, due to St. Gregory of Nyssa.
It is therefore no cause for surprise that sometimes entirely different or nearly identical *passiones* exist for the same person, nor that the same *passio*, passing through different hands, has undergone insertions of episodes, expansions, abridgments, or modifications. This is a subject on which it was considered permissible to proceed with the utmost freedom and lack of critical scruple. It is also attested that in the Carolingian age many *passiones* were rewritten in a more refined style to satisfy a more cultivated taste or to remove glaring anachronisms, and these revisions often went beyond mere form.
It is evident that from this literature, which continued to be produced throughout the Middle Ages, the Church historian can derive no real benefit. The only reliable information that can often be gleaned from it is the place and day of the annual feast celebrated in honor of the martyr or group of martyrs, since the passion was written expressly to glorify them, and the author was able to transmit with certainty, as a conclusion to his generic account, at least this specific and secure indication. As for the indication of the year in which the martyrdom supposedly occurred, the matter was different, because preference was given to some emperor renowned for the severity of his persecution—most often Nero, Decius, or Diocletian, though sometimes, for some strange reason, Hadrian or Numerian were chosen. It is therefore not surprising that this type of literature, both artificial and banal, found favor; it gratified, at little cost, that taste for the marvelous and extraordinary which lies deep in the popular soul, and seemed to satisfy more than exact truth the glorification of the heroes of Christianity. Even today, legendary and romantic tales satisfy more than genuine history.
As for their value, the pious Delehaye rightly wrote: “There is between the historical accounts written under the impression of events and the martyrs’ passions that follow them the same difference as that which we place between the work of an artist and an industrial product” (*Les Passions des Martyrs et les genres littéraires*, Brussels 1921, p. 236).
Studying the immense mass of passions and their rhetorical form, Fr. Delehaye, in the same work, believed he could reduce them to several classes. The first and perhaps most numerous is that in which the martyr appears as the hero of an epic (epic passions): he converts thousands of pagans, topples temples, and smashes idols; he endures the most savage and prolonged torments; with his eloquence he confounds idolatrous judges and priests; and he can die only by the sword, since he himself asks God to grant him at last the eternal joys. A second class consists of passions compiled in the style of Greek adventure novels, rich in intrigues, recognitions, and unexpected encounters; the passion of St. Eustace and his companions is one of the most characteristic examples. A third class comprises passions of a predominantly idyllic and familial character, such as that of St. Cecilia. A fourth class comprises passions with a didactic purpose, such as demonstrating how martyrdom grants complete spiritual rehabilitation even to those who had once apostatized or committed grave sins; or highlighting the value of virginity over the married state; or inculcating the obligation to observe some evangelical precept, such as the forgiveness of enemies (the passion of Nicephorus). Another task of the passions was also to complete in all their parts authentic documents, as was done with the passion of St. Ignatius of Antioch in relation to his letters, or with the account of the life of St. Polycarp as a preparation for the authentic history of his martyrdom.
Following the example of what had been done early on with monastic narratives, in the Middle Ages people began to gather together the passions of the martyrs, though not with the aim of compiling complete and exclusive collections. The *Passionaries* (v.) and the *Synaxaria* (v.), respectively among the Western and Byzantine peoples, did indeed include predominantly the passions of martyrs, but without excluding holy confessors, and being intended for choral reading, they generally selected the passion of the saint whose feast was being celebrated in the church. One may speak in a similar way of other collections made for edifying reading, such as the *Golden Legend* of James of Voragine (v.), archbishop of Genoa in the 13th century; the Chioggia (v.) de Natalibus (v.); in the 14th century, the *Sanctuarium* of Boninus Mombritius (v.), printed in the second half of the 15th century. In the 16th century there LIPPOMANO, LUIGI (v.), bishop of Verona, and that of Laurentius Surius (v.), a German Carthusian monk, assembled with a first concern for historical criticism. A general and complete collection of hagiographical documents is that begun at Louvain in the 17th BOLLANDISTI (v.), which was therefore called the *Bollandists*. However, the first to conceive the idea of sifting through the immense mass of the *Acta* or *Passiones* to identify that group of accounts which could be considered truly historical was the Benedictine monk Thierry Ruinart (v.), with the work published in Paris in 1689, *Acta primorum martyrum sincera et selecta*, in which, after a critical introduction, one hundred and seventeen documents were included, not all of which can truly be called authentic acts and passions; each is accompanied by critical notes from the author himself. Ruinart’s work, which was reprinted several times afterward, received a good Italian translation in four volumes in 1777 by Francesco M. Luchini; it provoked deep discussions and opposition; later criticism eliminated many of those documents while introducing some that came to light later. In any case, together with the *Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire ecclésiastique des six premiers siècles*, published by L. Le Nain de Tillemont in Paris in 1693 and reprinted subsequently, it constitutes the first scientific approach to the evaluation of hagiographical material concerning the ancient martyrs. Alongside the *Acta Sanctorum* of the Bollandists, which continued to collect hagiographical documents, the periodical *Analecta Bollandiana*, begun in 1882, aims to supplement the collection by publishing new texts or republishing texts imperfectly edited in the past, or by accompanying them with critical dissertations.
The bibliography on the *Acta* of the martyrs, considered either as a whole or in relation to the issues arising from the examination and comparison of individual texts, is immense, also thanks to the contrasting theories that have been proposed. A thorough examination is provided in H. Delehaye, *Les passions des Martyrs et les genres littéraires*, Brussels 1921; id., *Sanctus, essai sur le culte des saints dans l'antiquité*, ibid. 1927; id., *Les légendes hagiographiques*, 3rd ed., ibid. 1927 (Italian trans. of 1st ed., Florence 1906); id., *Les origines du culte des Martyrs*, 2nd ed., ibid. 1933; id., *Cinq leçons sur la méthode hagiographique*, ibid. 1934. Precise assessments of the value of the *Acta*, *Passiones*, or *Vitae* of the various saints inscribed in the German and Roman Martyrologies are found in the concise commentaries on them published by Fr. Delehaye and the Bollandist associates.
With regard to Rome and Italy in particular, we may mention the much-debated work of A. Dufourcq, *Étude sur les Gesta martyrum romains*, 6 vols., Paris 1900–1908, which represents an attempt to classify the legends studied in their origins and mutual relationships; H. Delehaye, *Étude sur le
The Roman legendary: the saints of November and December, Brussels 1936; Lanzoni (Studi e Testi, 35) summarizes and completes his previous studies in relation to the legends concerning the ancient episcopal sees. Finally, we recall the works on various particular topics published by P. Franchi de' Cavalieri in his Note Agiografiche, 8 vols., Rome-Città del Vaticano 1923-1935 (Studi e Testi, 8, 9, 22, 24, 27, 33, 49), and in Inghiropoli, Rome 1938 (Studi e Testi, 19). A good manual edition of texts considered authentic is that of R. Knopf, Ausgewählte Märtyrer-akten, 3rd ed. revised by G. Krüger, Tübingen 1929 (cf. Anal. Boll. 48 [1930], pp. 369-71). Useful are the booklets by S. Colombo, Atti dei Martiri, Turin [1928]; C. Gallina, I martiri dei primi secoli, Florence 1940; see also AICIGRAFIA. Pio Paschini
II. A. OF THE EASTERN MARTYRS. — 1. A. Syriac. — Among the Eastern martyrs, the Syriac are the most important for their historical value. Many have already been published by S. E. Assemani, Acta sanctorum martyrum orientalium et occidentalium, Rome 1748 (ASM), by P. Bedjan, Acta martyrum et sanctorum, Paris 1890-97 (AMS) and by the Bollandists both in the Acta SS. and in the Analecta Bollandiana (An. Boll.).
Martyrs of Edessa. — We possess rather unreliable acts, written towards the end of the 4th century, of St. Sarbil, a former pagan priest, and of the bishop St. Barsamjá (ed. AMS, I, 95-130), who were martyred, it seems, under Decius. To the time of Diocletian belong instead St. Gürjá and St. Sémóna (ed. I. Rahmani, Acta sanct. conf. Giuriae et Shamonae, Rome 1899), and the deacon St. Habbit (ed. AMS, I, 144-60), whose acts, written by a certain Theophilus, contain chronological errors and inaccuracies that render them somewhat suspect.
Persian Martyrs. — Before the great persecution of Shapur II, special acts, said to have been written by the witness Isaiah bar Haddábo, report the martyrdom of SS. Bérkíšó' and Jánán in the year 327-28 (ed. ASM, I, 211-24; AMS, II, 39-51), though in a form that raises some doubts.
The persecution of Shapur II, which began in 339-340, struck the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, St. Simeon Barsaba, and many other martyrs. Generally speaking, the acts of this period are substantially historical, written by contemporaries and even by eyewitnesses, and collected partly during the persecution itself and partly towards the end of the 4th century through the efforts of Márúta of Maiferqat. Two collections can be distinguished, the first of which, arranged chronologically, includes the acts of St. Simeon Barsaba (the oldest recension in the ed. O. Kmosko, Patrologia Syriaca, II, Paris 1907, 715-77), of the massacre at Bet Húzájé, of Tarbó, of Sáhdóst, of 111 men and women; of Barba'šmín, of 40 martyrs, of Báde-má, of 'Aqebšémá and of other anonymous martyrs (ed. ASM, I, 1-59; 83-91; 104-20; 141-207; AMS, II, 248-60; 276-81; 291-306; 325-96). The second collection or Passionario of Adiabene offers us, also chronologically, the martyrs of that region (ed. AMS, II, 307-16; IV, 128-41; ASM, I, 121-31. Cf. P. Peeters, An. Boll., 43 [1925], 261 ff.). From this period also date the three martyrs Miles, Baršabjá and Daniel (ed. ASM, I, 60-80; 92-95; AMS, II, 260-75; 281-84), whose acts form a single whole; the bishop Narsai of Sa-hárqad, killed in Bet Garmaj (ed. Acta SS. Novembris, IV, cols. 424-32); a group of prisoners of war martyred in 362 whose account was written 111 years later (ed. ASM, I, 131-39); the martyrs of Karká of Bet Sélok (ed. AMS, II, 284-86); a group of Persian soldiers killed in 350 in Gilán (ed. AMS, II, 166-70); the priest Baddáj of Argúl (ed. AMS, II, 63-65) and a little later 'Abd al-Masih of Singar, known not only from Syriac acts (ed. An. Boll., 5 [1887], 5-52), but also from Armenian and an Arabic version (ed. An. Boll., 44 [1926], 270-341).
which seems closest to the original Syriac. In any case, these documents are accepted with reservations imposed by anachronisms.
From the time of the persecution of Yazdegerd I are the authentic acts of St. 'Abdá and companions (ed. AMS, IV, 250-53), of St. Narsai of Bet Rázíqájé (ed. AMS, IV, 170-80), of St. Sabor (ms. British Museum 7200), of the royal page St. Tátaq (ed. AMS, IV, 181-84) and of a group of 10 martyrs of Bet Garmaj (ed. AMS, IV, 184-88).
Among the acts of the persecution of Bahram V, those historically reliable of Miháršábor (ed. ASM, I, 234-36), of Peroz (ed. AMS, IV, 253-62) and of the notary Ja'qób (ed. AMS, IV, 189-200) contrast with the spurious acts of St. James the Intercisus (ed. AMS, II, 539-558). Those of St. Petion, killed in 447, seem to have had an original contemporary recension (ed. An. Boll., 7 [1889], 8-44).
Finally, from the time of the persecution of Khosrow I, although not written by eyewitnesses, the acts of St. Gregory and St. Yazdpanáh have historical value (ed. P. Bedjan, Histoire de Mar Yahaláha, Paris 1895, 347-451). Greater suspicions are aroused, however, by those of the prince Gabárláhá and his sister Qázó (ed. An. Boll., 9 [1891], 11-103), which show a strange resemblance to the acts of St. Dádu (ed. AMS, IV, 210-21).
Versions from Greek. — Besides the oldest martyrology, composed at Nicomedia by an author probably Arian in the second half of the 4th century and preserved in a Syriac codex of 411 (ed. Nau: PO 10, 2 ff.), there are numerous Greek legends translated into Syriac. Among the versions belonging to the earliest period (end of the 5th, beginning of the 6th century) we recall those of the 40 martyrs of Sebaste (ed. AMS, II, 355-75), of SS. Cosmas and Damian (ed. AMS, VI, 107-19), of St. Pantaleon and companions (ms. British Mus. 944; Vatic. Syr. 461), of St. Babylas and others. The Jacobites later continued these translations.
2. A. Armenian. — They have not yet been the object of systematic and critical study, a task made difficult by the lack of translations of the abundant material, much of which has been published by the Mechitarist Fathers of Venice especially in the Vitae et passiones sanctorum, Venice 1874 (VP) and in the Sanctorum acta plenior, I-IX, XII, Venice 1810-13; XI, 1814, by J. B. Aucher. Alishan in the Biblioteca armena, Venice 1853-61, also collects abundant material. I. Manandian-Adjarian, Valarsapat 1903, has published the acts of modern martyrs from 1115 to 1843.
The Armenians have translated many Greek and Latin legends, such as those of St. Antimus of Nicomedia (VP, I, 113-34), of St. Blaise of Sebaste (VP, II, 382-89) and many others. Often, however, the Armenian translations are made directly from the Syriac. Among the Syriac acts preserved today only in the Armenian version we may cite those of the Persian martyr under Khosrow I, St. Izbozet (Acta SS. Novembris, IV, 200-16).
The most important for their originality are the acts that refer to Armenian martyrs. Here are those published so far: Atom and companions under Yazdegerd II (Aucher, Sanctorum acta, II, 86-87); David of Dun (d. 693; ed. Bibl. arm., XIX, 85-96); Isaac and Hamazasp (d. 785-86; Bibl. arm., XII, 61-80); Joseph of Karni (d. c. 1808; VP, II, 266-71); the martyrs of Oski (d. 130; ed. Bibl. arm., XIX, 59-66); the virgins Rhipsime and Gaiana of the 3rd century, to whom the pseudo-Moses of Khoren dedicated a panegyric (ed. Venice 1843, pp. 304-25); St. Sanducht of the 1st century (Bibl. arm., VIII, 77-83); Sukhias, Luciano and Polemon in Lesser Armenia (d. 107; Bibl. arm., XIX, 33-56); the virgin Susanik (d. 458; ed. Bibl. arm., IX, 11-47), of whom there exists a Georgian passion translated by P. Peeters (An. Boll., 53 [1935], 5-49; 245-308); St. Theodore Salahunio, 3rd century (Alishan, Eclogarii ex Armeniae historia, I, Venice 1901, 175-79) and St. Vardan with his companions (d. c. 454; ed. Mechiarists, Venice 1893). Critical judgment on these acts cannot be uniform. They range from empty legends devoid of value to contemporary documents worthy of belief. The Armenian Synaxarion of Ter Israel has already been published in PO 6, 181-355; 345-556.
### A. Georgian
They largely depend on Armenian literature and therefore offer a double interest. In the field of translations, in which the great translator SEITH (end of the 8th, beginning of the 9th century) stands out, we note the collection of lives and passions compiled by him (26 are known, all unpublished except for the life of St. Agatangelus of Damascus, ed. by C. Kekelidze, in *Christianity Vostok*, 4 [1916], fasc. III). Imitators of Seith were, in the 10th century, DAVID OF THETHI, and in the 12th century, a certain THEOPHILUS, whose works were partly published by C. Kekelidze in *Monumenta Haigiorg. Georgica*, I, Tiflis 1918 (vol. II appeared in 1946).
Among the Georgian versions, besides those mentioned above, we find the martyrdom of the 9 children of Kola, killed in the 6th century and described in a document that seems to date from the 8th century. It is contained in codex "policefalo" no. 57 of the Iberian Convent of Mount Athos. Moreover, the passion of St. Theodore and companions has been published (*An. Boll.*, 44 [1926], 70-102).
Of the martyrs properly Georgian, the following are treated:
1° A fine 12th-century account of the protomartyr St. RAIDENI, who died in the 5th century (ed. Sabinin, *Il paradiso della Georgia*, St. Petersburg 1882, pp. 169-80; Lat. vers. *An. Boll.*, 33 [1915], 294-317); the narrative goes back to ancient sources.
2° JOANÉ SABANISZDE, who in the 8th-9th century describes the martyrdom of St. ABO OF TIflIS (d. 780-90; ed. M. Brosset, *Vite dei santi georgiani*, pp. 321-41);
3° STEPHEN OF THETHI, who at the beginning of the 10th century narrates the martyrdom of St. GORBONI.
These two contemporary authors are of great historical value. Other martyrs killed by the Aršbi are recalled in later memories (cf. M. Brosset, *Catalogue des livres géorgiens*, p. 141).
The Georgian Synaxarion or Martyrology has been published by N. Marrin in *PO* 19, 5 ff. See also GEORGIA (literature).
### A. Coptic
Besides the Coptic Synaxarion, composed in Arabic at the beginning of the 15th century (ed. *Corpus Scriptorum Christ. Orientalium. Scriptores arabici*, 3rd series, XVIII, Paris 1905) and which mentions the Egyptian martyrs, there also exist ancient *Acta martyrum* written in Coptic. Some are known only from Arabic or Ethiopic versions. Fr. Delehaye (*Les martyrs d'Égypte*, in *An. Boll.*, 40 [1922], 5-154; 299-352) has made a historical and literary critique of this material.
Derived largely from Greek sources, the Coptic passions offer little or nothing to the historian. Fantasy, often in poor taste, pervades them all, elaborating certain types or cycles of martyrs that are then adapted as false figures of various saints. Thus there is the cycle of Basilides or of Diocletian and that of Julius of Aqfas. The martyrs are generally attributed to the time of Diocletian. It is not worth listing all this mediocre literature by name.
The Coptic *Acta martyrum* have been published especially by Hyvernat and Balestri in *Corpus Scriptorum Christian. Orientalium. Scriptores Copt.*, by Winstedt (*Coptic Texts of St. Theodore*), by von Lemm (*Bruchstücke koptischer Martyrerakten*, in *Memorie dell'Acc. di Pietroburgo*, 8th series, XII), by W. Budge (*Coptic Martyrdoms in the Dialect of Upper Egypt*, London 1914), by W. Crum (*Anecdota Oxoniensia*, Semitic series, XII, 1913), and by W. Till (*Koptische Heiligen- und Martyrelegenden*, in *Orientalia Christiana. Analecta*, nos. 102 [Rome 1935] and 108 [ibid. 1936]).
### A. Ethiopic
These refer almost always to versions from the Coptic. Pereira has published a good part of them in *Corpus Scriptorum Christ. Orientalium. Scriptores aethiopici*, 2nd series, XXVIII. These are versions of uncertain date, prior to the 16th century, and of almost no historical interest. The same may be said of other versions discussed by I. Guidi in *Storia della letteratura etiopica*, Rome 1932, pp. 32-34.