NARCISSUS. - A figure from whom a group takes its name that St. Paul greets in Rom. 16:11: "those of the household of N. (τοὺς ἐκ τῶν Ναρκίασου), who are in the Lord," that is, Christians. The name of N. was common among slaves and freedmen (cf. CIL, VI, 4123-4346. 5206. 22875).
Thus was also named a freedman, formerly the all-powerful minister of Claudius, driven to suicide by Agrippina shortly after Nero's accession to the throne (Tacitus, Ann., XIII, 1; Cassius Dio, LX, 34). Once his property and household had passed to the State, the slaves would have retained the appellation of "those of N." or Narcissiani (cf. Maccenatiani: CIL, VI, 4016, 4032; Amyotiani, ibid., 4035; elsewhere Agrippini, Germaniciani, etc.). For the two inscriptions of the 2nd century in the cemetery of Domitilla, in which the name of N. appears alongside other names of the Neronian family, cf. O. Marucchi, Le catacombe romane, Rome 1933, pp. 162 ff., 168, note 2.
Pseudo-Hippolytus (De LXX Apostolis, 30: PG 10, 955) makes N. one of the 72 disciples and bishop of Athens. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 31 Oct. as martyred in Rome with Urban and Ampliatus (cf. Acta SS. Octobris, XIII, Paris 1883, pp. 678-98).
Bibliography4 worksW. Sanday-A. C. Headlam, A critical and exegetical commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 3rd ed., Edinburgh 1902, reprint 1945, p. 425 f.
BIBL.: W. Sanday-A. C. Headlam, A critical and exegetical commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 3rd ed., Edinburgh 1902, reprint 1945, p. 425 f.; A. C. Headlam, s. v. in Dict. of the Bible, III, p. 487; F. X. Pölzl, Die Mitarbeiter des Weltapostels Paulus, Regensburg 1911, pp. 405-10; R. Cornely, Epistola ad Romanus, 2nd ed., Paris 1927, p. 777 f.
Teodorico da Castel S. Pietro. “Narcisso.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VIII, coll. 1647–1648. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1952. https://azioneromana.com/article/narcisso.
MLA
Teodorico da Castel S. Pietro. “Narcisso.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VIII, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1952, coll. 1647–1648. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/narcisso.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec8_narcisso,
author = {Teodorico da Castel S. Pietro},
title = {Narcisso},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {VIII},
pages = {1647--1648},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1952},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/narcisso}
}
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