PIONIUS. - He suffered martyrdom at Smyrna on the day of the feast (natale) of Polycarp, according to the Martyrdom of P. in the persecution of Decius; according to Eusebius, in the times of Marcus Aurelius. Eusebius, who speaks of P. in his Hist. eccl., IV, 15, 46, 47, had included the Martyrdom of P. in his collection of the most ancient martyrdoms. Acts of P. have been preserved in Greek, Latin, Slavonic and Armenian. A critical edition of the text is lacking. The Martyrdom seems to be based in part on information from P. himself. The martyr P. is not to be confused with the Pionius of whom an addition to the Martyrdom of Polycarp (v.) speaks and who was perhaps not only the editor of two recensions of the Martyrdom of Polycarp, but also the author of a life of Polycarp of scant historical value. Feast, in the Byzantine church on 11 March; in the Roman Martyrology on 1 February.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: the Greek text of the Martyrdom of P. in O. v. Gebhardt, Acta martyrum selecta, Leipzig 1902, p. 96 ff.; reprinted in R. Knopf-G. Krüger, Ausgewählte Märtyrer-Akten, 3rd ed., Tübingen 1920, p. 45 ff. On the belonging of the Martyrdom of P. to the collection of Eusebius, v. A. Ehrhard, Überlieferung und Bestand der hagiographischen und homiletischen Literatur der griechischen Kirche (Texte und Untersuchungen, 50), Leipzig 1936, p. 1 ff.; H. Delehaye, Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires, Brussels 1921, p. 28 ff., who also refutes the theories of Ed. Schwartz, De Pionio et Polycarpo, Göttingen 1905; v. also C. Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu mit seinen Jüngern, Leipzig 1919, pp. 705-725. On the Latin translation of the Martyrdom of P. v. A. Siegmund, Überlieferung der griechischen christlichen Literatur in der lateinischen Kirche, Munich 1949, p. 205, 223.

Erik Peterson

@incollection{ec9_pionio, author = {Peterson, Erik}, title = {Pionio}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IX}, pages = {1554--1555}, 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/pionio} }

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