Pantænus: his mission to India. inconveniences and risks of so anomalous a separation came to an end; and the delay between the vacancy of the see and the appointment of a new prelate ceased to be a necessity. With the death of Shachlupha a gloom of eighty years settles down on the history of the see of Seleucia. The political circumstances of that city may in great part account for this silence. The capital of the Macedonian conquests, it had a population of six hundred thousand citizens, and formed an independent government, under a senate of three hundred nobles, in the very heart of the Parthian empire. In the wars of Aurelius' it opened its gates to the Roman generals: in base violation of treaties it was sacked and burnt; and three hundred thousand of the citizens fell victims in a general massacre. From this blow it never recovered: and Ctesiphon, previously a dangerous rival, now succeeded to its wealth and importance. In the same war, Edessa, of which we shall have more to say in the sequel, was wrested from the feeble grasp of its native princes, and became a constituent portion of the Roman empire. 44. But in these obscure times the first light breaks in on the vast peninsula of India. Pantænus, who had taught Christian philosophy with no small reputation at Alexandria under S. Julian, bishop of that see, conceived the idea of preaching the Gospel to the Indians. It is said that a deputation of Brahmins requested from S. Demetrius, successor of S. Julian, a missionary, and that the philosopher was nominated by that prelate to the arduous task. He undertook the task; and found, it is said, that S. Matthew's Gospel, in Hebrew, was not unknown to the Indians, and that it had been introduced to them by the preaching of S. Bartholomew. It gives us but small reason to admire the zeal of Pantænus, when we find that, after having laboured some years in that evangelical field, he returned to the literary ease and philosophic indulgence of Alexandria. Not by such apostles has the Catholic Faith been livingly and substantially propagated. 1 Eutropius, VIII. 10; Dion. 71. XXXII. 4. S. Hieronym.. Epist. ad 45. The episcopate of Alexander was eminently beneficial to the Church of Jerusalem. We read of a library', founded by his care, and possessing, in the days of Eusebius, a rich treasure of ecclesiastical writings. In remarkable contrast with the shortlived rule of his predecessors, he occupied the episcopal throne thirty-eight years. A few fragments of his epistles remain, as if to make us sensible of the injury which we have sustained from the loss of his works. In that dreadful persecution of Decius, when it seemed as if the elect, were it possible, must fall away, he confessed with great constancy at Cæsarea. Neither the weakness of his Martyrdom old age, nor the tortures of the persecutor, had any other ander, A.D. effect than to cover the venerable prelate with honour, and to magnify, through him, the name of his LORD. The Menæa tell us that he was exposed, in the theatre of Cæsarea, to the wild beasts: that his prayer was, "LORD, if it be Thy pleasure that my life is to end now, Thy will be done:" and that the animals let loose against him licked his feet, and crouched down before him. Cast into prison, he thence departed to his reward, and though not actually undergoing a violent death is most rightly reckoned' among the martyrs. His successor was Mazabanes 5. of S. Alex 249. Maza- Jerusalem 46. S. Asclepiades presided over the church of Antioch XXXV. of only eight years; and was succeeded by Philetus. After an A.D. 250. episcopate of eleven years, he was followed by Zebennus ;and he, after ruling the Church eight years, by the more famous S. Babylas. These catalogues of dates and names, Patr. XIII. 1 Euseb. H E. vi. 20. 2 They have been published by Gallandius, Biblioth. Tom. II. 301: and by Routh, Reliquiæ, II. 159. 3 Euseb. H. E. vi. 46, where the historian is quoting a letter of S. Dionysius of Alexandria to S. Cornelius of Rome. 4 By the Latins he is celebrated on March 18: by the Greeks on Dec. 12 (Papebroch, by a misprint, I suppose, and Le Quien copying him, say the 22d). His stichos is: ὁ ̓Αλέξανδρος εἰς ἦν τῶν θυηπόλων, ἄνευ αἵματος εἷς ὢν καὶ τῶν Μαρτύρων. 5 The fragments of S. Alexander's writings are given by Dr Routh in his Reliquiæ Sacræ, Vol. II. p. 165179. They consist of a few sentences of his Epistles to the Antiochenes, to the Antinoites, to Origen, and to S. Demetrius of Alexandria. 6 Baronius has reckoned S. Asclepiades among the martyrs; but it would seem without sufficient reason. Tillemont, Vol. 1. p. 648. S. Babylas, of Antioch. Martyrdom of S. Baby A.D. 251. wearisome to the writer to enumerate, more wearisome to the reader to peruse, what deeds of honour do they not, in all likelihood, contain! what noble confessions! what acts of faith and patience! written, indeed, in the Book of Life, but unrecorded by the Church militant! It may easily be that the first two centuries and a half was the period in which Antioch brought forth a more abundant harvest than in all the other ages of her existence together: and yet how brief the mention of the former, compared with the detailed extent of baneful prosperity or beneficial reverses, of heresies, schisms, and divisions in the latter. 47. In his pontificate of fourteen years S. Babylas saw las, Jan. 24, Antioch taken by the Persians. If we are to believe the account of S. Chrysostom, that the emperor Philip was put by him to public penance, we should have an action of heroism which might vie with the courage which S. Ambrose displayed in his treatment of Theodosius after the massacre of Thessalonica. It is not to be wondered at that the eloqence of S. Chrysostom should have been excited by the acts of this noble-minded prelate: but even in his time the actual facts of his history were so much corrupted that already a considerable degree of obscurity hung over them. After fourteen years pontificate, S. Babylas was honoured with confessing the name of CHRIST; whether by death in prison, or by actual martyrdom, it is impossible to affirm with certainty. Eusebius clearly asserts the former: S. Chrysostom is no less positive that the saint was dragged from the prison into which he had been thrown and beheaded. It would seem more probable—however much we might wish to believe the other account that Eusebius is right: and that S. Chrysostom, misled as he certainly is in part by falsified memoirs, mistook the term martyr, -applied in those early ages more vaguely, as if our prelate had actually suffered death for CHRIST's sake. With him, either in the prison, or in the amphitheatre, suffered three children, whom the Latin martyrologies name Urbanus, Prilidianus, and Epulonius. Meletius, who was bishop of Mopsuestia about 430, wishes for the courage of that child, seven years old, who suffered with S. Babylas1. The dying request of the bishop, to have the chains of his imprisonment interred with him, seems well authenticated. We shall have occasion, at a later period, to speak of the removal of his relics from the grove of Daphne, and the world-famous miracle which accompanied that event. And the Menæa thus celebrate him: 3 Himself the Lord's anointed, who of old To GOD's Anointed Son his mortal frame 48. S. Babylas having thus accomplished his course, Fabius was chosen his successor in the widowed Church. It was to him that S. Dionysius of Alexandria addressed the celebrated letter on the effects of the Decian persecution, which I have given at length in my history of that Church. He was however involved in a longer and more important correspondence. The schism of Novatus and Novatian had broken out at Rome; and it was of the greatest importance 1 S. Babylas is celebrated by the Eastern Church on the 4th of September with the three children who are mentioned in Western Martyrologies. The Menology says of him, but with manifest incorrectness, "Who when the Emperor Numerianus entered into his own church, drove him therefrom, on account of his having put to death the son of the Persian king whom he held as a hostage. Wherefore, he was bound in iron fetters, was publicly mocked, and had his head struck off with the three children." But on the same day they keep the Festival of another S. Babylas, a teacher at Antioch, who is said to have suffered with eightyfour of his scholars under Galerius, who was present at the martyrdom. The account, which is very long, seems of later date, and altogether uncertain. The story of the three children is confirmed by S. Chrysos tom, who, in an Antiochean story, has more than usual authority; by Suidas, and by the Arian historian Philostorgius. The testimony of Meletius is to be seen in the Epistolæ of Christianus Lupus, page 355. 2 Bollandus, under the 24 of January, gives three lives of S. Babylas; of which Tillemont very truly says, that "the first, which is the most simple, is the best, or rather the least bad." This depreciatory criticism highly offends the Bollandist Boschius, who in his Chronological History of the Antiochene patriarchs, endeavours, but not very successfully, to defend their authenticity. 3 He is called by Ruffinus, Fabian; by Eutychius and S. Jerome, Flavian by Georgius Syncellus, sometimes by one name, sometimes by the other; by S. Nicephorus of C. P. and the Chronicon Alexandrinon, Flavius. S. Demetrian, Patr. 2 to S. Cornelius, the canonically-elected bishop of that see, to obtain the support of the most influential prelates in his struggle. Fabius, from whatever cause, had imbibed1 a prejudice in favour of Novatus, and Cornelius in a series of four letters, fragments of which are preserved by Eusebius, set forth at length the history of the schism. S. Dionysius of Alexandria also addressed the bishop of Antioch; and though the latter does not seem to have acted decidedly against the party of Novatus, he, at all events, convoked a synod at Antioch for the discussion and settlement of the question. Deprecating, as I always would do, the introduction of controversy into pure history, I cannot but observe that the ipse dixit of the Roman pontiff did not satisfy the Church of Antioch; and that, as many a council assembled in Rome to discuss the affairs of other bishoprics, here an Eastern synod was convened to take into consideration the internal dissensions of Italy. The letter which invited Dionysius3 of Alexandria to attend this council was subscribed by Helenus bishop of Tarsus, as one of the chief suffragans of Antioch, by Theoctistus of Cæsarea, whom we have already seen engaged in the Quartodeciman controversy, and by S. Firmilian of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, whom we shall hereafter find one of the most distinguished supporters of the Eastern dogma on the subject of re-baptism. By the same letter, however, he received intelligence of the death of Fabius, who had held the episcopate for less than two years. He is described as a man of spirit and courage, as indeed his acceptance of the throne yet reeking as it were with the blood of Babylas, proves him to have been: but neither by the East nor by the West is he reckoned among the saints. 49. The convocation of the Council was probably felt to XV. of Ant. be a cause why the vacant see should be filled up without loss of time. Demetrian, a priest of Antioch, succeeded: A.D. 252. 1 Eusebius expressly says so: ÙTOκατακλινομένῳ πῶς τῷ σχίσματι. Η.Ε. VI. 44: words which I cannot conceive why Valesius should omit in his translation. 2 They are given in H. E. vi. 43. See also S. Nicephorus, vi. 3. 3 Euseb. H. E. vi. 46. 4 Euseb. H. E. vi. 46. |