hatsoff

Hi, all. I have two questions concerning the Martyrdom of Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonice. Firstly, where can I find an English translation of the shorter and longer recensions? The second question requires some preamble...

One of the footnotes to CCEL's online version of Eusebius' Church History reads thusly:

A detailed account of the martyrdoms of Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonice is extant in numerous mss., and has been published more than once. It has, however, long been recognized as spurious and entirely untrustworthy. But in 1881 Aubè published in the Revue Archæologique (Dec., p. 348 sq.) a shorter form of the Acts of these martyrs, which he had discovered in a Greek ms. in the Paris Library. There is no reason to doubt that these Acts are genuine and, in the main, quite trustworthy. The longer Acts assign the death of these martyrs to the reign of Decius, and they have always been regarded as suffering during that persecution. Aubè, in publishing his newly discovered document, still accepted the old date; but Zahn, upon the basis of the document which he had also seen, remarked in his Tatian’s Diatessaron (p. 279) that Eusebius was correct in assigning these martyrdoms to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and Lightfoot (I. p. 625) stated his belief that they are to be assigned either to that reign or to the reign of Septimius Severus. In 1888 Harnack (Texte und Unters. III. 4) published a new edition of the Acts from the same ms. which Aubè had used, accompanying the text with valuable notes and with a careful discussion of the age of the document. He has proved beyond all doubt that these martyrs were put to death during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and that the shorter document which we have contains a genuine account related by an eye-witness. These are evidently the Acts which Eusebius had before him. In the spurious account Carpus is called a bishop, and Papylus a deacon. But in the shorter account they are simply Christians, and Papylus informs the judge that he is a citizen of Thyatira.

Eusebius apparently did not include the account of these martyrs in his collection of Ancient Martyrdoms, and Harnack concludes from that that he found in it something that did not please him, viz. the fanaticism of Agathonice, who rashly and needlessly rushes to martyrdom, and the approval of her conduct expressed by the author of the Acts. We are reminded of the conduct of the Phrygian Quintus mentioned in the epistle of the Smyrnæans but in that epistle such conduct is condemned.

(emphasis added)

--link

Marcus Aurelius ruled from 161 to 180 CE. Yet the Catholic encyclopedia tells a different story:

Eusebius of Cæsarea (Hist. eccl., IV, 15, 48), mentions the martyrs Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonice, executed in March, 250.

--link

The first link has the source mentioned. Hist. eccl., IV, 15, 48 reads:

And there are also records extant of others that suffered martyrdom in Pergamus, a city of Asia,—of Carpus and Papylus, and a woman named Agathonice, who, after many and illustrious testimonies, gloriously ended their lives.

No date was given in the surrounding text.

So, what is the explanation for this variance?

Thanks in advance!
--hatsoff

DCHindley

I guess it is because the longer (Latin?) version dates itself to 250 CE. However, the shorter Greek text gives circumstances that would have to have occurred before 215 CE, when Thyatira gained the right to hold its own tribunals. Prior to then they had to send cases to Pergamum (?) for trial, as is the case with the Greek version. Modern critical editors such as A. V. Harnack and T. Zahn, held it to have been written in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and hence the earlier proposed date. Isn't this also the date suggested by Eusebius?

DCH

andrewcriddle

Book IV ch 15 of Eusebius is indeed about martyrdoms under Marcus Aurelius. However Pionius mentioned in section 47 just before Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonice in 48 seems in reality to have suffered c 250 CE. So Eusebius is somewhat confused here.

Andrew Criddle

Roger Pearse

I don't really know my way around martydoms, but I don't know whether these have been translated into English. (We take translations for granted, but in reality getting them made is not trivial).

You might look in "The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (or via: amazon.co.uk)" by Musurillo, although I have never looked at it.