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Acts of Sts Carpus, Papylus and Agathonica

tr. Owen, 1927

carpus

WHILE the proconsul was in residence at Pergamus¹ there were brought to him the blessed Carpus and Papylus, martyrs of Christ. The proconsul having taken his seat on the tribunal said: ‘What is your name?’

The blessed one answered: ‘My first and chosen name is Christian,² but, if you wish for my name in the world, Carpus.

The proconsul said: ‘The commands of the Augusti are certainly known to you that you must both worship the gods who govern the world; wherefore I counsel you both to come forward and sacrifice.’

Carpus said: ‘I am a Christian, I worship Christ, the son of God, who came in the latter times for our salvation and delivered us from the deceit of the devil, and to such idols I sacrifice not. Do what you please, for it is impossible for me to sacrifice to counterfeit presentments³ of demons; for they who sacrifice to them are like them. For as the “true worshippers”—those who, according to the divine teaching of our Lord, “worship God in spirit and in truth”⁴—are made like to the glory of God and are with Him immortal, partaking of the eternal life through the Word,⁵ so also those who serve these are made like to the vanity⁶ of the demons and perish with them in hell. For they are justly punished along with him who deceived man, the chosen creature of God, with him, I mean the Devil, who by his own wickedness provoked the demons thereto.⁷ Wherefore be assured, O proconsul, that I do not sacrifice to these.’

The proconsul said in anger: ‘Sacrifice both of you to the gods and do not play the fool.’

Carpus replied with a smile: ‘Perish the gods⁸ that have not made the heaven and the earth!’

The proconsul said: ‘You must sacrifice: for so the Emperor commanded.’

Carpus answered: ‘The living do not sacrifice to the dead.’

The proconsul said: ‘Do the gods seem to you to be dead?’

Carpus said: ‘Would you hear the answer? These were never even men, nor ever lived, that they should die. Do you wish to learn that this is true? Take away from them your homage which you suppose they receive at your hands, and you shall know they are nothing,⁹ things of the earth earthy and destroyed by time. For our God who is timeless and made the ages Himself remains indestructible and everlasting, being ever the same and admitting neither of increase nor of decrease, but these are made by men and destroyed, as I said, by time. And do not marvel that they give oracles and deceive. For the Devil, having fallen in the beginning from his place of glory, would fain by his own villainy make of none effect the fatherly love¹⁰ of God for man, and being hard pressed by the Saints contends with them and prepares wars beforehand and by forecast announces them to his own. Likewise also from the things that happen to us daily he, being more ancient than the years, by his experience¹¹ foretells the future evil which he himself intends to do. For by the decree of God¹² knowledge as well as wickedness are his, and by God’s permission he tempts man, seeking to turn him from holiness. Be convinced therefore, O consular,¹³ that ye are living in no small folly.’

The proconsul said: ‘By suffering much idle prate from you I have led you to blaspheme the gods and the Augusti. So that it go no further with you, will you sacrifice? or what have you to say?’

Carpus answered: ‘It is impossible for me to sacrifice, for I have never sacrificed to idols.’

So he at once ordered him to be hung up and scraped.¹⁴ Carpus cried out: ‘I am a Christian.’ And after this torture had gone on for a long time, he was worn out and could speak no more.

So the proconsul, letting Carpus be, turned to Papylus, saying to him: ‘Are you a councillor?’¹⁵

And he answered: ‘I am a citizen.’

The proconsul said: ‘A citizen of what city?’

Papylus answered: ‘Of Thyatira.’¹⁶

The proconsul said: ‘Have you any children?’

Papylus answered: ‘Yes, and many of them, thanks be to God!’

And one of the crowd shouted out saying: ‘He means that some of the Christians are his children after his faith.’¹⁷

The proconsul said: ‘Why do you lie, saying that you have children?’

Papylus answered: ‘Would you learn that I do not lie, but speak the truth? In every district and city I have children in God.’

The proconsul said: ‘Will you sacrifice? or what have you to say?’

Papylus answered: ‘I have served God from my youth up, and I have never sacrificed to idols, but am a Christian, and you cannot hear more from me than this; for there is nothing greater or nobler than this for me to say.’

And he also was hung up and three times scraped with two instruments of torture at once, yet uttered no sound, but as a noble athlete withstood the wrath of the Enemy.¹⁸

The proconsul seeing their exceeding patience ordered them to be burnt alive; and descending they both hasted to the amphitheatre, that they might be rid quickly of the world. Papylus was first to be nailed to the stake¹⁹ and lifted up, and on the fire’s approach he prayed and gave up his soul in peace. And Carpus being nailed after him smiled on them; and the bystanders were astonished and said to him: ‘What made you laugh?’ And the blessed said: ‘I saw the glory of the Lord, and I was glad, and at the same time I was rid of you, and have no part in your misdeeds.’ When the soldier piled up the wood and lit it the sainted Carpus said as he hung: ‘We too were born of the same mother Eve and have the same flesh as you, but looking to the Judgement-seat of Truth let us endure all.’ When he had said this, on the fire’s approach, he prayed saying: ‘Blessed art Thou, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, because Thou didst deem me also the sinner worthy of this part in Thee!’ And having said this he gave up his soul.

A certain Agathonica standing and beholding the glory of the Lord, which Carpus said that he had seen, and perceiving the invitation to be from heaven, straightway lifted up her voice: ‘This dinner hath been prepared²⁰ for me; of this glorious dinner therefore I must needs partake and eat.’

But the people cried out, saying: ‘Have pity on your son.’

The blessed Agathonica²¹ said: ‘He hath God Who can have pity on him, for He is the Protector²² of all; but I wherefore I am come’²³ . . . . and having put off her outer garments, she cast herself upon the stake rejoicing. But those who saw it bewailed, saying: ‘Terrible sentence, unjust orders!’ And being lifted up, when she felt the fire touch her, she cried out thrice, saying: ‘Lord, Lord,²⁴ Lord help me, for I flee unto Thee.’

And so she gave up the ghost, and was perfected²⁵ with the Saints, whose remains the Christians secretly took up and carefully guarded to the glory of Christ and the praise of His Martyrs, because to Him belong glory and power, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen.

Notes

Pergamus: the chief city of the province of Asia.
name is Christian: I am a Christian: cf. Letter of Churches of Vienne and Lyons, ch. 20, where Sanctus answers to all questions, ‘I am a Christian,’ and confesses this instead of name and city and race and everything.
counterfeit presentments. S. Carpus’s view of the heathen gods is that they are ‘counterfeit (κιβδήλοις, properly used of coins) presentments of demons’. They have no existence (v. §§ 15, 16); there are no such beings as Jupiter, Apollo and the rest. But the demons or evil spirits are real, and these, working under the names of the gods, deceive men, having been themselves corrupted and incited to wickedness by the Devil, the Great Deceiver. So S. Augustine, City of God, ii. 4, speaks of ‘unclean spirits that thus illude men under the names of Gods’.
in spirit and in truth: John iv. 23.
eternal life through the Word: cf. John i. 4, iii. 15, &c.
vanity: ματαιότης. This and the adj. μάταιος are specially used of idols as vain, unreal, useless; v. Acts xiv. 15, ‘We . . . preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God.’ Cf. Jer. ii. 5, Lev. xvii. 7, &c.
thereto: i.e. to wickedness, or, more probably, to the deception of man. The words ‘the demons’ are not found in the text. If they are omitted the object must be ‘men’; but the Greek word for provoked παραζηλώσαντος is more naturally used of provoking other spirits to emulation than of tempting humanity, his dupes, cf. the use of the same word in Rom. x. 19, and xi. 11.

The beginning of this sentence is translated by Mason ‘For just vengeance is taken of him, &c.’ but it is very difficult to render μετά here as anything but ‘with’ (δίκη . . . δικαία ἐστὶν μετὰ τοῦ πλανήσαντος), and so Harnack, who suggests that one reason why S. Carpus speaks so much of the Devil is that he is a native of Pergamus, ‘where Satan’s seat is’. (Rev. ii. 13.)
Perish the gods, &c.: Jer. x. 11.
know they are nothing: v. note on p. 43, l. 2.
fatherly love: στοργή a beautiful word, specially used of parental love. It is never used in the New Testament, where the usual word for love, whether of God or man, is ἀγάπη. I have taken my translation of it from Mason.
by his experience: ἀποπειράσας. So Mason translates it. Till I looked at him, I had translated it ‘making conjecture of the things that shall happen’, and I think this is possible, and more in accordance with the ordinary usage of the word, but not so good here. Harnack agrees with Mason.
For by the decree of God, &c.: ἔχει γὰρ ἐκ τῆς ἀποφάσεως τοῦ θεόν τὴν ἀδικίαν, ⟨καὶ⟩ τὸ εἰδέναι: καὶ is not in the text, there are two words with the same form ἀπόφασις (1) meaning denial, (2) a judicial sentence. Mason translating the text (without the καὶ) renders ‘By his denial of God he has gained a knowledge of unrighteousness’. But τὴν ἀδικίαν τὸ εἰδέναι seems a very odd order, and the sense is not what is wanted here: whereas it is to the point to urge that the Devil, though fallen, retains his angelic intelligence, and so Harnack.
Consular: ὑπατικέ, a man who has held the office of consul.
hung up and scraped. This torture is described in the Life of S. Pamphilus by Eusebius, ch. v, ‘scraping of the sides, and rubbing of the scraped parts with rough cloths of goat’s wool’: cf also Tert. Apol. xii, Passio S. Bonifacii, § 9, and Le Blant, Actes des Martyrs, p. 166, where a number of other examples are given.
councillor: i.e. a member of the town-council, a ‘decurio’.
Thyatira: one of the Seven Cities of the Book of Revelation, in the Province of Asia, some 40 or 50 miles due N. of Sardis.
after his faith: cf. 1 Cor. iv. 15, ‘In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel’; Tit. i. 4, ‘To Titus, mine own son after the common faith’; cf. Philemon 10, 1 Pet. v. 13. Duchesne, however (Early Hist. of the Church, Eng. Trans., p. 193 note), compares Matt. xii. 48-50; in that case S. Papylus will mean Christians generally, not his own disciples. But the word ‘children’, in conjunction with the other passages, shows, I think, that he refers to disciples, cf. note on p. 66, l. 13.
the Enemy: Satan, which has the same meaning in Hebrew.
nailed to the stake. The nails were not driven through the hands and feet, as in crucifixion, but attached to chains or ropes by which the sufferer was bound to the stake; cf. Martyrdom of S. Polycarp, xiii, and note there.
dinner hath been prepared: Matt. xxii. 4 (cf. Luke xiv. 15).
Martyrdom of Agathonica. Duchesne (v. note on p. 44, l. 32) points out, and Mason agrees, that the account here is incomplete. ‘From the only manuscript remaining, the martyrdom of S. Agathonica would appear to have been in reality suicide; nevertheless, the spectators exclaim: “Sad judgements! Unjust orders!” Clearly S. Agathonica had been condemned like the other two, and part of the text is here missing.’ The Christians disapproved of those who courted martyrdom, v. Martyrdom of S. Polycarp, iv, and note on p. 33, l. 4.
Protector: προνοητής, ‘He who provides’.
am come . . . . I know three examples of this rare construction, which I regard as elliptical—(1) this passage ἐφ᾽ ὃ πάρειμι, (Let me do that) for which I am come; (2) Matt. xxvi. 50 ἐφ᾽ ὃ πάρει (Do that) for which thou art come (R.V. etc.); (3) an inscription of the first century on a beaker (kindly communicated by a reader), εὐφραίνου ἐφ᾽ ὃ πάρει. Enjoy yourself. (Do that) for which you are here. Others translate all three passages as questions—(1) Wherefore am I here? (Harnack); (2) Wherefore art thou come? (A.V., one Syr. vers., Harnack); (3) What are you here for? The objection, in my opinion fatal, to this view is that the relative ὃς is never used in Greek (except possibly illiterate Greek) as an interrogative (v. Lobeck Phryn., p. 57, Moulton Gr. of N.T. Greek, p. 93).
Lord, Lord, &c.: Ps. cxliii. 9 ‘Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies: for I flee unto Thee to hide me.’
perfected: v. note on p. 69, l. 26.