Fragmentary 6th-century calendar, written in Gothic, most probably in Italy, naming saints whose feasts were celebrated by the Homoian ('Arian') Church of the Goths in late October and November.
Evidence ID
E01137
Type of Evidence
Liturgical texts - Calendars and martyrologies
Gothic calendar (fragments)
kg¯ þize ana Gutpiadai managaize marytre yah Friþareik[eik]eis
kþ¯ gaminþi marytre þize bi Werekan papan yah Batwin bilaif.
aikklesyons fullaizos ana Gutþiadai gabrannidai
g¯ Kustantei[n]us þiudanis
q¯ Dauriþaius aipiskaupaus [MS aipisks]
ie¯ Filippaus apaustaulus ïn Yairupulai
iþ¯ þize alþyane [MS alþanoine] ïn Bairauyai, m. samana
kþ¯ Andriins apaustaulus
'[October]
23 (Remembrance of) the many martyrs among the Gothic people, and of Frideric.
29 Remembrance of the martyrs who with Werekas the priest and Batwin the minister(?), in a crowded church among the Gothic people, were burned.
[November]
3 Constanti[n]us the emperor.
6 Dorotheus the bishop.
15 Philip the Apostle, in Hieropolis.
19 (Remembrance of) the old women at Beroea, forty in total.
29 Andrew the Apostle.'
Text: Delehaye 1912, 276.
Translation: Heather and Matthews 1991, 121-122.
Festivals
Saint’s feast
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesForeigners (including Barbarians)
Source
This fragment of a Gothic calendar, dating back to the 6th century, survives in an 8th-century palimpsest in Milan (Biblioteca Ambrosiana MS. S 36 sup.). The entry for bishop Dorotheos of Antioch and Constantinople, who died c. 407, shows that the calendar was compiled in the 5th century at the earliest and possibly in the East; it may well have been based on a Greek original.Discussion
The Gothic martyrs commemorated on 23 and 29 October are probably all martyrs of the persecution amongst the Goths carried out by Athanaric in the early 370s (Delehaye 1912, 277-81; Heather and Matthews 1991, 96-117). Specifically those 'who with Werekas the priest and Batwin the minister, in a crowded church among the Gothic people, were burned', are almost certainly the martyrs singled out in a description of this persecution by the Greek church historian Sozomen (writing in the 440s), though he does not name any of the victims: ' ... an even more dreadful suffering ... occurred, when a large number of Christians who refused to yield to the attempts to compel them to sacrifice by force, took refuge in the tent which formed their church in that place, and all - men and women, some of whom led their little children by the hand, others with new-born babies feeding at the breast - were destroyed when the pagans set fire to it.' (trans. Heather and Matthews 1991, 101).[The tenth-century Synaxarion of Constantinople commemorates these same martyrs, though some seven month earlier, on 26 March (Delehaye 1902, cols 559-560). On this date, the martyrdom by fire 'in Gothia', of the following men and women, is recorded: two presbyters, here called Aathouses (or Bathouses) and Ouerikas (or Ouerkas) (in different manuscript readings), with their two sons and two daughters; a monk named Arpulas; and eighteen or nineteen named lay men and women.]
There is no certainty what the term 'bilaif', used to describe Batwin, means.
The Homoian ('Arian') Church apparently celebrated the feasts of the apostles (and probably other saints as well) roughly on the same days as the Nicene Church. According to the early-sixth-century Calendar of Carthage the feast of Andrew was celebrated, as here, on 29 November; according to the Martyrologium Hieronymianum it was on 27 and 30 November (E05033 and E05036).
The Calendar of Carthage does not mention the feast of Philip the Apostle, and according to the Martyrologium Hieronymianum it was celebrated on 22 April (E04785), 1 May (E04795) or 8 May (E04807). But the Armenian Lectionary of Jerusalem (E05186) and the Georgian Calendar of Ioanne Zosime (E03927) both give the date as 15 November, as here. The Syriac Jacobite Menologion of Aleppo places it on 14 November, thus just one day earlier than the Gothic calendar (see $EXXXXX)
The mentions of a commemoration of Constantine is a rare, though by no means unique, case of naming an emperor in an ecclesiastical calendar. The name of the emperor is certainly mistaken. 3 November was the day of death of Constantius, son of Constantine and supporter of the Homoian version of Christianity. Thus one can suppose that the original version of the calendar named Constantius whose name was then rendered as that of his better-known father. Interestingly, in another calendar in which the birthday of an emperor was celebrated we find a similar confusion. According to the Syriac Jacobite Menologion of Aleppo the feast of 'Constantine, son of Constantine' was celebrated on 15 November (see $EXXXXX)
Dorotheus (ob. c. 407) was an Arian bishop of Antioch and then Constantinople (Delehaye 1912, 277); he is the only Arian non-Gothic saint named in the extant part of the calendar. His presence in the Calendar helps date it, and also suggests an eastern origin for its prototype.
The forty 'old women' at Beroea are forty ascetic women from Heraclea of Thrace, with their leader, the deacon Ammon, all martyred at Beroea (also in Thrace) in the time of Licinius. Their commemoration in Heraclea on this same day is recorded in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum (E05024), and a long and complex account of their martyrdom survives (E06581), published by Delehaye. Like the Apostles Philip and Andrew, these were martyrs of the universal church, rather than specifically Gothic or Arian martyrs.
(Robert Wiśniewski and Bryan Ward-Perkins)
Bibliography
EditionsDelehaye, H., "Saints de Mésie et de Thrace,", Analecta Bollandiana 31 (1912), 276.
Schäferdiek, K., "Das gotische, liturgische Kalenderfragment – Bruchstück eines Konstantinopeler Martyrologs," Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 79 (1988), 116-137 (with substantial commentary and German translation).
English translation
Heather, P., and Matthews, J., The Goths in the Fourth Century (Translated Texts for Historians 11; Liverpool, 1991), 119-122.
Further reading
Delehaye, H. (ed.), Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae e codice Sirmondiano nunc Berolinensi (Bruxelles, 1902), cols. 3-4.
Record Created By
Robert Wiśniewski
Date of Entry
07/03/2022
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00109 | Philip, the Apostle | Filippaus | Certain | S00186 | Constantine, emperor, ob. 337 | Kustanteinus | Uncertain | S00288 | Andrew, the Apostle | Andriins | Certain | S00398 | Forty ascetic women, with the deacon Ammon, martyrs of Thracian Heraclea and Beroea | þize alþyane [MS alþanoine] ïn Bairauyai | Certain | S00713 | Werekas and Batwin, priest and bilaif, Gothic martyrs | Werekas | Certain | S00715 | Frideric, Gothic martyr, commemorated on 23 October | Friþareik[eik]eis | Certain | S00716 | Gothic martyrs, named and unnamed | Certain | S00717 | Dorotheos, Arian bishop of Antioch and Constantinople, ob. c. 407 | Dauriþaius | Certain | S00718 | Constantius II, emperor, ob. 361 | Kustanteinus | Uncertain |
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