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Martyrdom of Carpus, Papylus and Agathonice

Martyrium Carpi, Papyli et Agathonicae

Written after 161; the date is disputed (2nd or 3rd century); the place is not known. The date is disputed or rests on weak evidence.

The trial and death of three Christians at Pergamum; the corpus file holds only the short notice of Eusebius, not the Acts.

Acts · first written in Greek

Translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert (1890). Eusebius, Church History, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 1 (1890); an extract Public domain. Source and rights

About this text (2 notes)

10. Martyrdom of Carpus, Papylus and Agathonice. ecf:record:804583d4-9b04-48ec-90b4-2a9fa3617c3d, file 0170_Carpus_Papylus_Agathonice_Eusebius_HE_summary.txt. The file is the notice of Eusebius. It is not the martyrdom.

A summary passage from Eusebius, not the martyr acts.

How we know the date and place
Date written not sure
Eusebius, Church History 4.15.48 puts the deaths under Marcus Aurelius (161-180); the Latin recension says Decius (249-251); H. Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (1972), introduction; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Carpus,_Papylus,_and_Agathonice
Place written not known
H. Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (1972), introduction: the events are at Pergamum; where the Acts were written is not known

468 words. 2 sections.

Contents
  1. Opening
  2. Chapter XVI.—Justin the Philosopher preaches the Word of Christ in Rome and suffers Martyrdom.

Opening

§ opening›

Martyrdom of Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonice — Eusebius HE IV.15 summary

48. 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. [1167]

NOTE (NPNF editor): 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.

Chapter XVI. Justin the Philosopher preaches the Word of Christ in Rome and suffers Martyrdom.

ܤ 16

1. About this time [1168] Justin, who was mentioned by us just above, [1169] after he had addressed a second work in behalf of our doctrines to the rulers already named, [1170] was crowned with