Nymphas and Eubulus
The Holy Apostles Nymphas and Eubulus of the Seventy
Apostle · Apostle of the Seventy · d. 1st century
Commemorated 28 February — Commemoration of the two Apostles of the Seventy
Nymphas and Eubulus were two of the Seventy Apostles — the wider circle of disciples sent out by the Lord (Luke 10) and, in the tradition, reckoned among the first labourers of the Gospel after the Twelve. Both are known from a single mention in the New Testament epistles: Nymphas, greeted by the Apostle Paul in the Letter to the Colossians as one in whose house a church assembled, and Eubulus, named among those who sent greetings to Timothy from Rome in Paul's last letter. Of their lives beyond these notices little is recorded; the tradition honours them as apostolic men and fellow-workers of Paul, and the Church keeps their joint memory on February 28, as it keeps them, with all their company, in the Synaxis of the Seventy on January 4.
The two Apostles commemorated on this day are known to Scripture each by one verse, and to the tradition as members of the Seventy. Their notices are brief, in the manner of the apostolic synaxaria, and are given here honestly as the record allows.
Nymphas is greeted by the Apostle Paul at the close of the Letter to the Colossians: "Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the church which is in his house" (Colossians 4:15). The words show him to have been a Christian of standing in the Lycus valley of Asia Minor — at Laodicea or its neighbourhood — whose house served as a gathering-place for the faithful, one of the house-churches of the apostolic age. The tradition numbers him among the Seventy and remembers him as a bishop and preacher of the Gospel. (A textual variant reads the name as the feminine Nympha, "and the church in her house," and some manuscripts and Fathers so understood it; the Byzantine tradition commemorates Nymphas as a man and an apostle of the Seventy.)
Eubulus is named by Paul in the Second Letter to Timothy, written from his imprisonment at Rome near the end of his life: "Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren" (2 Timothy 4:21). He was therefore one of the little band of Roman Christians who stood by the Apostle in his last captivity, when others had forsaken him; the tradition places him among the Seventy and remembers him as a companion and fellow-labourer of Paul. Of his later life and end nothing certain is transmitted.
Not to be confused
This Eubulus, the Apostle of the Seventy and companion of Paul, is a wholly different person from Eubulus the martyr of Caesarea (†309, kept February 3), who with Adrian suffered under the Diocletianic persecution and is remembered as the last of the martyrs of Caesarea in Palestine. The two share only a name.
Feast and commemoration
Nymphas and Eubulus are commemorated together on February 28 (church date; New Calendar civil February 28; Old Calendar civil March 13). As Apostles of the Seventy they are also honoured in the Synaxis of the Seventy Apostles on January 4, and, with all the saints, on the Sunday of All Saints. The Greek and Slavic calendars keep them on the day.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 3
O holy Apostles Nymphas and Eubulus, entreat the merciful God to grant our souls the forgiveness of our transgressions.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Nymphas and Eubulus are depicted in the settled type of the Apostles of the Seventy: mature men in tunic and himation, each holding a scroll or a Gospel-book in token of their preaching, and blessing. No storable pre-modern image of either apostle, identified as his own, has been located for this entry; the icon is wanting.