Eikon

Peter Absolom

The Holy Martyr Peter Absolom of Palestine

Martyr · b. Anea, near Eleutheropolis in Palestine — d. c. 309–311, at Caesarea in Palestine

Commemorated 12 January — Martyrdom by fire at Caesarea

Peter Absolom (died c. 309–311) was a young Christian of Anea, near Eleutheropolis in Palestine, martyred by fire at Caesarea in the persecution of Diocletian and his successors — one of the Palestinian martyrs whose sufferings Eusebius of Caesarea witnessed and recorded. Renowned, the tradition says, for his bodily strength and his piety, he was seized, refused every inducement to deny Christ or even to make a token compliance, and was burned alive. He is commemorated on January 12.

Peter came from Anea (Aneas), a place near Eleutheropolis in southern Palestine, and is remembered as a young man of remarkable physical strength and of a devout and charitable life. His martyrdom belongs to the persecution of the Christians in Palestine in the first decade of the fourth century, under Diocletian and Maximin Daza — the persecution chronicled at first hand by Eusebius of Caesarea in his Martyrs of Palestine, who names among its victims a certain young ascetic of great firmness burned at Caesarea.

Arrested and brought before the governor, Peter was urged to spare himself — to sacrifice, or at the least to make the outward gesture that would satisfy the law — and he refused utterly, holding that even a feigned denial was a betrayal of Christ. He was condemned to the fire and burned alive, at Caesarea in Palestine, about the years 309 to 311; the tradition adds that he was put to death together with others (Eusebius names a Marcionite named Asklepios burned at the same pyre). The Byzantine synaxaria keep his memory on January 12 (with a variant on the neighbouring days).

Feast and commemoration

Peter Absolom is commemorated on January 12 (church date; Old Calendar civil January 25), within the afterfeast of the Theophany, on the day of Tatiana of Rome. The Greek books show his commemoration on this day (with variants on January 11/13); the Latin martyrologies keep the Palestinian martyr on nearby days (January 3 and 11). Eusebius's dating fixes the martyrdom itself to about 309–311.

Disputed questions

  • The forms of the name, and the doubling of the martyr. The saint's surname appears in a wide range of forms — Greek Ἀβεσσαλώμ (Abessalom, whence the English Absolom/Absalom), and in the Latin martyrologies Apselamus, Abselamus, and Balsamus. Because his passion is transmitted both by Eusebius (burned at Caesarea) and by a Latin Acta (crucified at Aulana, near Hebron), and on more than one calendar-day, some scholars — following Tillemont — have supposed two distinct martyrs, a Peter burned at Caesarea and a Peter crucified at Aulana. The commoner view treats these as variant reports of the one Palestinian martyr of the Great Persecution. This entry follows the single-martyr reading, with the disagreement noted.
  • Not to be confused with the pending "Peter of Auselamou (Apselamus)" commemorated in the Greek Menaion on October 14 — in all likelihood the same martyr appearing on a second synaxarion day, to be reconciled when that day is authored — nor with Peter of Capitolias (October 4), a wholly distinct Palestinian martyr of the eighth century.

Sources

  1. Eusebius of Caesarea, The Martyrs of Palestine — the eyewitness record of the Palestinian martyrs of the Diocletianic persecution, including the young ascetic of great firmness burned at Caesarea with the Marcionite Asklepios.
  2. Synaxarion of Constantinople and the Greek Menaion, January 12 (the notice of the martyr Peter the Abessalomite, by fire; commemoration verified live in the Greek).
  3. Orthodox Church in America, Lives of the Saints, January 12 (consulted live) — Peter Apselamus of Anea near Eleutheropolis, his strength and piety, his refusal of any compliance, and his death by fire in the fourth-century persecution.
  4. On the name-forms and the question of one martyr or two: the Latin martyrologies (Apselamus/Balsamus) and the discussion in L.-S. Le Nain de Tillemont, noted under Disputed questions.