Tathuil and Bebaia
The Holy Martyr Tathuil and his Sister Bebaia
Martyr · d. 2nd century
Commemorated 4 August — Second commemoration on this day, 5 September
Tathuil (Thathuil, in some sources Thiphael) and his sister Bebaia were martyrs of the second century, remembered for bold and fruitful preaching of Christ among the pagans. The notices place their deaths in the period of Trajan and Hadrian (98–138): after prolonged torture Tathuil was hanged upon a tree and cut with a saw, and Bebaia was killed by a spear-thrust to the neck. They are commemorated together on September 5.
The surviving record of these martyrs is confined to brief synaxarion notices, which remember a brother and sister who preached Christianity among the pagans with boldness and effect, and who paid for that preaching with their lives in the earlier second century — the OCA gives the span 98–138, the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian. The notices preserve the manner of their deaths with the concreteness typical of martyrologies otherwise worn smooth: Tathuil, after long and intense torture, was suspended from a tree and sawn; Bebaia was dispatched with a spear to the neck. Where they suffered is not transmitted in the calendars consulted. The name Tathuil is Semitic in cast (compare Tathanael/Thathanael forms), suggesting an eastern, perhaps Syrian or Mesopotamian, setting, but this is inference, not record.
Feast and commemoration
September 5 (church date; Old Calendar civil September 18). No proper service is appointed; the common of martyrs serves where their memory is kept liturgically.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received incorruptible crowns from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength they cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By their intercessions save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
No pre-modern icon of the pair has been identified. They would be depicted as a brother and sister bearing martyrs' crosses, the instruments of their deaths — the tree and saw, the spear — sometimes shown.
Disputed questions
- Names. The brother's name is transmitted as Thathuil/Tathuil (Θαθουήλ), with Thiphael as a variant in the Slavic tradition; the sister's as Bebaia, with Thivea (Vivea) as a variant.
- Relation to Sarbelus and Bebaia of Edessa. The same day commemorates Sarbelus of Edessa, a second-century martyr who also had a martyred sister named Bebaia (commemorated with him on October 15 in the Greek tradition). Two second-century brother-sister martyr pairs, each with a sister Bebaia, kept on the one day, may represent a doubling of one tradition under divergent names, or two distinct pairs; the surviving notices do not allow a decision. The calendars list them separately, and this collection follows the calendars, recording the question in both entries.