Theodore of Perge
The Holy Martyr Theodore of Perge in Pamphylia, his Mother Philippa, and the Martyrs Dioscorus, Socrates and Dionysius
Martyr · d. c. 138–161
Commemorated 21 April — Crucifixion at Perge under Antoninus Pius
Theodore was a young Christian of Perge in Pamphylia, on the south coast of Asia Minor, who was crucified for refusing to sacrifice to the idols in the reign of the emperor Antoninus Pius (138–161). His passion is one of the very few in the calendar in which the martyr dies on a cross in imitation of his Lord, hanging three days in prayer, and one of the few in which the martyr's mother, Philippa, stands beside him to the end and is crowned with him. Two of the soldiers who guarded him, Socrates and Dionysius, confessed Christ at the sight of his deliverance and were beheaded, and the pagan priest Dioscorus, challenged to prove his own gods, confessed Christ in the fire and perished giving thanks. The company is commemorated on April 21.
A conscript who would not sacrifice
Perge (Πέργη) was a rich Hellenistic city of Pamphylia, near the mouth of the Cestrus, whose Christian community reached back to the preaching of the Apostles Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13:13–14, 14:25). The Passion places Theodore there under Antoninus Pius, in the mid-second century — an unusually early date for a fully developed martyr-act, and one reason its details are held loosely.
An imperial levy was being raised, and the young men of the city were being enrolled for military service. Theodore, a young Christian, was brought forward with the rest before the commander — the Acts name him Theodotus — and required, as the enrolment demanded, to sacrifice to the gods. He refused. Neither persuasion nor the promise of advancement nor the threat of torture moved him, and the commander, whose authority was publicly at stake, turned to force.
The heated plate and the earthquake
Theodore was stretched upon a red-hot iron plate or bed, and molten pitch was poured over him. The Passion relates that at that moment the ground shook: an earthquake opened the earth beneath the brazier, water burst up and quenched the fire, and the martyr rose unhurt from the ruined instrument of his torture. Pamphylia is seismic country, and the detail is at least locally credible; the Church has received it as a wonder.
Dioscorus the priest of the idols
At this the martyr made the challenge that gives his passion its peculiar shape. If the gods of the city were what their servants claimed, let their own priest Dioscorus be laid on the same plate and let those gods deliver him. Dioscorus was set upon the heated iron — and there, in the sight of the crowd, abandoned his idols and confessed Christ, praying (as the Acts give the words) that the Lord Jesus Christ would number him among His servants. He died in the flames giving thanks, a martyr baptised in his own fire, unbaptised by water and yet counted with the crowned.
Socrates and Dionysius
The torments of Theodore continued. He was bound to untamed horses and dragged over rough ground to be torn apart; and again, according to the Passion, he was preserved, while the violence recoiled upon his tormentors. It was at this point that two of the soldiers set over him, Socrates and Dionysius, saw what the Acts describe as a chariot of fire descending from heaven to take up the martyr. They cried out that great was the God of the Christians, threw down their arms, and were at once thrown into prison with Theodore.
Philippa the mother, and the cross
Theodore's mother, Philippa, is the heart of the second half of the story. The Passion says she had been forewarned — in a dream, or by a voice — that her son would be crucified for Christ, and that she came to the tribunal not to plead for his life but to strengthen him for it, glorying that she had borne a son found worthy of her Lord's own death.
The commander, defeated by every other instrument, gave the sentence she had foreseen: Theodore was nailed to a cross. He hung upon it three days, praying aloud and exhorting the people, and so gave up his spirit. His companions were beheaded — Socrates and Dionysius the converted soldiers, and Philippa his mother, who received her crown last of the company. The Christians of Perge took up the bodies and buried them, and their memory was kept in the city; from the local synaxaria it passed into the Synaxarion of Constantinople, and so into the universal calendar on April 21.
Feast and commemoration
April 21 (church date; New Calendar civil April 21, Old Calendar civil May 4). The commemoration is universal in the Byzantine rite and is kept as a company: the Greek books head the entry with Theodore and add "and his mother Philippa, and Socrates and Dionysius," the Slavonic and OCA books adding Dioscorus. On April 21 the martyrs of Perge are commemorated together with the hieromartyr Januarius of Benevento and his companions, and with Maximian, Patriarch of Constantinople; the printed Menaion gives the canon of the day to Januarius, and Theodore is served from the common of a martyr. The Antiochian Archdiocese lists him on April 21 among the day's commemorations. No translation of relics is transmitted, and no shrine of the martyrs is known at the ruins of Perge.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)
Thy martyr Theodore, O Lord, in his contest received from Thee, our God, the crown of incorruption; for having Thy strength, he cast down his persecutors and broke the feeble arrogance of the demons. By his supplications save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Kontakion — Tone 2
Nailed upon the tree, thou wast made like unto the Crucified, and for three days didst preach from thy cross to them that stood by, O athlete Theodore; and thy mother rejoiced beside thee as she yielded her neck to the sword. Together with Socrates and Dionysius intercede for us who honour your contest.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Theodore of Perge is written as a young martyr, beardless or with the first down of a beard, in tunic and mantle, holding the cross of the martyrs in his right hand — the attribute here doubling as the instrument of his own death. Where the company is shown, his mother Philippa stands at his side as a matron with veiled head, her hands raised or holding a cross; Socrates and Dionysius appear as soldiers in short military tunic and chlamys; Dioscorus, when included, is a figure in the fillet of a pagan priest, turned towards Christ.
The passion-scene is his distinguishing image, and is unmistakable in a menologion: the saint stretched on the cross — an iconographic rarity outside the Passion of Christ and the crucifixions of the Apostles Peter and Andrew — with the heated plate and the quenching spring below, the horses to one side, and above him the chariot of fire descending, which the two soldiers behold. In monthly menaion icons for April he takes his place in the register for the twenty-first day beside the hierarch Januarius.
No pre-1900 image of these martyrs has been identified for this collection; the Menologion of Basil II, the usual first resort for minor saints, covers only September to February and so does not reach April 21.
Disputed questions
- Martyr or hieromartyr? The Synaxarion of Constantinople and the Greek books style Theodore simply μάρτυς, martyr; the OCA Lives and some Slavonic usage title him hieromartyr, which would require priestly or episcopal rank. Nothing in the passion suggests he was ordained — he is a young man of the levy — and this entry classifies him as a martyr while recording the divergence.
- The roll of the company. The Constantinopolitan synaxarion names Theodore, Philippa, Socrates and Dionysius; the fuller recension followed by the Slavonic Lives and by OCA adds Dioscorus the idol-priest. Both forms are current, and the day is kept either way.
- The date. The reign of Antoninus Pius (138–161) is what the Passion transmits. A second-century date is early for the elaborate torture-cycle the text contains, and some critics would place the historical martyrdom later — in the third century, or under Diocletian — with the imperial name supplied by a later editor. There is no independent evidence either way.
- How Theodore died. The common form of the account has him die on the cross after three days. A variant has him taken down still living and beheaded with the others; the crucifixion is the received tradition and the note of the hymnography.
- Not to be confused with the soldier-martyrs Theodore the Recruit (Tiro, of Amasea, Feb 17) or Theodore Stratelates (of Heraclea, Feb 8), nor with Theodore of Antioch or the ascetic Theodore Trichinas, commemorated on the day before.