Abstract
Among the early Christian writings appear the acta, the accounts of martyrdoms. One of the most interesting of these is the Passio Sancti Philippi. It concerns the trial and execution of Philip, the bishop of Heraclea in Thrace, and his two assistants, Severus a priest and Hermes a deacon. The martyrdom took place during the great persecution of Diocletian. |While various martyrologies mention St. Philip of Heraclea, it was only in the seventeenth century that a manuscript of the Passio Sancti Philippi first came to light. Mabillon was the first to rediscover the account and included it in his Vetera Analecta published in 1675. Ruinart regarded the text as authentic and included the Passio in Acta Martyrum Sincera et Selecta which appeared in 1731. Toward the close of the nineteenth century Pere Benjamin Bossue, a Bollandist, wrote an article on the martyrdom of St. Philip in the Acta Sanctorum. More recently, in 1915, Pio Franchi deT Cavalieri treated the account in an extensive article, and in 1953 his monumental study of the Passio Sancti Philippi appeared in the Vatican’s Studi e Testi series. |The account of St. Philip’s martyrdom has not been translated into English. The purpose of this paper is to reconsider this account in its historical aspects and to give an English translation with notes which will clarify the text for the reader. |The Latin text for the Passio Sancti Philippi is that edited by Pio Franchi de’ Cavalieri in Note agiografice, Fascicolo 9°. References to other acta martyrurn are taken from Knopf-Kruger, where possible; otherwise, from the Acta Sanctorum. The works of Pere Hippolyte Delehaye, S.J., have been consulted on matters of hagiography.