Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/240

AGATHANGELUS true that we have the Acts of her martyrdom in two versions, Latin and Greek, the latter deviating from the former (Acta SS., I, Feb., 595 sqq.). Neither of these recensions, however, can lay any claim to historical credibility, and neither gives the necessary internal evidence that the information it contains rests, even in the more important details, upon genuine tradition. If there is a kernel of historical truth in the narrative, it has not as yet been possible to sift it out from the later embellishments. In their present form the Latin Acts are not older than the sixth century. According to them Agatha, daughter of a distinguished family and remarkable for her beauty of person, was persecuted by the Senator Quintianus with avowals of love. As his proposals were resolutely spurned by the pious Christian virgin, he committed her to the charge of an evil woman, whose seductive arts, however, were baffled by Agatha's unswerving firmness in the Christian faith. Quintianus then had her subjected to various cruel tortures. Especially inhuman seemed his order to have her breasts cut off, a detail which furnished to the Christian medieval iconography the peculiar characteristic of Agatha. But the holy virgin was consoled by a vision of St. Peter, who miraculously healed her. Eventually she succumbed to the repeated cruelties practised on her. As already stated, these details, in so far as they are based on the Acts, have no claim to historical credibility. Allard also characterizes the Acts as the work of a later author who was more concerned with writing an edifying narrative, abounding in miracles, than in transmitting historical traditions. Both Catania and Palermo claim the honour of being Agatha's birthplace. Her feast is kept on 5 February; her office in the Roman Breviary is drawn in part from the Latin Acts. Catania honours St. Agatha as her patron saint, and throughout the region around Mt. Etna she is invoked against the eruptions of the volcano, as elsewhere against fire and lightning. In some places bread and water are blessed during Mass on her feast after the Consecration, and called Agatha bread.

2em

Agathangelus, a supposed secretary of Tiridates II, King of Armenia, under whose name there has come down a life of the first apostle of Armenia, Gregory the Illuminator, who died about 332. It purports to exhibit the deeds and discourses of Gregory, and has reached us in Armenian and in Greek. The Greek text is now recognized as a translation, made probably in the latter half of the sixth century, while the Armenian is original and belongs to the latter half of the fifth century. Von Gutschmid maintains that the unknown author made use of a genuine life of St. Gregory, also of a history of his martyrdom and of that of St. Ripsime and her companions. Historical facts are intermingled in this life with legendary or uncertain additions, and the whole is woven into a certain unity by the narrator, who may have assumed his significant name from his quality of narrator of "the good news" of Armenia's conversion.

2em

Agathias, a Byzantine historian and man of letters, b. at Myrina in Asia Minor about 536; d. at Constantinople 582 (594?). He is a principal authority for the reign of Justinian (527–65), and is often quoted by ecclesiastical historians. He was probably educated at Constantinople, spent some time at Alexandria, and returned to the royal city in 554, where he took up the profession of law and became a successful pleader at the bar. His tastes, however, were literary, and he soon produced nine books of erotic poetry (Daphniaca), also epigrams and sonnets, many of which are preserved in the so-called Palatine Anthology. He wrote also marginal notes on the Periegetes of Pausanias. He is the last in whom we can yet trace some sparks of the poetic fire of the classic epigrammatists. At the age of thirty he turned to the writing of history and composed a work in five books "On the Reign of Justinian." It deals with the events of 552–558, and depicts the wars with the Goths, Vandals, and Franks, as well as those against the Persians and the Huns. He is the continuator of Procopius, whom he imitates in form and also in the abundance of attractive episodes. Agathias, it has been said, is a poet and a rhetorician, while Procopius is a soldier and a statesman. The former loves to give free play to his imagination, and his pages abound in philosophic reflection. He is able and reliable, though he gathered his information from eye- witnesses, and not, as Procopius, in the exercise of high military and political offices. He delights in depicting the manners, customs, and religion of the foreign peoples of whom he writes; the great disturbances of his time, earthquakes, plagues, famines, attract his attention, and he does not fail to insert "many incidental notices of cities, forts, and rivers, philosophers, and subordinate commanders." Many of his facts are not to be found elsewhere, and he has always been looked on as a valuable authority for the period he describes. There are reasons for doubting that he was a Christian, though it seems improbable that he could have been at that late date a genuine pagan. Dr. Milligan thinks (Dict. of Chr. Biogr. I, 59) that "he had gained from Christianity those just notions of God and religion to which he often gives expression, but that he had not embraced its more peculiar truths." His history was edited by B. G. Niebuhr for the "Corpus SS. Byzant." (Bonn, 1828; P.G., LXXXVIII, 1248–1608), and is also in Dindorf, "Hist. Græci minores" (1871), II, 132–453.

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Agatho, b. towards the end of the sixth century in Sicily; d. in Rome, 681. It is generally believed that Agatho was originally a Benedictine monk at St. Hermes in Palermo, and there is good authority that he was more than 100 years old when, in 678, he ascended the papal chair as successor to Pope Donus. Shortly after Agatho became Pope, St. Wilfred, Archbishop of York, who had been unjustly and uncanonically deposed from his see by Theodore of Canterbury, arrived at Rome to invoke the authority of the Holy See in his behalf. At a synod which Pope Agatho convoked in the Lateran to investigate the affair, Wilfred was restored to his see. The chief event of Agatho's pontificate is, however, the Sixth Œcumenical Council, held at Constantinople in 680, at which the papal legates presided and which practically ended the Monothelite heresy. Before the decrees of the council arrived in Rome for the approval of the pope, Agatho had died. He was buried in St. Peter's, 10 January, 681. Pope Agatho was remarkable for his affability and charity. On account of the many miracles he wrought he has been styled Thaumaturgus, or Wonderworker. His memory is celebrated by the Latin as well as the Greek church.

