03 — Sources and the Legend
The source-critical core of the collection. The entire portrait of Paraskevi of Rome rests on a single legendary Greek Passio (BHG 1420 and its kin), a martyr-act of the developed “epic” type that the Bollandist Hippolyte Delehaye taught the Church to read as literature rather than as record; there is no early or contemporary witness behind it. This section examines that Passio — its catalogue, its recensions, its date and reliability — and then the conflation problem: how the Roman Great Martyr blurs in the popular cult with Petka of Epivates and Paraskevi of Iconium, a confusion driven above all by the shared name that is also the word for Friday.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Great Martyr; healer of the eyes)
Everything that the tradition narrates of Paraskevi of Rome — the Friday birth, the Christian parents, the giving-away of goods, the public preaching under Antoninus Pius, the sequence of tortures, the cauldron, the restored sight of the persecutor, the beheading — comes from one kind of source: a Greek Passio of the martyr, surviving in several recensions and catalogued in the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca at BHG 1420–1420f. There is no Martyrium sent between churches as for Polycarp, no Eusebian notice, no external control. The first file of this section takes the honest measure of that Passio as a literary genre — the “epic” passio of Delehaye’s classic analysis — and explains why such texts are late legends built from conventional motifs, reliable for the cult they served and not for the events they narrate.
The second file treats the problem that follows from the name. Because Paraskeve is simply the Greek word for Friday, and because the Slavic Petka and Pyatnitsa are the same word translated, several distinct holy women of the name have been fused in popular memory, calendars, and even printed Lives: the Roman martyr of 26 July, the eleventh-century Balkan ascetic Petka of Epivates of 14 October, and the more shadowy Paraskevi of Iconium, with a further folk-figure, the Slavic Paraskeva-Pyatnitsa, layered over all. The file lays the conflation out as a structured problem, with named scholars and [Disputed: ...] notes, and shows how the critical reference literature — above all the Bibliotheca Sanctorum — keeps the saints apart.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Passio Tradition | The Greek Passio of Paraskevi of Rome (BHG 1420–1420f), its recensions, and its place in the Synaxarion of Constantinople and the printed Synaxaristes of Nikodemos; Delehaye’s analysis of the “epic” (épique) passio as a literary genre, why such texts are late legends built from conventional motifs, and the complete absence of any early or contemporary witness. |
| The Conflation Problem | How the Roman Great Martyr (2nd c., 26 July) blurs in cult with Petka of Epivates (11th c., 14 October) and Paraskevi of Iconium; how the shared name — Greek Paraskeve = Slavic Petka/Pyatnitsa = “Friday” — drives the confusion; the folk Paraskeva-Pyatnitsa as a further layer; and how the Bibliotheca Sanctorum and critical scholarship keep the saints distinct, presented with named positions and [Disputed: ...] notes. |
See Also
- The Historical Core — what can be established of the Roman martyr behind the legend
- The Name Paraskevi — the name “Friday,” the three saints, and why the name multiplies confusion
- Reading the Paraskevi Tradition — the Xenia-model method by which a wholly legendary record is read
- Petka of the Balkans — the distinct 11th-c. ascetic of the same name, treated on her own terms
- Paraskevi of Iconium and the Overlaps — the third saint of the name and the overlapping motifs
References
- Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca (BHG) 1420–1420f. 3rd ed. Ed. François Halkin. Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1957.
- Bibliotheca Sanctorum. 12 vols. Rome: Istituto Giovanni XXIII della Pontificia Università Lateranense, 1961–1970.
- Delehaye, Hippolyte. Les légendes hagiographiques. 4th ed. Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1955. (Eng.: The Legends of the Saints. Trans. Donald Attwater. New York: Fordham University Press, 1962.)
- Delehaye, Hippolyte. Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires. 2nd ed. Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1966.
- Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae. Ed. Hippolyte Delehaye. Brussels, 1902.
- Nikodemos the Hagiorite. Synaxaristes (Συναξαριστής).