Babilas

Saint Babylas (also spelled Babilas) was a third-century bishop of Antioch in Roman Syria and is venerated as a martyr in both Eastern and Western Christianity. He belongs to the early episcopal succession of Antioch, following Zebinus and preceding Fabius. Almost nothing can be verified about his birth, family, or career before he occupied the Antiochene see. The principal near-contemporary witness is Eusebius of Caesarea, who in the Ecclesiastical History records that Babylas died in prison after making his confession in the persecution of the emperor Decius. Later historians and liturgical books filled out this brief notice with additional, often legendary, material.

A tradition already current in the late fourth century, and used by Saint John Chrysostom, held that Babylas once refused to allow an emperor to enter the church at Antioch until the ruler had done penance for a grave crime, usually described as murder. Ancient and medieval writers frequently identified that emperor with Philip the Arab, though the identification is not secure and modern historians treat the episode with caution. Whatever its precise historical kernel, the story became central to Babylas’s reputation as a bishop who would not relax ecclesiastical discipline even in the face of imperial power.

The Decian persecution began in 250. Eusebius states that Babylas died in confinement from the sufferings of imprisonment rather than by a public execution. Later martyrologies and the Golden Legend instead describe a beheading and, in some versions, the martyrdom of three young companions named Urbanus, Prilidianus, and Epolonius. Those companion-martyrs are generally regarded as legendary accretions. The year of death is conventionally given as 250, in keeping with the opening of Decius’s persecution; exact day and circumstances beyond imprisonment are not attested by the earliest source.

The cult of Babylas became prominent at Antioch in the fourth century. Around 351 Caesar Gallus had the relics moved from their original burial in Antioch to a new martyrium at Daphne, beside the temple and oracle of Apollo, in order to Christianize the suburb. In 362 the emperor Julian, seeking to restore the oracle, ordered the relics taken away; Christians carried them back to Antioch in procession, singing psalms. The temple of Apollo at Daphne shortly afterward burned, an event Julian blamed on the Christians and which Chrysostom later treated as a sign of the martyr’s power. Chrysostom devoted both a homily and the discourse On Saint Babylas, against Julian to the saint. Relics attributed to Babylas were later claimed by several Western churches, among them Cremona in Italy.

Babylas is commemorated on 24 January in the Roman Martyrology and on 4 September in the Byzantine calendar. He is honored as a bishop and martyr. No reliable record of his birthplace, parentage, marriage, or children survives, and he did not belong to a later religious order. His historical importance rests on his place in the Antiochene succession, his death in the Decian persecution as reported by Eusebius, and the fourth-century relic cult that made him a symbol of Christian resistance to Julian’s pagan restoration.