Babylas of Antioch

Babylas of Antioch was a third-century bishop of the Christian church at Antioch, one of the foremost sees of the early Church. The earliest substantial witness is Eusebius of Caesarea, who places Babylas as successor to Bishop Zebinus and records that he died in prison after confessing the faith during the persecution under the emperor Decius. Episcopal lists commonly assign his tenure to the middle decades of the third century, often from about 237 until his death. Because Eusebius does not give a calendar year, later chroniclers and modern handbooks differ slightly (often 250 or 251, sometimes 253), but the Decian setting remains the most securely attested. He was succeeded by Fabius (also called Fabianus) as bishop of Antioch. In later usage the bishops of that see are styled patriarchs; the formal title “patriarch” is anachronistic for the third century, but Babylas held the office of the Antiochene see.

A famous Antiochene tradition, known especially from the homilies of John Chrysostom and from fourth-century local memory rather than from Eusebius, holds that Babylas once refused a Roman emperor entry to the church until the ruler did penance for a grave crime, usually described as the killing of a young hostage. Later writers often identified the emperor as Philip the Arab, though that identification is not certain and some details of the episode are historically insecure. The story nonetheless shaped Babylas’s reputation as a bishop of uncompromising discipline, willing to confront imperial authority in defense of the Church’s moral order.

Under Decius, Christians were required to sacrifice to the Roman gods and to obtain certificates of compliance. Babylas was arrested; according to Eusebius he remained in prison and died there in chains, a death the early Church counted as martyrdom. A later Passion, generally regarded as legendary, moved the martyrdom to the reign of Numerian and described a public beheading together with three young brothers—Urbanus, Prilidianus, and Epolonius—said to have been his spiritual charges. That narrative influenced liturgy and iconography but is not supported by the earlier historical sources. Nothing reliable is known of Babylas’s birth, family, marriage, or children.

He was buried at Antioch, and his tomb became a centre of veneration. In the mid-fourth century Caesar Gallus had the relics transferred to the suburb of Daphne, apparently to counteract the oracle of Apollo there. When the emperor Julian visited Daphne in 362, the oracle was said to have complained of the nearby dead; Julian ordered the relics removed, and the Christian community carried them back into Antioch with psalmody. The temple of Apollo at Daphne burned shortly afterward. A cruciform martyrium of Saint Babylas was later built on the right bank of the Orontes (the church at Kaoussie, excavated in the twentieth century), associated with Bishop Meletius; John Chrysostom preached on the saint in that setting. Relics attributed to Babylas were later claimed in the West, notably at Cremona.

Babylas is venerated as a saint and hieromartyr in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Oriental Orthodox churches. His principal commemorations are 24 January in the Roman Martyrology and in several Eastern calendars, and 4 September in the Byzantine tradition, where he is often remembered together with the three youths of the later legend. He is not securely attested as patron of particular places, professions, or causes; his historical importance lies in his role as an early episcopal martyr of Antioch and in the fourth-century contests over his relics in and around that city.