Bishop Narcissus

Saint Narcissus of Jerusalem was bishop of the Christian community in Jerusalem during the late second and early third centuries. The principal ancient source for his life is the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea, who places Narcissus thirtieth in the succession of bishops of Jerusalem after James the Just. Later chroniclers and martyrologies repeat and occasionally embellish that account. Precise dates for his birth and for his accession to the see are not recorded in contemporary documents. Tradition, working from Eusebius’s remark that Narcissus was one hundred and sixteen years old when Alexander of Cappadocia became his coadjutor, has assigned his birth to the closing years of the first century and the beginning of his episcopate to about 180. He governed a church that still lived in the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple and of the refounding of the city as Aelia Capitolina, and that remained in some respects ecclesiastically linked to the metropolitan see of Caesarea.

Narcissus acquired a reputation for severe personal holiness and for miraculous power. The best-known story, already current in Eusebius’s day, concerns the oil used for the lamps of the church at the Paschal vigil. When the supply failed one Holy Saturday, Narcissus sent for water from a nearby well, prayed over it, and the water was found to have become oil suitable for the liturgy; a remnant of this oil was said to have been preserved as a relic into later generations. Despite this fame he became the object of a concerted calumny. Three men accused him of a grave crime and confirmed their testimony with oaths that called down fire, leprosy, and blindness upon themselves if they spoke falsely. Although the charges were unfounded, Narcissus retired from Jerusalem and lived for some years as a hermit in the wilderness. The three accusers subsequently met the fates they had invoked. In the interval the see was administered in turn by Dios, Germanion, and Gordius.

After several years Narcissus was found and persuaded to resume his office. Because of his extreme age the clergy and people of Jerusalem, with the concurrence of neighboring bishops, associated with him Alexander, a former bishop of a Cappadocian church who had come to Palestine as a pilgrim after suffering imprisonment for the faith. Letters of Alexander still extant in the fourth century describe the joint episcopate and praise the venerable Narcissus. About the years 196 to 198 Narcissus took part, together with Theophilus of Caesarea and other Palestinian bishops, in a synod that addressed the Quartodeciman controversy. The Palestinian bishops aligned themselves with the custom of celebrating Easter on Sunday rather than on the fourteenth day of the lunar month irrespective of the weekday, and they communicated their decision to Pope Victor I and to other churches.

Narcissus died in Jerusalem at an advanced age, most commonly dated to about 216. No reliable record of his burial place has been preserved. He was commemorated as a saint from an early period; the Roman Martyrology assigns his feast to 29 October, and he is likewise honored in Eastern calendars. No religious order, marriage, or children are attested in the surviving sources, nor is he known as the patron of particular places or causes beyond the general veneration accorded an early bishop of Jerusalem. His memory rests chiefly on the testimony of Eusebius and on the liturgical tradition of East and West.