Timon

Timon is known from the New Testament as one of the seven deacons appointed in the earliest Christian community at Jerusalem. The sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles relates that, as the number of disciples increased, a complaint arose from the Hellenists (Greek-speaking Jewish believers) against the Hebrews that their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution. The Twelve Apostles, unwilling to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables, instructed the assembled brethren to select seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom. The community chose Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. These seven were presented to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands upon them. The Greek names of all seven have led commentators to conclude that they were chosen from among the Hellenist Christians, so that the group whose grievance had prompted the appointment would be represented in the new ministry of service. After this episode the canonical Scriptures are silent concerning Timon; the subsequent chapters of Acts follow Stephen to his martyrdom and Philip in his missionary work, but they do not mention Timon again.

In later ecclesiastical tradition Timon was numbered among the Seventy Apostles whom Christ sent out two by two, as recorded in the tenth chapter of Luke. Medieval and Byzantine lists of the Seventy, including those transmitted under the names of Hippolytus of Rome and Dorotheus of Tyre, include Timon. According to the predominant Eastern tradition he became bishop of Bostra (Bosra), the chief city of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, in what is now southern Syria. There he is said to have proclaimed the Gospel, worked miracles, and finally suffered martyrdom by being burned alive at the hands of pagans. These details are not found in any first-century source and cannot be verified historically; they belong to the hagiographical elaboration of the apostolic age that developed in late antiquity.

A divergent Western tradition, reflected in the Roman Martyrology, places Timon’s later preaching and death in Greece. In this account he first proclaimed the faith at Berea in Macedonia and afterwards remained at Corinth. There Jews and Greeks are said to have thrown him into a furnace; he emerged unharmed and was subsequently crucified. The existence of two incompatible martyrdom stories—one locating his death by fire at Bostra, the other by crucifixion at Corinth after an ordeal by fire—underscores how little can be known with certainty about Timon after the brief notice in Acts. No extra-biblical contemporary document confirms either narrative, nor is his place of birth, family circumstances, or burial known.

Timon is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and other churches that retain the cult of the apostolic deacons. The Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar commemorates him on 30 December as one of the Seventy and as a hieromartyr, on 28 July together with Prochorus, Nicanor, and Parmenas (the remaining members of the Seven besides Stephen, Philip, and Nicolaus), and on 4 January in the Synaxis of the Seventy Apostles. In the Roman Catholic Church he has been commemorated on 19 April. As a figure of the apostolic era he was never formally canonized by a later pope; his cult rests on the scriptural witness and on ancient liturgical tradition. No reliable evidence survives of any particular patronage, religious order, marriage, or descendants.