Analecta Bollandiana

The story of Theodora and Didymus known to and used by Eusebius of Emesa and Ambrose of Milan describes the adventurous escape of a Christian virgin from the brothel to which she had been sent for refusing to sacrifice to the gods. Already in Antiquity there were two independent Latin translations, one a literal one (BHL 8072), the other a free one (BHL 8073). The translations which are here edited in parallel were made from Greek texts which were perhaps related and were fairly close to the only surviving Greek recension (BHG 1742).

In a small number of Greek MSS, Gregory of Nazianzus' 38th homily contains an addition of a few lines which does not belong to the original tradition of the text. This addition is edited here on the basis of 19 Greek MSS and two independent Syriac translations. The Greek MSS all belong to a well known textual family (family M according to Sinko's classification) and several of them were copied in Southern Italy. This case is an illustration of the existence of at least a cultural and well established link between the Near East and Southern Italy.

The aim of this article is to show on the basis of which criteria mediaeval hagiographic and hymnographic texts can be used as "historical sources". For this purpose the author has examined the Byzantine sources relating to two saints well-known to him: Philip of Agira and Ambrose of Milan. The case of St Philip makes it possible to analyze in what way and from which perspectives hagiographic and hymnographic sources can be used "historically" within a legendary context which is weak from the historical point of view. On the other hand, the case of St Ambrose makes it possible to verify how the same sources can be considered to be "historical" when they refer to a person about whom ample firsthand historical documentation is available.

La présente étude considère le martyre des trois saints orthodoxes (S. Antoine [† 14 janvier], S. Jean [† 24 avril] et S. Eustathe [† 13 décembre]) qui furent exécutés, aux environs de l'année 1347, sur l'ordre du Grand Duc lithuanien Algirdas, encore païen. Les différentes sources hagiographiques relatives à ce martyre, issues d'horizons très divers, écrites en grec, vieux slavon ecclésiastique, latin, polonais et russe, sont passées en revue. Dans une perspective historiographique, l'A., après avoir analysé les théories formulées à propos de ce martyre, tente de dégager, aussi précisément que possible, les raisons de l'exécution des trois saints. Il envisage également les répercussions, réelles et supposées, de ce martyre et du culte qui s'ensuivit, depuis le xiv^e siècle jusqu'à nos jours.