Table Of ContentOXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES
GeneralEditors
GillianClark AndrewLouth
THEOXFORDEARLYCHRISTIANSTUDIESseriesincludesscholarlyvolumeson
the thought and history of the early Christian centuries. Covering a wide range of
Greek, Latin, and Oriental sources, the books are of interest to theologians, ancient
historians,andspecialistsintheclassicalandJewishworlds.
Titlesintheseriesinclude:
TheMinorProphetsasChristianScriptureintheCommentariesof
TheodoreofMopsuestiaandCyrilofAlexandria
HaunaT.Ondrey(2018)
PreachingChristologyintheRomanNearEast:AStudyofJacobofSerugh
PhilipMichaelForness(2018)
GodandChristinIrenaeus
AnthonyBriggman(2018)
Augustine’sEarlyThoughtontheRedemptiveFunctionofDivineJudgement
BartvanEgmond(2018)
TheIdeaofNicaeaintheEarlyChurchCouncils,431–451
MarkS.Smith(2018)
TheManyDeathsofPeterandPaul
DavidL.Eastman(2019)
VisionsandFacesoftheTragic:TheMimesisofTragedyand
theFollyofSalvationinEarlyChristianLiterature
PaulM.Blowers(2020)
Art,Craft,andTheologyinFourth-CenturyChristianAuthors
MorwennaLudlow(2020)
NemesiusofEmesaonHumanNature:ACosmopolitan
AnthropologyfromRomanSyria
DavidLloydDusenbury(2021)
The Cult of Stephen
in Jerusalem
Inventing a Patron Martyr
HUGO MÉNDEZ
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Preface and Acknowledgments
ThisbooktracestheriseofaculttoSt.StephentheProtomartyrinthefourth-and
fifth-century city of Jerusalem. It argues that local church authorities promoted
devotion to Stephen in an orchestrated attempt to reposition the martyr as a
patronsaintfortheircity—thatis,asymbolicembodimentofitsChristianidentity
andpower.
ThefirstwordsofthismanuscriptwerewrittenatYaleUniversity’sInstituteof
Sacred Music, where I had the immense privilege of being a Postdoctoral
AssociateinSacredMusic,Worship,andtheRelatedArts.Yearslater,itisevident
tomehowdeeplythemanuscriptbreathestheinterdisciplinaryspiritoftheISM,
not least in its attention to liturgical and material evidence. My first words of
thanks,then, are directed to Martin Jean, Teresa Berger, and Bryan Spinks,who
invited me to that two-year fellowship and who mentored my research in its
embryonic stages. But my gratitude extends so much further, to so many other
faculty members, fellows, and graduate students in New Haven who enriched
my thinking at various stages of this project, exposed me to important
research, and offered their constructive criticism on my earliest drafts of this
manuscript. While at Yale, I was immersed in the most stimulating academic
community one can possibly imagine—one that daily challenged me to think
more creatively and synthetically. Among so many individual friends I could
thank—and they are truly too numerous to list—Andrew Albin and Paul
Bradshaw deserve special mention for having remained interlocutors for the
project in subsequent years. I also cannot fail to thank Dale Martin for his
consistentencouragement.
I continued and eventually completed this project at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill—first as a Carolina Postdoctoral Fellow for Faculty
Diversity and subsequently as an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies. I will
never understand the providence that allowed me to transition from Yale to a
second,equallyoutstandingcenterforthestudyofearlyChristianityinUNCand
Duke,butitwashere—intheintellectuallyrigorouscommunitythatIamnowso
gratefultocallhome—thatIfoundthesupportandresourcestobringthisproject
to its final form. Immediately, I must single out Bart Ehrman for praise—as
spectacularly devoted a mentor as one could have. But I cannot fail to thank
othercolleagues here—from Karen Hagemann,whohelped mefindmyvoice in
this manuscript, to Randall Styers and other members of the Department of
Religious Studies at UNC for their insights and constant encouragement.
Amongourgraduatestudents,Iowespecial thankstoMichelleFreemanforher
viii
keen interest in this work and sharp editorial eye, and among my friends, I will
alwaysbeindebtedtoMitchellEssweinandGarrisonCopelandforreadingdrafts
of this work. I am also profoundly grateful for the support of Sibby Anderson-
Thompkins,JenniferPruitt,andmypeerfellows.
This work has also had other readers and interlocutors, many from scholarly
societies.Iamespeciallyindebtedtothealwayssharpandrigorousfeedbackofthe
“Problems in the Early History of Liturgy” seminar in the North American
AcademyofLiturgy,singlingoutHaraldBuchingerandJohnBaldovinforspecial
thanks.FromtheSocietyofOrientalLiturgy,IowethankstoGabrielRadle,Mary
Farag,andDanielGaladza.Ialsoreceivedimportantfeedbackonsectionsofthis
manuscript at annual meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature. I cannot
express my gratitude enough to David Eastman for helping me conceptualize
my project at an early stage in its development, and I would also like to thank
NathanielP.DesRosiersforhis prepared andgenerativeresponsetoaparticular
presentation of my work. I am also grateful to Damien Labadie for generously
sharinghisrecentworkinthefinalstagesofproducingthistext.
Lastly, I am profoundly grateful to the many, many loved ones who have
supported me across this journey—too many to count. But among these, I owe
my deepest debt to my loving father and mother, whose endless generosity and
sacrifices are the ink with which every page of thisbook is written. It is to them
thatIdedicatethisbook.
Ihaveattempted,asfaraspossible,towriteabroadlyaccessibleEnglishtext.For
thisreason,allquotationsfromancientandmodernsourcesinthebodytextappear
in English. Most are cited from existing translations to avoid any appearance of
idiosyncrasy,thoughsomearemyownandnotedassuchinmyfootnotes.Since
mostancientworksIuseareavailableinaccessiblecriticaleditions,Igenerallyavoid
reproducingtheiroriginal-languagetextinmyfootnotes,exceptforthoseItrans-
latedmyself.Eventhen,IoffertheoriginaltextonlyforGreekandLatintexts,and
not in lesser-studied languages such as Classical Armenian. In the case of Old
Georgianmaterials,Ihavereliedentirelyonexistingtranslations.Englishtransla-
tionsofbiblicaltextsgenerallyfollowtheRevisedStandardVersion(RSV),except
thosefromtheLXXorreproducedfromsourcessuchastheArmenianLectionary.
Since this book was written across several years, it incorporates research I
developed in several intersecting projects. Three in particular have contributed
directly to the text of this manuscript. Specifically, chapter 2 incorporates and
updates text from Hugo Mendez, “The Origin of the Post-Nativity
Commemorations,”VigiliaeChristianae68(2014):290–309;chapter5incorpor-
ates and updates text from Hugo Méndez, “Stephen the Martyr (Acts vi–viii) in
theEarlyJerusalemLectionarySystem,”JournalofEcclesiasticalHistory68(2017):
22–39;andchapter6incorporatesandupdatestextfromHugoMéndez,“Revising
the Date of the Armenian Lectionary of Jerusalem,” Journal of Early Christian
Studies 29(2021): 61–92. Inseveral instances,Ihave been grateful to revisit and
refinemyearlierviewstointegratenewerinsights.Ihopethisbookprovesallthe
morehelpfultoitsreadersbecauseoftheseupdates.
Contents
ListofAbbreviations xi
Introduction 1
1. ThePrestigeofStephen 18
2. TheEarlyCult 31
3. ACelestialPatron 59
4. TheBones 77
5. MoreNumerousFeasts 100
6. AVeryGreatSanctuary 129
Epilogue 152
Bibliography 155
IndexLocorum 169
TopicalIndex 172
