ABSTRACT
St Sabbas Stratelates was the ‘twin’ of St Sabbas the Goth.1 Enrica Follieri, who studied him exhaustively, has provided an apodictic demonstration that he is an entirely fictitious character.2 Nevertheless, he received cult at Byzantium and was provided with a Passion, unfortunately now lost.3
Information is provided about him rather by Synaxaries, notably by the Sirmondianus for 24 April,4 Patmos 254, f. 289-91v,5 and the verse calendar of Christopher of Mytilene.6 According to the Patmos account, for which Follieri easily established the texts from which it was plagiarized, notably the Passions of St Sabbas the Goth and of St Procopius (III), the Stratelates was reputed also to be a Goth by origin, a high-ranking officer and secretly a Christian. Exposed during a persecution in the army under the Emperor Aurelian, the judges ordered that Sabbas be stripped of his cincture, ‘Ùe ۇ̂ÔÏÔÓ Ùɘ ÛÙÚ·Ù›·˜’. Like warrior martyrs in other Passions – Follieri cites those of Gordius, Procopius and Mercury – he took off his ˙ÒÓË himself, publicly proclaiming: ‘XÚÈÛÙÈ·Ófi˜ ÂåÌÈ’. At this point, he was visited by Christ under the form of a young man who encouraged him to persevere.7 He was tortured and thrown in prison. Then he was condemned to death by drowning along with 70 companions. All this would have taken place in Rome.
