Elias of Heliopolis (759–779), also called Elias of Damascus, was a
Syrian carpenter and
Christian martyr
In Christianity, a martyr is a person considered to have died because of their testimony for Jesus or faith in Jesus. In years of the early church, stories depict this often occurring through death by sawing, stoning, crucifixion, burning at t ...
revered as a saint in the
Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism.
Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canonical ...
and
Syriac Orthodox churches. He is known from a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
hagiography.
Dates
The ''
Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit
The Prosopography of the Byzantine World (PBW) is a project to create a prosopographical database of individuals named in textual sources in the Byzantine Empire and surrounding areas in the period from 642 to 1265. The project is a collaboration b ...
'' places Elias' birth in 758 or earlier, but his vital dates are usually given as 759–779 and occasionally as 775–795. His hagiography says that he died at twenty years of age in the year 6287. This is an ''
anno mundi
(from Latin "in the year of the world"; he, לבריאת העולם, Livryat haOlam, lit=to the creation of the world), abbreviated as AM or A.M., or Year After Creation, is a calendar era based on the biblical accounts of the creation o ...
'' (year of the world) date, meant to indicate the number of years since
Creation
Creation may refer to:
Religion
*''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing
* Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it
* Creationism, the belief tha ...
. If it follows the
Byzantine era
The Byzantine calendar, also called the Roman calendar, the Creation Era of Constantinople or the Era of the World ( grc, Ἔτη Γενέσεως Κόσμου κατὰ Ῥωμαίους, also or , abbreviated as ε.Κ.; literal translation of ...
, then it corresponds to the year 779; in the
Alexandrian era, it would be 795.
Robert Hoyland argues for the former on the grounds that it corresponds with the reign of
al-Mahdī (died 785), said in the hagiography to have been ruling at the time.
Life
Elias was born into a Syrian Christian family of
Baalbek (Heliopolis) in the ecclesiastical province of
Second Phoenicia in the
Abbasid Caliphate
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...
. There he was a trained as a carpenter. With his mother and two brothers, hoping to escape poverty, he went to
Damascus. He was about ten years old. There he was employed by a Syrian Christian, who himself worked for an
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
Muslim. This Syrian was later persuaded to convert to Islam by his Arab employer. The Arab having arranged the marriage of his son, died shortly after. When the son's wife gave birth, he threw a party at which Elias was called upon to serve. The guests tried to persuade him to convert to Islam and thus become their social equal, but he put them off by claiming that a party was no place for such discussions.
Ultimately, Elias was persuaded to eat with them and join in the dancing. Some of the guests loosened or removed his belt, supposedly to allow him freer movement. The following morning, Elias rose while the others were still sleeping, tied on his belt and went to pray. A guest who saw him going accused him of having renounced his faith the night before, which Elias denied. This accusation was probably based on the significance of the belt, which was part of the standard dress of a ''
dhimmī
' ( ar, ذمي ', , collectively ''/'' "the people of the covenant") or () is a historical term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with legal protection. The word literally means "protected person", referring to the state's obligatio ...
''. To remove it publicly was a sign of renouncing one's faith. In the workshop, his Syrian employer warned him that he had had to intervene to prevent some guests from harming Elias and he told Elias that he would not pay him. Elias' brother urged him to leave Damascus until rumours died down and it became safe to return. The whole family moved back to Baalbek.
Eight years later, with the approval of his brothers, Elias returned to Damascus and opened a shop making camel saddles. He was twenty years old. His former employer, now a competitor, invited him to return to his workshop but Elias refused, whereupon the Syrian apostate urged his boss, the Arab, to report Elias' conversion and apostasy on the night of the party. Elias was brought before the judge
al-Layth Al-Layth ibn Ali ibn al-Layth (died 928) was amir of the Saffarid amirate from 909 until 910. He was the son of Ali ibn al-Layth and nephew of the first two Saffarid rulers, Ya'qub ibn al-Layth and Amr ibn al-Layth.
Biography
In 890 al-Layth ...
who gave him an opportunity to return to Islam. Refusing, he was tortured and put in chains. In prison, he was comforted by visions. He was finally brought before the governor, Muḥammad, nephew of the reigning caliph al-Mahdī, who tried to persuade him to return to Islam through punishments and the offer of material rewards. When he still refused, he was beheaded on 1 February and his corpse hung outside the city gates for fourteen days before being thrown into the river
Baradā. Some relics (including limbs) were recovered by the Christians of Baalbek and others reported receiving visions of him after his death.
Hagiography
The single manuscript copy of Elias' hagiography (
BHG 578–579) is found in the
Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), Coislin 303, at folios 236
V–249
V. It dates to the tenth or eleventh century and was probably created in a monastery in the
Holy Land. The text itself, which is anonymous, appears to have been written not long after the events it describes, given its attention to detail. The author claims to have written two other hagiographies of martyrs to Islam, but he did not know Elias personally.
Besides his own biography, Elias is known from the ''
Palestinian Georgian Calendar'' and the
''Martyrology'' of Rabban Ṣalība. According to the former, his feast day was 4 February. According to the latter, his feast was celebrated in
Bā Qisyān (Beth Qūsyānā) near Ḥaḥ in the region of
Ṭur ʿAbdin
Tur Abdin ( syr, ܛܽܘܪ ܥܰܒ݂ܕܺܝܢ or ܛܘܼܪ ܥܲܒ݂ܕܝܼܢ, Ṭūr ʿAḇdīn) is a hilly region situated in southeast Turkey, including the eastern half of the Mardin Province, and Şırnak Province west of the Tigris, on the borde ...
on 1 February. Christian Sahner, however, questions the identification of this martyr with Elias of Heliopolis because Rabban Ṣalība does not associated him with Damascus or Baalbek.
Notes
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{refend
External links
Elias of Heliopolis (759–779)at ''Dumbarton Oaks Hagiography Database'', with a link to the Greek text of the hagiography.
759 births
779 deaths
Carpenters
Christian martyrs
Eastern Orthodox saints
Syriac Orthodox Church saints