Asterius of Amasea

Saint Asterius of Amasea, Hierarch, was bishop of Amasea in Pontus, a former lawyer, orator and preacher of the second half of the fourth century, a younger contemporary of the Cappadocian Fathers and of John Chrysostom. Born in Cappadocia around 350, he fell asleep around 410, at an advanced age. His sermons, partly preserved, are valued for their wealth of detail about the life of his time and for their testimony to the veneration of icons. He is commemorated on 30 October.

Life

Little is known of his life. He was born in Cappadocia, probably after 340, and in the time of Emperor Julian he must have been a teenager, for he vividly describes the lapses of Christians in his persecution. He studied at Antioch, where he was first taught by a Scythian slave whose name has not been preserved, and he worked as a lawyer; from his sermons one sees his careful education and knowledge of the Greco-⁠Roman world, philosophy and the sciences. Among those from whom he drew were Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa, and in the sermons the influence of Demosthenes, Libanius and John Chrysostom can be felt. Like Amphilochius of Iconium, he was a lawyer before becoming bishop. According to some sources he was a disciple of the hermit Julian and was abbot. Between 380 and 390 he became bishop of Amasea in Pontus, after the death of Eulalius, and brought to his sermons the craft of the professional orator. From his words about great age and from a sermon preached on 1 January 400 the time of his ministry is fixed; he fell asleep around 410, by other dates around 415 to 420.

The sermons

Sixteen homilies and panegyrics on the martyrs survive, bringing many details of everyday life of that time, and Photius lists four more. Photius mentions ten further homilies not now known, one of which shows that he lived long. Some survive also in medieval Latin, Georgian and Church Slavonic translations. Among them are: on the rich man and Lazarus, on the unjust steward, against greed, on whether it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause, on the prophet Daniel and Susanna, on the man born blind, on the apostles Peter and Paul, on the holy martyr Phocas, a eulogy of the martyrs, a eulogy of the holy protomartyr Stephen, an exhortation to repentance, a discourse at the start of the fasts, on the two men who went up to the temple to pray and on the two sons in Luke. He was a skilled orator and coiner of words: only in him are found the words "archmartyr" and "sharer of the body". The rhythm of his speech uses measures such as accent, rhyme and equal syllables.

In the fourth homily, preached on 1 January 400, he attacks the pagan customs and excesses of the New Year festival, denying everything Libanius had said in its support. In the first homily, on the rich man and Lazarus, he rebukes the rich who seek fine linen, gather the threads of the Persian worms and weave the spider's web, then pay large sums to the dyer to fish shellfish from the sea and stain the garment with their blood; so acts the man who is sated and misuses his substance. He also rebukes garments adorned with holy figures, worn it seems by laymen: "You may see the wedding at Cana and the water-⁠pots, the paralytic carrying his bed on his back, the blind man healed with clay, the woman with the issue of blood touching the border of the garment, the sinful woman at the feet of Jesus, Lazarus raised; in this they think they act piously. But if they take my advice let them sell those clothes and honour the living image of God. Do not picture Christ on your garments; it is enough that he once accepted the humiliation of dwelling in a human body. Carry his image not upon your robes but upon your soul." His objection concerns expense and frivolity, not icons. He deals above all with social questions: poverty, wealth, marriage and the unjust laws against women; on wealth he says that the rich man must be its steward, and he takes the part of women who suffer in a marriage in which the husband is unfaithful and goes unpunished while they are punished for the same thing. Marriage, he says, exists for the correction of the two sexes and for the begetting of children.

Euphemia and icons

In the eleventh homily, on the martyrdom of Saint Euphemia, he describes a painting of the martyrdom and compares it with works by the Hellenistic painters Euphranor and Timomachus. The speech was cited twice at the Seventh Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 787 as evidence in favour of the veneration of icons, and remains the earliest extended description of an icon of martyrdom. The icon, painted on canvas, was placed in a church near her tomb. Another text of his, on fasting, says: "Fasting is the teacher of moderation, the mother of virtue, the educator of the children of God, the guide of the lost, the calm of the soul, the support of life, an untroubled peace; its seriousness and importance quiet the passions, extinguish anger and fury, cool and calm every agitation that comes from too much food."

Legacy

His sermons were printed by Migne in Patrologia Graeca 40, with a Latin translation, and two others, found on Mount Athos, were published by A. Bretz (1914). Five sermons were translated into English in 1904, and eleven into German. Philip Rubens, brother of the painter Rubens, prepared an edition, published after his death in 1611. He is not to be confused with Asterius the Sophist, an Arian polemicist. At the Seventh Ecumenical Council he was brought back into notice, after having been almost forgotten by contemporaries and later generations.