Heron the Philosopher

Holy Venerable Heron the Philosopher is known only by a few lines. The time and place of his life are unknown. His name and a couplet in his honour stand in the Byzantine verse synaxaria at 24 August (new style, 11 August old style), and in the printed Greek Menaia and the Synaxaristes of Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite at 10 (23) August. The sources say only that the saint "dispelled the errors of the pagan sages" and that he reposed in peace.

The scholar H. Delehaye suggested that Heron the Philosopher is the same as the Heron to whom the twenty-⁠fifth oration of Saint Gregory the Theologian is dedicated. Heron of Alexandria was a Cynic philosopher, known for his asceticism, who accepted Christianity and rebuked pagan errors. According to Saint Gregory, there were martyrs for Christ in his family. In the reign of Emperor Valens (364-378) and in the patriarchate of the Arian Lucius (375-378), Heron suffered from the Arians for the true faith: Saint Gregory says that he contended for the truth, teaching, exhorting, rebuking and shaming, common people and rulers, in private and in public, at all times and in all places. He was scourged and exiled to the desert.

Present-⁠day scholars, however, share the view of Blessed Jerome, who thought that Heron is one and the same as Maximus, who in the year 380 tried to depose Saint Gregory from the see of Constantinople. The veneration of Heron-⁠Maximus as a saint and his identification with Heron the Philosopher are therefore unlikely.

He is commemorated on 23 August, according to the Greek calendar, and on 24 August, according to the Byzantine one. He is not included in the present calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church.