Ecumenical Commemoration
Bishop of Rome & Martyr
January 20 · d. 250
also known as Fabian of Rome, Pope Fabian, St. Fabian
Fabian was bishop of Rome from 236 until his death in 250, at the opening of the persecution under the emperor Decius. He was a countryman with no standing in the city when he was elected, and the church remembered the election as astonishing. He ordered the work of the Roman deacons, the keeping of the martyrs' records, and the care of the cemeteries. He was buried in the cemetery of Callistus on the Via Appia, and his epitaph there names him bishop and martyr.
Fabian had come in from the country. Anteros, the bishop of Rome, had died on the third day before the Nones of January in the year 236, after holding the office little more than a month, and Fabian was one of many who had travelled to the city and was staying there when the brethren assembled to choose a successor. He was not a candidate. Eusebius, who set the story down some seventy-five years later and who says carefully that this is what they say and what they relate, is plain about it: several renowned and honorable men were in the minds of many, "but Fabianus, although present, was in the mind of none." Then, they relate, "suddenly a dove flying down lighted on his head, resembling the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Saviour in the form of a dove." The whole assembly cried out that he was worthy, and they took him without delay and set him on the bishop's seat.
He held it for fourteen years, and what he did with them was ordinary work. He divided the regions of the city among his deacons. He set subdeacons over notaries so that the acts of the martyrs might be gathered faithfully and entire, which is to say that he made sure the church would remember its dead accurately. He ordered building works throughout the cemeteries. Tradition says he brought home the body of Pontian, a bishop who had died in exile in Sardinia, and laid it in the catacomb of Callistus. Origen, under a cloud and defending his own orthodoxy, wrote to Fabian by name among the rulers of the churches. So did Fabian write, to Africa, censuring a bishop there; the letters are lost, but Cyprian of Carthage remembered them.
Then in January of the year 250 the emperor Decius required every inhabitant of the empire to sacrifice before a magistrate and carry a signed certificate to prove it, and the first man in Rome to be taken was the bishop. How Fabian died is not recorded. Eusebius says only that he suffered martyrdom; the Roman lists say only that he suffered. What is recorded is that news of it reached Carthage by a subdeacon named Crementius, and that Cyprian, who had been wavering doubtfully over an uncertain rumour, wrote back that he was "most abundantly informed of his glorious end; and I rejoiced greatly that, in harmony with the integrity of his administration, an honourable consummation also attended him." The Roman clergy honoured his memory so publicly that a bishop in another country heard of it and thought it worth imitating.
The see then stood empty for about fourteen months, because to be elected bishop of Rome was to be denounced. During that vacancy the presbyters governed by letter, and in one of those letters, written to Cyprian, they name him: since the departure of Fabian of most noble memory, they say, they have had no bishop appointed as yet. It is the only surviving contemporary Roman text that speaks his name, and what it says of a man who had been nobody in that city fourteen years earlier is that his memory was the most noble they had.
You will most likely not be chosen for anything by acclamation, and if you were you would probably distrust it. But notice what Fabian did with the fourteen years the choice gave him: he sorted out who was responsible for which part of the city, he made sure someone was writing things down accurately, and he saw to the graves. None of that was visible work, and all of it was still holding the church up when he himself was gone within weeks of the edict and the see stood empty for more than a year. Whatever ordinary and unglamorous responsibility is presently yours to keep in good order, are you tending it as though someone will have to rely on it after you are no longer there?
The record of Fabian is unusually clean at its centre and empty at both ends. Four bodies of evidence carry him. The earliest is his own epitaph, recovered from the Crypt of the Popes in the Catacomb of Callixtus by Giovanni Battista de Rossi in his excavation campaign of 1849 to 1854. De Rossi prints it together with the three other papal epitaphs from that crypt, and the stone reads ΦΑΒΙΑΝΟϹ ΕΠΙ, Fabian, bishop, followed by a compressed monogram of the letters of the word martyr; the Catholic Encyclopedia renders the whole as "Fabian, bishop and martyr". Third-century Roman clergy still used Greek for formal epigraphy, and five original Greek papal inscriptions survive from the crypt. The martyr title was not cut with the rest of the text. It is traced more lightly, as a graffito on a slab already set in place, and the same monogram in the same hand stands on the epitaph of Pontian nearby, which led de Rossi's successors to suppose that the two men were declared martyrs together in one later act rather than at burial. If that is right, the stone carries two moments: the burial, and the church's later judgment on how he had died. The second is contemporary: three letters in the correspondence of Cyprian of Carthage, all written within a few years of the death. The third is Eusebius of Caesarea, whose Church History was written about 325, some seventy-five years after the event and from outside Rome, and which supplies the election, Origen's letter, and the martyrdom notice. The fourth is Roman and administrative: the Chronography of 354, which contains both the Depositio Martyrum and the Liberian Catalogue, and behind it the Liber Pontificalis, whose core is sixth-century and therefore more than two and a half centuries after Fabian.
Everything before the election is blank. The Liber Pontificalis gives him a father named Fabius, but it gives nearly every early bishop a father's name in the same formula, and that is grounds for caution rather than confidence. Mother, siblings, education, social class, and whether he held any prior office in the church are all unattested. Eusebius says he had come from the country with others after Anteros's death and was staying at Rome, and that is the whole of what survives about the first part of his life. The name itself was unstable in transmission: the Liberian Catalogue calls him Fabius throughout, and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography reports Flavianus as a variant in later Eastern chroniclers.
Four points are genuinely contested and should not be smoothed. First, the day of his death. The Depositio Martyrum gives 20 January, the Liberian Catalogue gives 21 January, and the Liber Pontificalis gives 19 January; the first two sit inside the same manuscript collection and disagree with each other, and Eusebius gives no day at all. The Roman liturgical tradition follows the first. The year 250 is secure on all three witnesses. Second, the length of the reign: the Liberian Catalogue gives fourteen years, one month and ten days, the Liber Pontificalis fourteen years, eleven months and eleven days, and the latter cannot be reconciled with an accession early in 236 and a death in January 250. Third, the day of the election is not recorded anywhere in antiquity. The Liberian gives consular years and a reign length and nothing more; the figure 10 January 236, which circulates widely on the modern internet, has no ancient warrant. Fourth, the vacancy: Cyprian's correspondence attests it as ongoing, Eusebius supplies the endpoints, and the standard reckoning is about fourteen months to Cornelius's election in March 251, against which the Liber Pontificalis says the episcopate ceased for seven days.
Devotion to Fabian begins before any calendar records it. Writing in 250, within weeks or months of the death, Cyprian congratulates the Roman clergy that they honour their bishop's memory "with a testimony so public and so illustrious," which places the beginning of the observance a full century before the first calendrical evidence and in a contemporary voice. That first calendrical evidence is the Depositio Martyrum in the Chronography of 354, which enters him on 20 January at the cemetery of Callistus. It is a burial-day list kept for annual commemoration at the tomb, and the feast descends directly from that practice. Fabian was never formally canonized, because his veneration is older than any canonization process by well over a millennium; he entered the calendar by local commemoration at the grave, fixed in writing in the fourth century and carried forward ever since. The reformed Roman calendar of 1969 keeps him as an optional memorial on 20 January together with Sebastian, and Anglican calendars keep the day as well.
Sebastian is the source of a persistent confusion. The two share the day and share a single line in the Depositio Martyrum, but they were buried in different cemeteries and Sebastian is conventionally placed in a later persecution. Their frequent pairing in art has a different cause: both were invoked as protectors against plague. Fabian's own attributes are the dove of his election, the papal tiara (an anachronism, since no such object existed in the third century), and often Sebastian's arrows beside him. Giovanni di Paolo's panel of the two saints, painted about 1475, hangs in the National Gallery in London. The Catacomb of Callixtus is still visited, and at San Sebastiano fuori le mura on the Appian Way the Albani Chapel, built in 1716 for Pope Clement XI, is dedicated to him.
Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History, Book VI, chapters 29, 36 and 39, translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, volume I (1890), supplies the election and the dove (VI.29.1-4), Origen's letter to Fabian (VI.36.4; cited as VI.34 in the Catholic Encyclopedia, a genuine edition discrepancy), and the martyrdom notice (VI.39.1). Available at ccel.org: VI.29, VI.36, VI.39. The editors' notes on those pages reject Eusebius's explanation of Decius's motive and rule out the Alexandrian synods of 231/232 as the occasion of Origen's letter.
Cyprian of Carthage, Epistles, translated by Robert Ernest Wallis in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume V (1886). Epistle 3, section 1 (Epistle 9 in the Hartel numbering), written in 250 to the clergy at Rome, carries the news brought by Crementius the subdeacon and the praise of the "glorious end" in harmony with "the integrity of his administration"; the letter does not name Fabian, and the identification rests on the date, the office, the Roman addressees, and the Roman Office of Readings' use of it on his feast: newadvent.org/fathers/050603.htm. Epistle 30, the Roman clergy's letter during the vacancy, is the one contemporary text that names him, "the departure of Fabian of most noble memory," and is generally attributed on stylistic grounds to the presbyter Novatian: newadvent.org/fathers/050630.htm. Epistle 54, section 10, records the letters of Fabian and Donatus against Privatus of Lambesa, condemned "by the judgment of ninety bishops": newadvent.org/fathers/050654.htm.
The Chronography of 354 supplies both the Depositio Martyrum entry, "XIII kal. Feb. Fabiani in Callisti," and the Liberian Catalogue, which gives Anteros's death day, the reign length, the death on XII kal. Feb., the name form Fabius, and the clause on the deacons and the regions; both in the tertullian.org edition after MGH Chronica Minora I (1892): Depositio Martyrum. The Liber Pontificalis, Life of Fabianus, Latin text at thelatinlibrary.com (no internal anchors; search for FABIANVS), is the source for the father's name, the seven subdeacons over seven notaries, the cemetery works, and the seven-day vacancy; any English of it here is a working translation, since neither Duchesne's critical edition nor the Loomis or Davis translations were consulted. Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks I.30, records the seven bishops sent into Gaul without naming a sender.
Giovanni Battista de Rossi, La Roma sotterranea cristiana, volume II (Rome, 1867), page 59, prints the four papal epitaphs of the crypt together and is the source of the Greek given above; digitised at archive.org. Sisto Scaglia, The Catacombs of Saint Callistus: History and Description, transcribes the parallel epitaph of Pontian as ΠΟΝΤΙΑΝΟϹ ΕΠΙϹΚ ΜΡΤ, describes the martyr mark as a monogram of three letters, and observes that on both slabs it is cut in a different character from the inscription itself and by one hand: archive.org. Eusebius, Church History VI.43, preserves Cornelius's enumeration of the Roman clergy and its seven deacons: ccel.org.
Secondary: the Catholic Encyclopedia (1909), "Pope St. Fabian," at newadvent.org/cathen/05742d.htm, source of the English rendering of the epitaph (from de Rossi, Roma Sotterranea II, 59), the judgment on the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals, and the "seven regions" paraphrase; Henry Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography, at ccel.org/ccel/wace/biodict.html, for the variant name forms and the source-critical caution on the Gaul mission. The Crypt of the Popes and its Greek inscriptions are described by the Catacombe di San Callisto. Giovanni di Paolo's Saints Fabian and Sebastian, about 1475, egg tempera on wood, 84.5 by 54.5 cm, is National Gallery NG3402, presented through the Art Fund in memory of Robert Ross, 1919: nationalgallery.org.uk.
Fabian is as much to say as making sovereign beatitude or blessedness, that is to wit in getting in three manner wises or manners. First by right and reason of adoption of being in achate, and by victory.
Of S. Fabian the Martyr.
S. Fabian was a citizen and burgess of Rome, and it happed when the pope was dead that the people assembled for to choose another pope. And S. Fabian came to the election for to know who should be elect and chosen to that dignity. And anon a white dove descended from heaven and rested upon his head, and when the people saw that they marvelled much, and all they by common accord chose him for to be pope. This holy man Fabian, after when he was pope, he ordained throughout all the countries, seven deacons, and to them seven subdeacons, for to write the lives of martyrs.
There was an emperor in his time named Philip, which was much sinful, and came boldly in the vigil of Easter in to the church for to be houseled and communed, whom the pope drove away and denied to him the communion, until he had gone and shriven him of his sins, and let him stand among the seculars. This holy pope also ordained the chrism in the church. Then at the last when he had been pope thirteen years Decius the emperor commanded to smite off his head, and so he was crowned with the crown of martyrdom the year of our Lord two hundred and fifty-three.
Of S.
That last point bears on how much weight the Liber Pontificalis can carry generally, and the question matters, because it is the sole source for the subdeacons and notaries, the cemetery works, and the translation of Pontian's body. In one paragraph the same source gives a reign length that fails arithmetic, a death date one day off the feast the whole tradition keeps, and a vacancy of seven days against fourteen months. The administrative reforms may well be genuine institutional memory; they are not attested the way the epitaph and Cyprian's letters are, and the page should not pretend otherwise. A related caution: the Liberian Catalogue's clause is simply that he divided the regions of the city among the deacons. The widely repeated "seven ecclesiastical regions" is the Catholic Encyclopedia's paraphrase, and in the Latin the number seven attaches only to the subdeacons and notaries. The figure is nonetheless a fair inference rather than an invention. The same entry has him ordain seven deacons, and Cornelius, who followed him within the year, tells Fabius of Antioch that the Roman church then kept forty-six presbyters, seven deacons and seven subdeacons. Regions divided among seven deacons make seven regions. It is worth writing as something that follows from the deacons, and not as something the Latin says.
Two things commonly said of him are not supportable. The manner of his death is unrecorded, and the accounts giving imprisonment or beheading are devotional supplements rather than documentary. And the mission of seven bishops into Gaul, which later tradition ascribes to him, is described by Gregory of Tours without a sender named; Wace calls the attribution disputable, and it should be reported as reception history rather than as an act of Fabian's.
He left no writings. Two letters circulate under his name in the ninth-century Pseudo-Isidorian decretals, and the Catholic Encyclopedia states flatly that they are apocryphal. That he wrote at all is known only at second hand: Cyprian records that Fabian and Donatus, "also our predecessors," had severely remarked upon a certain Privatus in their letters, and Eusebius records that Origen wrote to him defending his orthodoxy. Neither correspondence survives; of Origen's epistles to Fabian and others, the NPNF editors note, no trace remains.
British (Received Pronunciation): Martyrum /ˈmɑːrtɪrəm/
Almighty God, you gave your servant Fabian boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Readings for a Martyr
Jeremiah 15:15–21Psalm 34Revelation 7:9–17Luke 12:4–12