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Saint Crescens | |
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| Hieromartyr Apostle of the Seventy | |
| Born | 1st century |
| Died | c. 98–117 Galatia,Roman Empire (modern-dayCentral Anatolia,Turkey) |
| Venerated in | Eastern Orthodox Church Roman Catholic Church |
| Feast | July 30 (Orthodoxy) June 27 (Catholicism) |
Crescens (Greek: Κρίσκης) was an individual who appears in theNew Testament. He is traditionally considered one of the 72 disciples sent out by Jesus in Luke 10.[1] He was a missionary inGalatia and became a companion ofPaul. The name 'Crescens' is the present-active participle of theLatin wordcrescere, and means 'increasing'.
Crescens, a companion of Paul during his second Roman captivity, appears once in the New Testament, where he is mentioned as having left the Apostle to go into Galatia: "Make haste to come to me quickly", Paul writes toTimothy, "for Demas hath left me, loving this world, and is gone toThessalonica, Crescens into Galatia, Titus into Dalmatia" (2 Timothy 4:8–10). All commentators agree in ranking Crescens withTitus rather than with Demas, and in seeing here, therefore, a reference to a missionary journey into Galatia. This term, in New Testament times, might mean eitherGaul or theRoman province of Galatia inAsia Minor, where Paul had labored so much; and its use here has been interpreted in both senses. In the other passages where it occurs in the New Testament, however, it denotes Galatia, and most probably it would be so understood here by Timothy, especially as the other regions mentioned are likewise to the east of Rome. Moreover, Paul might easily have a reason for sending a disciple to visit his old Churches in Galatia, while Fenlon notes that there is no proof that he had an active interest in Gaul.[2]
Accordingly, the earliest tradition (Apostolic Constitutions, VII, 46) represents Crescens as abishop of the Churches in Galatia, martyred there during the reign of Trajan.[3]
Later traditions, on the other hand, locate him asBishop of Vienne in Gaul, also atMainz on theRhine. But the earliest known traditions of Gaul itself record nothing of this disciple of the Apostle as a founder of their Churches, and the belief is thought to have arisen later from the desire of an Apostolic origin. The claims of Vienne have been most strongly urged; but they are based upon the mistaken identification of its first bishop, Crescens, who lived in the third century, with the disciple of Paul. As little can be said for Mainz. The reading of certain manuscripts (Sinaiticus,Ephræmi), which have "Gallia" instead of "Galatia", has also been advanced in favour of Gaul; but the traditional reading is supported by the great mass of manuscript evidence. Crescens is mentioned as one of theSeventy Apostles of Christ by Pseudo-Dorotheus. His martyrdom in Galatia, underTrajan, commemorated on 27 June by theRoman Martyrology, lacks the confirmation of olderMartyrologies.[2]
TheEastern Orthodox Church honours him on 30 July, as one of the Seventy.
