St. Cleophas

S. Epiphanius says the same.

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September 25 · —

St. Cleophas

St. Cleophas

S. Epiphanius says the same.

Traditional feast

September 25
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

September 25 (also listed: October 30, November 10)
Secondary source · Wikipedia

Represents

Feast

Early life

The book says little or nothing about early life. This is how the account begins.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 145 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

S. Epiphanius says the same. Hegesippus, being the earliest ecclesiastical historian of whom fragments remain, is the best authority we have for this statement He says that he was the father of Simon. Alphaeus, the father of Levi, cannot have been the same man, nor probably was Cleopas, the disciple of Emmaus.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Keep their day. Remember them on September 25 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 145 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology. The Martyrologium Parvum, Ado, Usuardus, Notker, Hrabanus, &c. By the Greeks on Oct. 30.] LEOPHAS, the disciple, going to Emmaus, on the day of the Resurrection, when Jesus joined himself to him, explained to him the Scriptures, and was made known to him in the breaking of bread,1 was possibly the same as Cleophas, more accurately Clopas, or Alphseus, who is named in S. John’s Gospel.2 Clopas was the father of the Apostle S. James the Less,8 a husband of that Mary (called in S. Mark xv. 40, mother of James the Less and of Joses) who was standing by the cross of Jesus with the Blessed Virgin and others. In Mark ii. 14, Levi or Matthew is also said to have been the son of Alphseus. Hegesippus, quoted by Eusebius, says that Cleophas and S. Joseph, the husband of Our Lady, were brothers, and v?. Firminus.

S. Epiphanius says the same. Hegesippus, being the earliest ecclesiastical historian of whom fragments remain, is the best authority we have for this statement He says that he was the father of Simon. Alphaeus, the father of Levi, cannot have been the same man, nor probably was Cleopas, the disciple of Emmaus. Mary, the wife of Cleopas, is believed to have been the sister of Mary the Virgin. Their children were James and Joses, Jude and Simeon, cousins of the Lord.

S. Cleopas was regarded as patron of the Teutonic Order. The Cleopas commemorated in the Roman Martyrology is he who lived at Emmaus, and the Martyrology adopts the legend that he was massacred by the Jews in the very house where the Lord had been made known to him by the breaking of bread. There is no historical evidence that this was the case.

Feast days

Feast: September 25

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Cleophas's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on September 25
F

St. Firminus

September 25 · Bishop, Martyr
P

St. Principius of…

September 25 · Bishop
St. Finbar of Cork

St. Finbar of Cork

September 25 · Bishop
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Sources

Credits

Image: Michelangelo Caravaggio 016.jpg · Caravaggio · Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.

Image: Caravaggio, Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.