Baring-Gould’s sources: Greek Menaea and Menology. Authority: — The perfectly trustworthy account in the Menaea.] S. Nicetas was bora of parents in an elevated rank of life, in Paphlagonia, which boasted of imperial connexions. 1 36 L ives of the Saints. LOct. & Nicetas is called “ patrician” in all the menaeas, and he seems to have been about the court of the Empress Irene while quite a young man. The menology of Basil affirms that he was sent by Irene as her representative to the second council of Nicaea, but his name does not occur in the acts of the council as having held there any position of importance. He was at that time only twenty-four years old, and at that age is not likely to have been trusted with an office requiring matured discretion. He probably occupied some inferior position. Later he was nominated prefect of Sicily, and assisted, as we learn from the Acts of S. Euphemia, at the translation of her relics.
In 802, the power of the Empress Irene was broken by the revolt of Nicephorus, the grand treasurer, who had been raised, enriched, and entrusted with the first dignity of the empire by her. Irene was ill in bed when suddenly the streets rang with the shout, “ Nicephorus is Emperor!” and her room was invaded by the conspirators. Nicephorus falsely assured the sick empress that he had only assumed the purple because he had been forced to iL Irene indignantly rose: “ I have not forgotten my former fortune,” she said, with dignity. “An orphan in my youth, God took me in His arms and placed me on the throne which I was unworthy to fill. I know that my fall is due to my own sins. The name of the Lord be praised ! To His mighty hand I bow; He has taken the crown from me which He set upon my head, and” — she turned towards Nicephorus, Nicetas, and the other conspirators — “ you know how often I have been warned against the treachery you meditated against me whilst I heaped benefits upon you. The event has proved that these warnings were not as false as I thought them. Had I listened to them and believed you could have been traitors, your ruin would have been speedy. I trusted *’our oaths, I hoped and believed that you were blameless, •S'. Nicetas.
to avoid the bitter necessity of chastising you. I have given myse’f over to the arms of the King of kings and He has protected the empire. Now He will decide what is to become of my life. If that be spared me, then I ask but one favour, permission to live in my private palace at Eleutheris, which I have built, in undisturbed possession of my goods, and to spend the rest of my days in penitence and tears.” Nicephorus swore solemnly to grant her what she desired, and to honour her ever as Augusta. But the fallen princess found that this oath was as little regarded as the former oaths taken by the rebel. She was banished to the island of Lesbos, where she was forced to work with her hands to earn a poor livelihood, and after a few months of destitution she died at the age of eighty, from want and grief. Nicetas has been thought to have joined in the conspiracy, and indeed is charged with it by Baronius [Cardinal Baronius (d. 1607), church historian who edited the Roman Martyrology]. But the words of Theophanes, on which he relied, do not necessarily implicate S. Nicetas in such an odious crime. He says, that among the conspirators were “ Nicetas, the patrician and domestic of the schools, and Sisinius, the patrician and his brother, of the crafty and perjured family of the Triphyllii.” 1 Nicetas Triphyllios was killed next year, a.d. 803, in battle against the Bulgarians. The passage is capable of two meanings — the conspirators were Nicetas, the patrician, and Sisinius and his brother Nicetas, these two latter being of the family of the Triphyllii, or the conspirators were Nicetas, the patrician, and Sisinius, also patrician, and brother of this Nicetas, both being of the family of the Triphyllii. We will give S. Nicetas the benefit of the doubt. Many tyrants have reigned undoubtedly more criminal than Nicephorus, but none perhaps have more deeply incurred the universal abhorrence of their people. His cha1 ** cvnpyoOvnn U enrrwv Nucfaov vocTfutioo xat tofjw rrUau tSv <rx,aX£>, ko2 Itmyyiou racrpuuov ca) afc*4> oC ear row, w 8oX*p£r ui irt&pxwv rpvp uXXW.” racter was stained with the three odious vices of hypocrisy, ingratitude, and avarice. Unskilful and unfortunate in war, Nicephorus was vanquished by the Saracens [medieval Christian name for Arab and Muslim peoples], and slain by the Bulgarians in 81 1; and the advantage of his death overbalanced, in the public estimation, the destruction of a Roman army. On Michael Rhangabe assuming the purple, Nicetas, sick at heart at the miserable condition of the empire, its obvious decline, and threatening ruin, left the world and assumed the monastic habit.
He had asked permission to do so of Nicephorus and his son Stauracius, but had been refused, and the Emperor Michael, when he accorded him permission to assume the habit, bade him enter the monastery of Chrysonike, at the Golden Gate, and not leave the imperial city. There Nicetas remained till the reign of Leo the Armenian (813-820), but when that emperor began the destruction of the sacred images, Nicetas retired from the city, together with several of the brethren, to a country villa which he had given to the monastery. The emperor having been informed that they had carried off an image of the Saviour from the city, and had concealed it from desecration, sent to the place where they resided and ordered the immediate surrender of the image. The monks implored the soldiers not to ill-treat the sacred icon, but they broke into the treasury of the church, seized the figure, and flung it contemptuously across the back of a horse. Orders were given that Nicetas should not leave the place where he was till he knew the emperor’s pleasure. He was left unmolested till Theophilus assumed the purple in 829, when the emperor sent to Nicetas to order him to com municate with Antony, patriarch [the title of the bishops of the great ancient sees: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem] of Constantinople, who abetted the emperors in their iconoclasm. “This I will not do,” answered Nicetas; “ I will not cease from reverencing the image of Christ, do with me what you will, banish me, kill me, if it please you.”
S. Maccallin. He was thereupon expelled the house. He and three brethren took refuge in a house in the suburbs of Constantinople, and spent there Lent [the forty days of fasting before Easter] and Easter. But an edict having been issued forbidding the harbouring of such as revered images, Nicetas was turned out, and as none dare give him shelter, he betook himself to a place called Eribolon, and remained in hiding there with his companions till driven from it by the incursions of the Saracens. Then they sought refuge in another place called Zulpa. Their hiding place was again discovered and they were ordered to communicate with the iconoclasts or depart. They were, therefore, again obliged to remove. Nicetas found refuge at Catisia, where he bought a little farm and, as tranquillity came at last, he built a church there to the Angels, and spent there the rest of his days in peace.
