Saint of the Day – 27 June – St Crescens of Galatia (Died c100) Bishop Martyr, Apostle of St Paul

Saint of the Day – 27 June – St Crescens of Galatia (Died c100) Bishop Martyr, Apostle of St Paul. Crescens is traditionally considered one of the 72 disciples sent out by Jesus in Luke 10. He was a missionary in Galatia and became a companion to and a disciple of St Paul. The name ‘Crescens’ means ‘increasing.’ Additional Memorial – 29 December (translation of Relics).

The Roman Martyrology reads today: “In Galatia, St Crescens, disciple of the blessed Apostle St Paul. In passing through Gaul, he converted many to the Faith by his preaching. Returning to the people for whom especially, he had been Consecrated Bishop, he maintained, to the end of his life, the Galatians in the service of the Lord and finally, consumated his Martyrdom under Trajan.”

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,” Paul writes to Timothy, “for Demas hath left me, loving this world and is gone to Thessalonica, Crescens into Galatia, Titus into Dalmatia” (2 Timothy 4:8–10).

All commentators agree in ranking Crescens with Titus 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 either Gaul or the Roman Province of Galatia in Asia Minor, where Paul had laboured 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 Galatiain Asia Minor 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.

Later traditions, on the other hand, locate him as Bishop of Vienne in Gaul, also at Mainz on the Rhine. But the earliest known traditions of Gaul itself, record nothing of this disciple of the Apostle, as a Founder of their Church 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.

As little can be said for Mainz. The reading of certain manuscripts 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 the seventy two disciples of Christ by Pseudo-Dorotheus. His Martyrdom in Galatia, under Trajan, is commemorated on 27 June.