Note 38 — Chapter I · THE FALL OF THE THEATRES
Reading edition
On the critical problem offered by such vitae cf. Prof. Bury in Gibbon, i. l. B. von der Lage, Studien zur Genesius-legende (1898), attempts to show that the legends of St. Genesius (Acta SS. Aug. v. 122), St. Gelasius (Acta SS. Feb. iii. 680), St. Ardalio (Acta SS. Apr. ii. 213), St. Porphyrius (Acta SS. Sept. v. 37), and another St. Porphyrius (Acta SS. Nov. ii. 230) are all variants of a Greek story originally told of an anonymous mimus. The Passio of St. Genesius represents him as a magister mimithemelae artis, converted while he was mimicking a baptism before Diocletian and martyred. It professes to give part of the dialogue of the mime. The legends of St. Philemon (Menologium Basilii, ii. 59; cf. Acta SS. Mar. i. 751) and St. Pelagia or Margarita (Acta SS. Oct. iv. 248) appear to be distinct. Palladius, Vita Chrysostomi, 8, records how the stage of Antioch in the fifth century rang with the scandals caused by the patriarch Severus and other Monophysite heretics.