Saint Manaen

All that remains of Manaen is one line in the Acts of the Apostles, and that line is extraordinary. The text lists the prophets and teachers of the Christian community in Antioch: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Saul — that is, Paul — and “Manaen, a childhood companion of Herod the tetrarch.” Herod the tetrarch is Herod Antipas: the one who had John the Baptist beheaded, the one to whom Pilate sent Jesus during his trial. And Manaen had grown up with him, at his court: his foster brother, as the traditional translation puts it. Two boys raised together in the same palace. One becomes the tetrarch who kills the Baptist. The other ends up in Antioch teaching in the Christian community, alongside Paul, at the very moment when that community sends out the first mission to the Gentiles — that is, the moment when Christianity stops being an internal affair of Judea. We know nothing else about him. His cult in the West is first attested in the martyrologies of Ado and Usuard, in the ninth century, and his entry is read in the Roman Martyrology on May 24. If your name is Manaen, today is your name day.