The saint whose body lies prostrate in the Church of St. Cyriacus of Ancona is Judas
Cyriacus, the 4th century Jew whose legend is detailed in the Acta
Cyriaci and is the Patron Saint of Ancona celebrated on May 4th.
7/15/2009:
Was the X in Cyriax, apparently the oldest form of the name appearing
in Germany, a method of secretly identifying the family as ancient
Christian - that is, Christians before it was legalized at the beginning
of the 4th century, when being a Christian was a life threatening
admission.
When was the X included in the German alphabet? Was the X uniquely Greek, thereby also possibly uniquely Christian, or was it used by others before the advent of Christianity?
Was the initial sound of that , the Greek , (a hard K) - meaning that the reference to the Cyriax Bible is really to the Syriac Bible (or Codex Syriacus translation, see below) from Syria and not associated with our family name at all?
3/31/09: When, where and why did the hard 'K' sound for both the beginning and the ending of our ancient Greek , inscribed in stone, surname evolve into the soft 'S' and 'KS' beginning and endings, respectively?
What was Saint Cyriacus' age when martyred on August 8th, 304?
Should it be 258 or is there another Cyriacus who died with the others in 258? (?The Bishop of Ostia?)
What was his occupation?
From whence does the reference to him being a Deacon come?
Were Deacon Severus and Cyriacus one and the same individual?! Or, did Deacon Cyriacus precede Severus?! Follow him?! Were they both Deacons?!
Is it possible the stories of both have become intermixed into that of one? Was the Cyriac family spread throughout the Roman Empire?
Were they all related to some 'family' enterprise, such as general contracting or catacomb/grave digging?
Was the referenced wealth of the family on both sides or just on the female "DASVMIAN" side?
Was the Cyriac family ?enterprise? already established in Germania during previous Roman occupation or was it newly established after 300 A.D.?
Was there, in fact, any such enterprise in Germania?
Are there stone or other relatively permanent inscriptions still available or recorded somewhere showing the "QVIRIACE" family name in Germania before, around or immediately after 300 A.D.? Who was the 66 year of DASVMIAN (DASUMIAN) QVIRIACE and when exactly did she die?
(There's no indication of parenthood or widowhood and the 4th century inscription on her ?tombstone? is incomplete.)
Was this the owner of the Cyriaca cemetery? She
could have been the daughter (born around 224) of Saint Cyriaca who died in 259, the wealthy
matriarch of the surviving family and/or sister of our Cyriacus at the Baths. Being buried in
the most honored place in the Callixtus cemetery instead of in the
deteriorating Cyriaca cemetery may have been logical choice or an indication
of the relationship among the wealthy families having owned these locales
before they were donated to the church. St. Cecilia could have been
a cousin born 7 decades before in the middle of the 2nd century.
Is it a coincidence that fellow Greek Hyppolytus' cemetery and burial site is adjacent to presumed Greek Cyriaca cemetery or was that the Greek section of Rome? (West side of ancient outskirts.) Was there a term in the ancient Greek language for "dedicated to"? In other words, is my hunch that the meaning of Cyriacus was more likely "dedicated to" rather than "belonging to" in the language of the time of Jesus Christ?
Or, could it have been the latter when referring to slaves of a master or
lord? Could it have been used to infer that the earliest followers of
Christianity were "slaves" of Christ?
8/2/2003: When and why was the "ka" added to Kyriakos to make it Kyriakakos with the
meaning of "bad Lord"? Were these already extant Kyriakou family members who did not join the new Christian
movement? That is, was the "ka" added because they were
Christians-NOT!? Or, could it have been those given the name at birth
who rejected the associated with Christianity and wanted to publicize that
fact - much the opposite of waht those with the Cyriax spelling did in
Germany?!
11/10/2011: Family name in Mani,
Peloponnese, Greece with the meaning of "son of"!!
5/25/04 & 7/15/09: Did the Apostle Paul begin the process in the
first century where KYRIAKOU began referring to his
initial converts and eventually into the surnames of the earliest Greek
Christian families - probably in the Corinth or Antioch areas? Or,
was the KYRIAKOU family surname already extant in
Antioch or Corinth area in the first century - with some members of that
family among the earliest of his Greek converts? (See Antioch.)
Was KYRIAKOU a Greek family name before the time of Christ? Given all the inscribing going on, isn't there a Rosetta stone kind of inscription somewhere in the catacombs that relates in both Greek and Latin the histories of the HIGHLY honored Saint-Martyrs being given such special treatment therein? Or, more likely, were the inscriptions markers for ordinary or extraordinary persons the inscribers merely wanted to record for posterity or later reference? In other words, they weren't being 'honored' - they were merely being buried and preserved for later resurrection with normal, proper markings of respect - the same as was done with grave markers for normal, above ground burials.
Could such a major inscription have been made after the presumed actual or almost total record destruction that took place during the Great Persecution of Valerian in 258?
There was a period of 45 years of relative calm from 260 to 303 that would allow such inscribing to take place. Did it?
Was that a period calm or just lacking in "records" destroyed subsequently? [ 3/11/09: This webmaster/genealogist has come to suspect that many non-Christian records were destroyed 'intentionally' along with those that were Christian in Rome during the first decade of the 4th century - something that caused anguish to the pagan leaders of the time for their having unleashed all the destruction in the first place. ]
Does someone already have it, or is it still there somewhere?
Where's the most logical place it would have been? When did the soft "CIR CYR SEER" sound replace the hard "CURE KUR KYR QUIR" sound that's still used by the Greek branches of the family?
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Did that linquistic differentiation have anything to do with the
disagreements between Greek and Latin Christians that may have begun in
the 4th century after Christianity was legalized?
Has there been confusion in the historical records because of this similarity?
Did they sound the same in the language(s) of the time?
