Such, briefly, is the history of Saint Dodekanus, and the origin of his
cult on Nepenthe.
Legends galore, often contradictory to this account and to one another,
have clustered round his name, as was inevitable. He is supposed to
have preached in Asia Minor; to have died as a young man, in his
convent; to have become a hermit, a cobbler, a bishop (of Nicomedia), a
eunuch, a politician. Two volumes of mediocre sermons in the Byzantine
tongue have been ascribed to him. These and other crudities may be
dismissed as apocryphal. Even his name has given rise to controversy,
although its origin from the Greek word DODEKA, signifying twelve and
alluding to the twelve morsels into which his body was superstitiously
divided, is as self-evident as well can be. Thus a worthy young canon
of the church of Nepenthe, Giacinto Mellino, who has lately written a
life of Saint Eulalia, the local patroness of sailors--her festival
occurs twelve days after that of Saint Dodekanus--takes occasion, in
this otherwise commendable pamphlet, to scoff at the old-established
derivation of the name and to propose an alternative etymology.
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