Apostle of the Seventy, Bishop Quadratus of Athens

Apostle of the Seventy Quadratus was ordained Bishop of Athens in succession to Hieromartyr Publius. Around 124–129, during Emperor Hadrian's visit to Athens, Quadratus presented him with a written "Apology" in defense of Christianity — one of the earliest monuments of Christian apologetics, surviving only in a fragment quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea; tradition holds it made such an impression on the emperor that he thereafter required Christians be tried only on proven charges rather than the name alone.

The bishop continued preaching in Athens and later Magnesia, survived an attempted stoning by a pagan mob, but was subsequently imprisoned, where he died of starvation.

IMPORTANT NOTE: the Orthodox Encyclopedia notes that the surviving Life under September 21 contains an apparent anachronism, mixing details of a martyrdom under Decius/Valerian (249–260) with the account of a 2nd-century apologist from Hadrian's time — some scholars believe church tradition may have conflated the historical apologist-bishop with a separate, later 3rd-century martyr from Nicomedia (feast March 10). The image in our database (an elderly man in robes with a scroll against a city backdrop) matches the apologist-bishop specifically — the scroll symbolizing his written "Apology."

His feast is kept on September 21/October 4, and also January 4/17 in the Synaxis of the Seventy Apostles.