Apostle Quadratus of the Seventy

Quadratus was one of the Seventy whom the Lord sent forth, and one of the first apologists of the post-apostolic Church. He served as bishop of Athens — the second after Hierotheos and Dionysius the Areopagite, by the Eastern reckoning — and is principally remembered for the apology he addressed to the Emperor Hadrian during the imperial visit to Athens around 124, defending the faith against the pagan charges and arguing for the historicity of the miracles of Christ from the testimony of those whom He had healed and raised, "some of whom remained alive even to our day."

The apology of Quadratus survives only in a brief fragment preserved by Eusebius, but the fragment is enough to establish his place at the head of the apologetic tradition — written before Aristides, before Justin Martyr, in the very first generation after the apostles. The synaxarion records that he served the Athenian church through many years and died in peace at an advanced age.

His feast falls on September 21, on the leavetaking of the Exaltation of the Cross. The Synaxis of the Seventy is kept on January 4.