The last two days before Epiphany do not have any specific saints given to them that are assigned to them in line with the nativity. I am not sure why. Instead, these days seem to have local saints that are popular who will be observed. I couldn’t find any information regarding which specific saints are used, so I went searching for saints associated with January 4 and 5, and I found some interesting saints given feast days on those days.
For January 4, I came across Saint Hermes of Moesia also known as St Hermes the Exorcist. There are a few other saint Hermes that are recognized by the Catholic or Orthodox church, but none of them had a feast day on January 4. There are no images of him, and he was recognized as a saint before the churches were organized. I found on one website that an image commonly used for him is that of a man casting a devil out of another man or a child. The only information about him was that he died in Italy, and that he was an exorcist. His name “Of Moesia” refers to the old Roman name for an area in what is now Serbia, South of the Danube. While what writings I could find about him say he was born in Italy, his name “Of Moesia” tells me that probably wasn’t the case, or maybe he was born there, but his family from Moesia originally, and he continued to be identified by that through his life, until his death in 300 AD. He was allegedly killed for his faith, and is thus a martyr.
The main things that interest me is that he was an exorcist. Of all the information that was kept, this one pops out to me, as well as his name. Hermes. Apparently Christianity couldn’t keep the god of messengers down. and that one of his namesakes would be an exorcist of the church in the early days, thus showing he had the gift of the spirit to cast out unclean spirits at the very least, and this tells me that there is something mystical about this saint.
After some more searching, I found his name included in a Litany of Saints, St Hermes of Moesia (also known as St Hermes the Exorcist) Pray for us. As far as I can tell this Litany with the names of saints known as exorcists was specifically composed as a litany to aid in casting out evil spirits.