Holda the Prophetess

ON ST. HOLDA THE PROPHETESS,

AT JERUSALEM UNDER KING JOSIAH.

Holda, Prophetess (St.)

G. H.

On account of the abominable impiety of Manasseh, the Lord had foretold that he would destroy Judah and Jerusalem: meanwhile Manasseh having died, his impious son Amon succeeded, and when he had been slain by his servants, Josiah his son reigned over Judah, who did what was pleasing before the Lord, and walked in all the ways of David his father, and turned aside neither to the right nor to the left. He restored the temple and the worship of God, By the command of the most pious King Josiah, and had the book of Deuteronomy, then discovered in the temple, read before him. When he had heard the words of the book of the Law of the Lord, he rent his garments, and commanded that the Lord be consulted concerning himself, and concerning the people, and concerning all Judah, because he foresaw the wrath of the Lord kindled, because the fathers had not heard the words of this book, so as to do all that is written in it. These things are set forth at greater length in 4 Kings chapter 22, and from verse 14 the following is added.

[2] Helcias the High Priest and others consulted St. Holda, So Helcias the priest, and Ahicam, and Achabor, and Saphan, and Asaia, went to Holda the prophetess, the wife of Sellum, son of Thecuah, son of Aaras, keeper of the wardrobe, who dwelt in Jerusalem in the Second, who indicated to them God's judgment: and they spoke to her. And she answered them: "Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Tell the man that sent you to me: Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will bring evils upon this place, and upon its inhabitants, all the words of the Law which the King of Judah has read, because they have forsaken me and have sacrificed to strange gods, provoking me in all the works of their hands: and my indignation shall be kindled in this place and shall not be extinguished. But to the King of Judah who sent you to consult the Lord, thus shall you say: Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Because you have heard the words of the volume, and your heart has been terrified, and you have humbled yourself before the Lord, having heard the words against this place and its inhabitants, that they should become an astonishment and a curse, and you have rent your garments, and wept before me, and I have heard, says the Lord; therefore I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your sepulchre in peace, that your eyes may not see all the evils which I am about to bring upon this place."

[3] Thus far the words of Holda or Olda the Prophetess: from which the messengers learned two things, the first is, that God would avenge with most atrocious vengeance the idolatry of the Jewish people; the latter, that he would use mercy toward the pious King, that while he lived this calamity

might not befall, on account of his pious zeal toward God and his love toward his people. This prophecy moreover occurred in the 18th year of King Josiah, which may be reckoned the 641st year before the Christian Era. Holda, however, lived at Jerusalem in that part which was called the Second City, She lived at Jerusalem in the Second quarter. and next to the gate which was called the Second, and corresponded to the Fish Gate, which was the first to be approached by those coming into the temple from the North side; and by crossing through the new town, which Hezekiah had enclosed with walls, one came into the other gate of Bezetha, therefore called second: as Salian learnedly explains under the year of the world 3412, nos. 12 and 15. This Prophetess was, on account of the Spirit of God dwelling in her, most known to all; to whom, by divine prompting rather than to Jeremiah or Zephaniah or other Prophets, the King's messengers, Helcias the High Priest, and others came; and they consulted her in the King's name concerning the whole matter, and brought back the answer indicated in the name of God.

[4] She is venerated by the Greeks on 10 April, The Greeks, in the printed menaea and some manuscripts, and in Maximus Bishop of Cythera, venerate St. Holda with an annual memorial on this 10th day of April, in these words: τῇ ἀυτῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῆς ἁγίας Προφήτιδος Ὀλδᾶ. "On the same day of the holy Prophetess Olda." And in the accompanying distich she is said to have breathed forth a spirit presaging the future, indeed holier than the Pythia and filled with the divine Spirit.

Ἀφῆκεν Ὀλδᾶ πνεῦμα μέλλοντα βλὲπων, Ἡ πνεύματος γέμουσα θείου Πυθία.

She is therefore reckoned among the more illustrious women of the Old Testament, in which also Miriam the sister of Moses and Aaron was inspired by the sacred spirit, famous for her sacred Canticle; Deborah the Prophetess, numbered among the more illustrious women of both Testaments. to whom the children of Israel went up in every judgment; Hannah the mother of Samuel, who in spirit composed a mystical canticle to the Lord. There were also in the New Testament, Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist, who, filled with the Holy Spirit, exclaimed to the Virgin Mother of God, "Blessed are you among women," etc.; Anna the Prophetess, daughter of Phanuel, who at that very hour came in when Christ was brought into the temple to be presented to the Lord, and spoke of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Israel. But above all women particularly, and above all, blessed was the Queen of the Prophets, the Virgin Mary Mother of God. Indeed, the Prophet Joel foretold that the prophetic Spirit should be given not only to men but also to women, saying in the name of God: "I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Joel 2:28 And also upon my menservants and maidservants in those days I will pour out my spirit."

[5] Her sacred memorial in the Manuscript Kalendar of the Carmelite Order, preserved at Mechelen, reported on 2 April, is inscribed for the second day of this month April.

ON THE MANY HOLY ROMAN MARTYRS,

BAPTIZED BY POPE ST. ALEXANDER.

IN THE YEAR 116

The many Roman Martyrs, baptized by Pope Alexander (Sts.)

G. H.

St. Alexander, seventh in order of Roman Pontiffs, ruled the Church, truly Greatest: whose Acts, drawn from several manuscript codices, we shall illustrate on May 3, entirely sincere: from which we establish elsewhere the chronology of the preceding and following Pontiffs. In those Acts Trajan is said, after the Martyrdom of St. Alexander, History of the conversion and Martyrdom from the Acts of St. Alexander the Pope. to have died in the same year by the will of God. This is the 116th year: marked by the Consuls L. Aemilius Aelianus and L. Antistes Vetus: whom all the more ancient Catalogues of Pontiffs report, elsewhere deduced by us. In these Acts, among other things, is reported the Martyrdom of St. Quirinus, slain before these Martyrs: whose deeds we have illustrated on his birthday March 30. By his example others converted to the faith of Christ were crowned on this 10th of April in the same year 116; whose conversion and Martyrdom we give from the same Acts of St. Alexander, and they are of this sort:

[2] St. Alexander says to Quirinus the Tribune: "How many persons are enclosed in that prison?" And he said: "Near twenty…" St. Alexander said to him: "If you would grant me a favor, persuade all who are in the prison to be baptized, Captives, charged with crimes, that they may become Christians." Quirinus answered: "You Christians are holy: but some of these are burglars: others adulterers and evildoers, and charged with diverse crimes." St. Alexander said to him: "For sinners the Son of God descended from heaven to earth, and born of a Virgin calls all to pardon. Do not hesitate, make all come to me." Then Quirinus said to all in a clear voice: brought to St. Alexander, "Whoever wishes to become a Christian, let him come to me: and when he has been baptized, let him go free wherever he will." And when all had come to St. Alexander, they are catechized concerning God, God opened his mouth, and he said: "Little children; hear and believe. God who made heaven and earth, the sea and all things that are in them, who sends forth lightning and thunders, who kills and makes alive; whom sun and moon and stars, and clear weather and clouds and rains serve; Christ being incarnate, this God sent his Son from the high heavens through the womb of a Virgin, that he might be born of a human. He began to invite to his faith every kind of men: and when they were hard to believe, and refused to believe him, he did this sign, that dining with them, and after miracles done, when the wine failed at the feasts, he turned water into wine. Likewise he began to express the thoughts of individual men: likewise to open the eyes of the blind, loose the mouths of the mute, restore step to the lame, put demons to flight, save the languishing and feverish: but also raise the dead, command the winds, restrain storms, walk upon the sea with dry feet. crucified, While he was doing all these things, and an innumerable multitude was believing in him; the Pharisees and Jews, led by zeal, crucified him. Which he did not forbid them to do, though he could have; because he strove to take captive the author of our death. Which done, on the third day he rose from the dead, and before many witnesses ascended into heaven, giving power to his disciples to work miracles. He is to come at the end of the age as Judge, to render good things to the good and evil to the evil. See then, you who have believed, and appointed as Judge: and give your names, that you may be made Christians."

[3] The believers are baptized: And when all had believed, and he had made them catechumens, afterwards together, Quirinus also with his daughter Balbina and all his household, were baptized: and when all who were together in custody had been baptized, the prison was opened, and it began to be like a church. Then the warden went to Aurelian, and told him all that had happened. Whence enraged he ordered Quirinus to be brought, and said to him: "I loved you as a son: but you have mocked me, deceived by Alexander." Quirinus said to him: "I have been made a Christian: do you wish to kill me? do you wish to beat me? do you wish to cut me? I will be nothing else. They refused to leave the opened prison: For all who were in the prison, I made into Christians, and dismissed them: and they would not go anywhere: and they are all there in the prison, saying: 'If for our crimes we had to die and perish, how much more for the name of Christ ought we to offer our souls?' I however asked them that all who had been baptized should come out, and I clothed them with white and new garments, because the Christian religion also demands this: but up to now all stand prepared for martyrdom, toward their slaughter, like a hungry panther toward a feast. Now begin to do whatever pleases you." Then he had his tongue cut out… to be tortured on the rack, his hands and feet cut off, placed on a ship they are drowned. and thus beheaded and thrown to dogs… thereafter he orders all those baptized in the prison to be taken out in an old ship into the deep sea, and there, with stones tied to their necks, to be sunk into the depth of the sea.

[4] Thus far those Acts: in which it is said, Aurelian, Count of both militias, was summoned by the Emperor Trajan from Seleucia of Isauria for the killing of all Christians; who is also by others addressed as Judge, Prince, and Emperor. Memorial in the sacred Fasti. The sacred memorial of these Martyrs is inscribed in the Martyrologies of Usuard, Ado, Notker, Bellini, and as many ancient manuscripts as possible, with others more recent, with an elogium drawn from the reported Acts, which is thus reported in today's Roman Martyrology: "At Rome the birthday of the many holy Martyrs, whom St. Alexander the Pope, when he was detained in prison, baptized. But all these Aurelian the Prefect ordered to be placed on an old ship, taken into the deep, and there, with stones tied to their necks, to be sunk." We have retained in the title the indefinite number "Many," out of reverence for the Church which uses that Martyrology; otherwise more definitely and perhaps more truly, they could have been called, "Near twenty": for St. Quirinus expressed this number when asked about the captives: that others accrued from elsewhere, so that they might be called many, cannot be asserted on sufficient grounds. Peter de Natalibus in book 4, chapter 42, adds the motive of their conversion, that they had seen how St. Alexander the Pope had cured Quirinus's daughter of a hump or deforming tumor. This is St. Balbina, whose Life we have illustrated on March 31. Ferrarius in the Catalogue of Italian Saints, after giving the elogium from the reported Acts, notes that the names of these Martyrs are entirely unknown; nor has it been possible to know where their Relics are preserved.