ON STS. MARANA AND CYRA,
AT BEROEA IN SYRIA.
About the MIDDLE OF THE FIFTH CENTURY.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Their cult in the Latin and Greek church.
Marana, at Beroea in Syria (S.)
Cyra, at Beroea in Syria (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR P. B.
Beroea, or Berrhoea, now to some Aleppo, is a most ample city of Syria in the region of Cyrrhestica, distant, as modern geographers hand down, twenty-two leagues toward the East from the patriarchal Antioch. This city once produced a noble pair of sacred heroines, admirable even to the strongest athletes of those times throughout so many deserts everywhere; Marana namely and Cyra; whose memory the Roman Church today prescribes to us in its Martyrology thus: At Beroea in Syria, of the holy women Marana and Cyra. When you hear them called women, do not deny that they were virgins: for, by the testimony of Tertullian in the book On the veiling of virgins, chapter 4, "female" is the natural word; the general term of the natural word is "woman"; and the special term of the general is "virgin," or "married," or "widow," or however many names of age are added. But there is a peculiar reason why in this place you should understand virgins by the name of women; because it is clear from the annotation of Baronius on the already-adduced words of the Martyrology, that that announcement was drawn from the Religious History of Theodoret, chapter 29; where that author, who up to that point had described the Acts of men (ἀνδρῶν), says that he now descends to the examples of women (γυναικῶν), and then begins with Marana and Cyra. He opposes, therefore, women, not to virgins, but to men; and accordingly he had to use the word "woman," which both agrees with a virgin female and is opposed to a man; but not the name "virgin" (παρθένος), which is common to men and women cultivating virginity. But it is certain from what follows, chapter 30, that by "women" virgins also are designated by Theodoret; nay, that Sts. Marana and Cyra were such he sufficiently plainly indicates, when he presents them below at number 3 as "contemplating the beauty of Christ their Spouse." See also there at number 4.
[2] Further, as we are forced to confess that the veneration of these was recent among the Latins (for we have found them assigned in no registers of our churches before the times of Pope Gregory XIII, either on this or on any other day); yet we deny what Castellanus, after Baillet, asserts in his universal Martyrology, than among the Greeks. that it is not known among the Greeks, much less ancient: for indeed among them it is most well known, on the day the XXVIII of February, not only in the great Menaea printed in the year 1595, and in the Βίοι Ἁγίων Lives of the Saints of Maximus of Cythera (as we noted among the Passed-Over on that day); but also in an older manuscript copy of the Menaea, which at Milan in the Ambrosian Library, marked O 148, our Fathers Henschenius and Papebroch once examined among other things; nay, also in the Menology which, composed in Greek by order of the emperor Basil in the tenth century, Ughelli long ago published, translated into Latin from September up to March. Nor indeed in these monuments is there read a bare commemoration of our Saints, Μνήμη τῶν ἁγίων γυναικῶν Κύρας καὶ Μαράνας, The memory of the holy women Cyra and Marana; but also a splendid eulogy of each: to which the printed Menaea prefix these two little verses:
Καταξιοῦνται Μαράνα τε καὶ Κύρα Σαρκὸς μαρασμῷ κυριεύειν τοῦ πόλου.
That is,
Cyra and Marana, their flesh worn away, have won for themselves Rewards worthy of the dominion of heaven.
You see the acumen familiar to the Menaea in the affinity of the name Μαράνα and the word μαρασμός, which signifies wearing away or wasting; and likewise of the name Κύρα and the verb κυριεύειν, which in Latin we call "to have dominion."
[3] The eulogy in the Menology of the emperor Basil. But it seems superfluous to transfer the eulogies themselves hither; since they are abridged from the Theodoretian one, which we shall subjoin; and indeed not faithfully enough. Let an example be that which is had in the Basilian Menology, and whose Greek text (to be given elsewhere) we shall here again give translated into Latin, both because this place is proper for it, and because the translation of Ughelli is more elegant than accurate. It is thus: On the same day (the XXVIII of February) the memory of the holy women Marana and Cirrha. These holy women, born at Beroea, a city of Cilicia *, having sent away notice both to their kindred, and to their fatherland, and to their riches, departed not far from Beroea; where they built a small cell, into which, when they had entered, they blocked the door with mud and stones, a very narrow window being left; through which they both admitted scanty food and water sparingly, and taught the women who came to converse with them the things which pertain to virtue. But they were weighed down over their whole body with a great weight of iron. They held conversations with the women only on the day of Pentecost, keeping silence the whole year apart from that. Food and drink for forty days they took only once. By so remarkable and God-pleasing a manner of living, therefore, they obtained the grace of working miracles: for they both restored sight to the blind, and freed those beset by demons, and gave to the lame that they might walk expeditiously. And at last, illustrious for deeds of this kind, they departed from the living. Let these things be adduced rather to prove the celebrity and antiquity of their cult, than to exhibit a pure epitome of the Acts: for how many faults are in this, anyone will easily soon understand from Theodoret. In the Menaea it is longer and better; yet not everywhere sincere.
[4] But why, you say, do the Latins not celebrate Marana and Cyra on the same day and month as the Greeks; The birthday and Acts. and then which of them observes the true birthday of either or of both of them? It can be answered to the first; because the reformers of the Roman Martyrology do not seem to have found their memory in the Greek Fasti; since Baronius in the Annotations in this place cites only Theodoret. Whence to the second I answer; because Theodoret wrote before their death, and so it cannot be known from him on what day or month they died; it seems to follow that the restorers of the said Martyrology neither wished to designate, nor did designate, the true day or month of their deposition. Concerning the Greeks, and especially the author of the Basilian Menology, it is not so established that no other torch shone for them in this matter, besides the history of Theodoret. Certainly of the miracle of the blind healed, of the demoniacs freed, of the lame restored, Theodoret makes no mention: whence, therefore, that Menologist of the tenth century drew these things, thence it can be believed that he both learned the true birthday of one or the other, and applied to it the memory of both: so that, as their life had been the same, the feast too might be the same. But sending away these things, as they are, less explored, let us hear Theodoret, a most grave and most learned prelate, relating most certain things about them, and things very often taken up with his own eyes, in the Religious History, chapter 29; which History indeed Tillemont, in the Monuments of ecclesiastical history, volume 5, note 16 on Theodoret, page 877, contends was written by him about the year of Christ 440.
Annotata* rather Syria
LIFE
By the author Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus.
From the edition of Jacques Sirmond, S.J.
Marana, at Beroea in Syria (S.)
Cyra, at Beroea in Syria (S.)
The conversation of eminent men having been described, I think it worthwhile to commemorate also women, whose contests were nothing less, but rather greater. The fatherland, family, and life under the open sky of the Saints, For these are the more worthy of praise, who, though they were allotted a weaker nature, showed the same alacrity of mind as men, and vindicated their sex from its ancestral disgrace. But I shall for the present make mention of Marana and Cyra, who surpassed all others in the contests of endurance. Their fatherland indeed is Berrhoea; their family in that fatherland illustrious, and their upbringing befitting their family. But, all these things being despised, when they had fenced round a certain small place before the city, and had entered into it, they blocked the door with mud and stones. But the maidservants who wished to become partakers of the same life a they ordered to dwell outside this enclosure, a small dwelling having been built. But they themselves behold through a little window the things which are done by them; and they frequently rouse them to prayer, and kindle them to divine love.
[2] But they themselves, having neither house nor hut, lead their life under the open sky b. silence, iron implements pressing down the body, garments, And in place of a door a certain small window has been made, through which they both receive necessary food, and converse with the women who come to them. But for meetings of this kind the time of Pentecost has been designated: for at other times they observe silence. Marana, moreover, alone speaks with those who come:
but the other no one has ever heard speaking. They wear iron, and bear so great a burden, that Cyra, who is of a weaker body, is bent down even to the ground, and can in no way raise her body. They have garments c oblong, so that they are dragged from behind, and cover the feet entirely; but in front they descend to the girdle, wholly concealing the face, and the neck, and the breast, and the hands. But these I often beheld d, admitted through the door: for they ordered it to be unbarred * for me, honoring the dignity of the priesthood.
[3] I saw, then, that weight of iron not to be borne even by a strong man. And after many prayers I was then able to remove it: but after our departure they again imposed the same on their limbs; on the neck a collar, on the loins a girdle, alacrity after 42 years in so many torments, miraculous fastings, on the hands and feet those which were destined for these. And in this manner they lead their life, not for the space of five, or ten, or fifteen years; but of forty-two e. And having contended for so long a time, just as if they were now for the first time entering the contest, so they seek out sweats. For, contemplating the beauty of the Spouse, they easily and gladly bear the labor of the course, and strive to arrive at the goal of the contests, beholding standing at it the crown of victory, which he whom they love holds out. For this cause, enduring the force both of rain, and of snow, and of the sun, they are not saddened nor tormented; but from those things which seem troublesome they take gladness. And, emulating the fast of divine Moses, thrice they passed as long a time unfed: for after forty days they were refreshed with scanty food. Thrice also they emulated the abstinence of divine Daniel, spending three weeks of days, and then offering food to the body f.
[4] The pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to Isauria, with wonderful abstinence. But when once a desire had seized them of beholding the sacred places of the saving torments of Christ, they set out for Ælia g, tasting no food on the whole journey. But when they had arrived at that city, the adoration completed, they took food; and again they accomplished the journey on their return fasting. The stages h, moreover, are not fewer than twenty. And when it had pleased them to visit the temple of the victorious Thecla i, which is in Isauria, that they might everywhere kindle the flames of charity toward God, they went and returned fasting likewise. So far did the divine philter rap them out of themselves; so did the divine love toward the Spouse make them mad. These women, therefore, adorning the female sex by such a form of life, made as it were exemplars to the rest, will be crowned by the Lord with victorious crowns k. But I, the utility which arises hence having been set forth, and the blessing tasted, will pass on to another narration.
ANNOTATIONS.
* διορύξαι, that is, to dig through.