Agatha

ON SAINT AGATHA, VIRGIN MARTYR, AT CATANIA IN SICILY.

In the Year of Christ 251.

Preliminary Commentary on the Acts.

Agatha, Virgin Martyr, at Catania in Sicily (Saint)

By I. B.

Section I: The Feast of Saint Agatha; the Time of Her Martyrdom.

[1] Catania, a city of Sicily, situated on the Ionian Sea and at the base of the dreadful mountain Etna, founded by the Greeks and long inhabited by the same, then also by the Campanians, but at last enlarged as a colony of Roman citizens, as Pliny testifies in Book 3, chapter 8, and more populous than Messina itself in the age of the geographer Strabo -- that is, in the times of Augustus and Tiberius -- The glory of Catania is Saint Agatha, is still counted among the three most famous cities of the whole island, along with Palermo and Messina. And that city indeed displays many ornaments of antiquity; yet none more illustrious than Agatha the Virgin and Martyr: whom therefore the Greek Menologion and Menaea rightly call "the boast of Catania"; Rocco Pirri in his Sacred Sicily, volume 2, Catalogue 1 of the Church of Catania, number 3, calls her "the glory and immortal ornament of all Sicily"; and Bishop Mauritius in the history of the Translation, below number 1, calls her most holy body "the pledge and beloved patronage of all Sicily."

[2] Her divinity, as Thomas Fazellus speaks in his work On the Affairs of Sicily, Decade 1, Book 3, chapter 1, is honored as the tutelary saint of the city of Catania, she is honored there, with the greatest gathering of men and women of all Sicily, on the Nones of February, with the most devout worship. Nor is her feast celebrated only at Catania on that day, and everywhere, but, as Radulph de Rivo, Dean of Tongeren in Belgium, wrote more than 250 years ago in the General Ecclesiastical Calendar, on the fifth of February, "everywhere, from Sicily, of Agatha, Virgin and Martyr, nine Lessons." Her name is inscribed in the most ancient Martyrologies on that day. Thus the most ancient Roman Martyrology, which we have often cited under the name of Saint Jerome: "In Sicily, in the city of Catania, the birthday of Agatha the Virgin." Another published by our Heribert Rosweyde agrees: "Saint Agatha the Virgin, at the city of Catania." And the Reichenau, or Reiche Au: "In Sicily, in the city of Catania, the passion of Saint Agatha the Virgin."

[3] More fully, Usuard: "In Sicily, at the city of Catania, the birthday of Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr, who after slaps and imprisonment, after the rack and twisting, as is clear from the Latin Martyrologies, after the cutting off of her breasts, after being rolled on potsherds and coals, at last under the Judge Quintianus was consummated in martyrdom." Ado, Bishop of Vienne, in his book on the feasts of the holy Apostles and the rest who were disciples or near successors of the Apostles, presents the Acts of Saint Agatha, which we shall give below, somewhat abridged; but in his Martyrology he has the following, which is also read in various manuscripts, even those titled under the name of Bede: "In Sicily, at the city of Catania, the passion of Saint Agatha the Virgin, under the Emperor Decius, the Proconsul Quintianus: who after slaps and imprisonment, after the rack and twisting, after the cutting off of her breasts, but after her healing by the Lord, after being rolled on potsherds and coals, was at last consummated in prison." What Ado and Usuard express, most other Martyrologies, even of more recent writers, also express; some more briefly, others more at length. Wandelbert of Prum, who lived more than 1300 years ago, sings of her thus:

"On the Nones, the virtue of the Virgin Agatha, celebrated with outstanding honor, claims for herself the peoples of Sicily."

And the Greeks: The Greek Menaea, Menologion, and Anthologion also record her on this day.

[4] In the common Martyrology of Bede, likewise in that of Rabanus, and in the manuscripts of the monasteries of Lobbes, of Saint Martin at Tournai, of Saint Cyriacus at Rome, and of Aachen, and in certain others, she did not suffer under Diocletian, and in the book of Saint Aldhelm On the Praises of Virginity, she is said to have won the palm not under Decius but under Diocletian. This is annotated and refuted as follows by the very ancient manuscript Martyrology of the monastery of Saint Maximin, which otherwise for the most part agrees with Rabanus: "In Sicily, at the city of Catania, the passion of Saint Agatha the Virgin, under the Emperor Decius, the Proconsul Quintianus. (Others have 'under Diocletian,' but the very text of the passion shows this to be false,

[9] In the same place there is a Lectionary ascribed to Saint Jerome, in which the following is found: With an Office by Saint Jerome, "On the Nones of February, the birthday of Saint Agatha the Virgin. Lesson from the Book of Wisdom: 'I will confess to Thee, Lord King.' The following from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew: 'The kingdom of heaven is like ten virgins.'" The same Gospel is assigned to this feast by a Roman Calendar more than nine hundred years old, recently published from a manuscript codex of the monastery of Saint Genevieve at Paris by John Fronto, a Canon Regular of the same monastery and Chancellor in the University of Paris. Which is now changed; Pius V, the Supreme Pontiff, changed the homily with the Gospel which is now read, from chapter 19 of Saint Matthew: "The Pharisees came to Jesus." Moreover, on account of Agatha's illustrious merits, the Psalms throughout the entire Office are said from the Common of the Saints who are men: Inserted into the Canon by Saint Gregory, which Bartholomew Gavantus has noted. Saint Gregory also makes mention of the feast of Saint Agatha in the Book of Sacraments and in the Antiphonary: and the same Pope inserted her name into the Canon of the Mass.

[10] In the book of Soliloquies of the Soul to God, which exists in volume 9 of the Works of Saint Augustine, and is (in the judgment of Bellarmine in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers) pious and learned and not unworthy of Augustine's genius, praised by Saint Augustine, although it is neither numbered by Possidius among his writings nor found cited by Bede; in that book, therefore, chapter 12, mention is made of Saint Agatha, even if her name is not expressed: "That Virgin too had tasted," he says, "this ineffable sweetness of Thine, of whom we read that she went most joyfully and exultantly to prison, as if invited to a banquet." Which same words are found in the Latin Acts, Question 1, number 6. Venantius Fortunatus likewise mentions her in Book 8, poem 4, which is on virginity: By Saint Venantius Fortunatus,

"And Justina, with Thecla joining them."

[11] Saint Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne in England, in the book which he composed in verse on the praise of virgins, chapter 32, celebrates the contest of Saint Agatha, and somewhat more elegantly in the book On the Praises of Virginity, chapter 22. But in chapter 23 he writes thus: By Saint Aldhelm: "It also seems worthwhile to me that the fame of Saint Agatha should follow the praises of the most chaste Virgin Lucia: whom our teacher and instructor Gregory is known to have coupled together in the daily Canon, when the solemnities of the Mass are celebrated, placing them thus in the catalogue of Martyrs: Felicitas, Anastasia, Agatha, Lucia -- so that they should by no means be separated in the order of letters who, born among the kindred people in Sicily, together rejoice in heavenly glory." Rocco Pirri, not correctly grasping the meaning of these words, in the cited Catalogue of the Church of Catania, number 4, writes thus of Aldhelm: In what sense is he a disciple of Saint Gregory? "He was taught the doctrines of the faith by Saint Gregory (as he himself says) and received the sacrament of baptism." Saint Aldhelm certainly did not mean this, but, as others commonly do, he acknowledged Saint Gregory as the common teacher of the English nation, who first sent preachers of the Gospel to them.

[12] Moreover, Saint Aldhelm died in the year 709, after having most vigorously governed the Church of Sherborne for four years, as Bede attests in Book 5, chapter 19. He had been constituted Abbot in the year 675 of the monastery a hundred years younger than him, which was then called Maildulfesbury, afterward Malmesbury: in which place indeed, from the first age of infancy and from the very beginning of his rudiments, educated in the liberal studies of letters and nurtured in the bosom of holy Mother Church, he had led his life; as is established from the diploma of Bishop Leutherius in William of Malmesbury, Book 1, On the Deeds of the Kings of England, chapter 2. Educated from infancy in the monastery of Saint Maildulf, And indeed if in the times of Saint Gregory, who died in the year 604, Aldhelm was of an age that could grasp the doctrine of the faith, why was so great a man of learning and sanctity not admitted to the episcopal office sooner, and not until he was at least 110 years old, when there was nevertheless a great scarcity of suitable and learned Bishops? Under Saint Maildulf, Aldhelm was educated from the first age of infancy; not before the year 636 of Christ, not before the year 636, as can be gathered from the cited William. For he says that in that year, forty years after the coming of the blessed Augustine, Apostle of the English, Cynegils and Cwichelm, Kings of the West Saxons, were first converted by Saint Birinus, so that it does not seem that so much earlier in the kingdom of theirs or of their predecessor Ceolwulf there existed a monastery as a public school of sacred letters. We shall treat of Saint Aldhelm on the twenty-fifth of May, of Saint Maildulf on the eighteenth of April, and of Saint Birinus on the third of December.

Section III: The Hymn (Believed to Be) of Saint Isidore of Seville, a Double Hymn in Praise of Saint Agatha.

[13] Baronius testifies in his Notes to the Martyrology that two hymns written in the Toledan Breviary of Saint Isidore are read, in which the triumphs of Saint Agatha are sung. Saint Isidore died at least seventy years before Saint Aldhelm, Hymns of Saint Isidore on Saint Agatha, toward the end of the times of the Emperor Heraclius. His writings are listed by various authors: they have also been published in print, and among them perhaps certain alien works have been ascribed to him. In neither category is that Toledan Breviary which they call the Mozarabic, nor the hymns which are said to be recited in it. We have not yet seen that Breviary. The hymns on Saint Agatha which are not published with his works, which are ascribed to him, we have obtained from another source, both printed and handwritten: which we give here, under his name, as we received them -- crude indeed, but gracious with an ancient and holy simplicity.

HYMN I

[14] Be present, most faithful people: The beauteous feast with grace, Pour forth your praise in song, And highest vows to Christ. The Blessed Virgin Agatha, proclaiming the birth of Saint Agatha, In faith and lineage bright, Rejecting the world's harms, Has gained the things of heaven. She, loving Christ most keenly, And preaching Him alone, Stretched out by the Governor's order, her constancy in torments, Is shut in the depths of the prison. By the fierce Judge's fury Christ's maiden is afflicted: But the holy Virgin refuses To offer at impious altars. Then at last the Martyr Is dealt with yet more harshly: The nipple of her breast is torn off, And her chaste body is beaten. He restores the breast whole And heals all her wounds -- The great Elder of Christ -- And breaks open the bars of the prison. Thus, thus the maiden, holier still, Having gained so great a reward, her death, Kneels down in prayer And pours forth her spirit to heaven. For soon a bright youth, the epitaph, Bearing a written tablet, With holy mind proclaiming The defense of the Fatherland. For when Mount Etna's blaze In its most rapid course Is bent toward the City, the miracle through the veil; The maiden's merit shines. Then from the Martyr's tomb The people, bearing the sacred veil, By whose pious presence The fires are soon extinguished. Now, most holy Virgin, Extend to the faithful people invoking her. The pardon of their sins, Restoring the blessings of peace. Thou who once didst rescue Thy fellow citizens from a great fire, Do thou now set us free, The most wretched yoke removed. So may there be for all the faithful A place of peaceful rest: Grant protection to orphans And aid to widows. Grant this, most loving Father, And Thou, the Father's only equal, With the Spirit, the Paraclete, Reigning through every age, Amen.

[16] Hymns and other eulogies of Saint Joseph the Hymnographer in honor of Saint Agatha are also cited. It is not certain to us which of the two Josephs wrote them: Hymns of Saint Joseph the Confessor, whether the one who was the brother of Saint Theodore the Studite and is celebrated in the Menaea on the fifteenth of July, and in the Menologion of Canisius on the twenty-fourth of the same; or rather the other, somewhat younger, who is honored on the third of April. Both were Confessors: the former indeed for the defense of sacred images; the latter was banished by the impious Photius: and this latter was a Sicilian, born to parents named Plotinus and Agatha. We have four other Hymns, but much more polished, which were recently composed by the monk Michael, of the Monk Michael, Doctor of Decrees, Canon Priest of Capua, whose notable and pious work called the Sanctuarium Capuanum exists. These were sent to us after the death of his uncle the Monk by the most learned and most gracious Silvester Aiossa. But it was not necessary to give them here in full. We also omit six hymns, truly elegant, of Bartholomew Petracci, once composed to be sung at Vespers, Matins, and Lauds on the feast of the birthday and Translation, and published at Messina through the efforts of Lorenzo Valla in the year 1495, by our Bartholomew Petracci, whose authority will also be cited below.

* Other reading: "famous"

Section IV: The Latin Acts of Saint Agatha, Far to Be Preferred to Those Found in Metaphrastes and the Menaea. Whence Were They Published Here?

[17] "The illustrious Acts of Saint Agatha," says Baronius in the Notes to the Martyrology, "were very well known to both the Latins and the Greeks... The Latin copies themselves are found in ancient codices The Latin Acts of Saint Agatha are most approved. which were in use for the churches, commonly called Passionaries or Sanctorals." Concerning these Acts, John Hesselius of Leuven, Doctor of Sacred Theology, a man of otherwise severe judgment, in his Censura on Certain Histories of the Saints published by Molanus, pronounces thus: "The Life of Saint Agatha is entirely satisfying. It begins: 'Quintianus, the Consular of Sicily.'" The same Latin Acts are also cited by Saint Augustine himself, or certainly by the ancient and pious author of the Soliloquies of the Soul to God, as we reported in Section 2, number 10. Cited by the Fathers. For that she "went most joyfully and exultantly to prison, as if invited to a banquet" is not read in the Greek Acts which are in our hands; but it is read in those more ancient Latin ones, and from them in Saint Ado, Bishop of Vienne, in his book on the feasts. And Ado died in the year 891, when Simeon Metaphrastes was a young man, who, as we have shown in the Preface to the Acts of the Saints of the month of January, scarcely began to collect the deeds of the Saints until twenty-two years later. From Heribert Rosweyde, a most learned man, I found the following universally annotated in a certain note on these very Acts of Saint Agatha: "For my part, regarding the histories of the Saints, I hold that where ancient Latin copies are available, one should stand by them, leaving aside the more recent Greek ones."

[18] Moreover, those Acts seem to have been written by those who at that time at Catania themselves witnessed the agony of the Virgin. This can be gathered from Question 3, number 13, written by eyewitnesses, where the following is found: "Whence we suspected that he was her Angel." Augustin Inveges, in Part 2 of the Annals of Palermo, at the year of Christ 234, number 23, contends that because Sicily was Greek, far greater trust should be placed in the Greek Acts (that is, those which exist in the Menaea and Metaphrastes) than in the Latin ones; and so he confirms or at least amplifies his opinion: "Whom," he says, "should we rather believe -- the Greek Menologion, the Greek Martyrology, the Greek Breviary, the Greek history? Or," etc. A certain Menologion is said to exist in the Vatican Library, collected by order of the Emperor Basil the Macedonian. We have not seen it. The one that is said to have been translated into Latin by Cardinal Sirleto and published by Henry Canisius, and is a compendium of the Menaea -- this Inveges does not cite: for there is no mention there of the matter he endeavors to prove, as we shall show below; nor in the other Menologion found in the Greek Horologion, still less in its epitome by Christopher the Patrician and Proconsul of Mytilene, far to be preferred to the Menaea and Metaphrastes; or in the lesser Horologion of Maximus of Cythera. What Greek Martyrology is this, different from the Menologion? Perhaps the Menaea. What Breviary then? Perhaps the new Anthologion which Anthony Arcudius dedicated to Clement VIII? The Greek History that he praises is the narrative of Metaphrastes. Arcudius copied the eulogy of Saint Agatha word for word from the Menaea: the compilers of the Menaea follow Metaphrastes in celebrating the Saints whose deeds are narrated somewhat more fully in his work, and they sometimes retain his very words.

[19] What then should move us to prefer the Menaea and Metaphrastes to the Latin Acts? Not the antiquity of Metaphrastes, which is of about 700 years. Since he is not very ancient here, For what authority belongs to him from his learning, the integrity of his life, and the abundance of ancient codices which he used (for the distinction of his birth and the greatness of the magistracy he held contribute no great weight to this matter), we have shown in the General Preface to the Acts of the Saints prefixed to the month of January, chapter 1, section 3, where we somewhat mitigated what Cardinal Bellarmine had more severely pronounced against him; confessing meanwhile that he lacked the opportunity to review what he had collected or dictated. This Psellus confesses in his panegyric of him, as can be seen in Surius at the twenty-seventh of November: and our Simon Wangnereck elegantly reported it from Psellus in the Prolegomena to the book which he entitled The Marian Piety of the Greeks, number 28. "In the end I would seriously think," he says, "(what now occurs to me for the first time, while I read those praises of Metaphrastes composed by Psellus more attentively) that certain things which are less sound were interspersed in the Lives of the Saints, who used many copyists, through that immense multitude of Simeon's scribes, either intentionally or by accident. For Psellus relates that three classes of copyists were employed by Simeon: the first circle of scribes (which he says was not small) took down the dictation in shorthand; the second scribes made new copies from the annotations of the first; and finally the third scribes assumed the role of censors and changed everything that seemed worthy of correction: he could not review their writings, moreover, so great was the multitude of Simeon's lucubrations that he could not review them somewhat more carefully himself. Whence there is now nothing to wonder at that certain less apt things seem to have crept into the Lives composed by Metaphrastes: for the Author, so occupied (being the Great Logothete, or Chancellor, of the Emperor), could not notice all the errors proceeding either from the rudeness or boldness of the copyists." In which therefore some things are less accurate: These are his words: and to the reader, it will seem less surprising that Baronius so often in his Annals writes that Metaphrastes errs and is mistaken, and elsewhere doubts whether any trust should be placed in him.

[20] But here an example must be given of legitimate Acts thus interpolated, whether by Metaphrastes himself or by his copyists, and indeed from the same Sicily and the very city of Catania. There, in the year 303 of the common era, on the day before the Ides of August, Saint Euplius, or Euplus, a Deacon, was crowned with martyrdom, as is evident in the Acts of Saint Euplius the Martyr, whose contest Baronius recounts from the public gubernatorial Acts in volume 2, at the year 303, number 146; and we, having collated them with other manuscripts, shall publish them in full on the twelfth of August. Here it seemed good to select a portion and compare it with the narrative of Metaphrastes. Thus they read: "Under the eighth consulship of Diocletian and the seventh of Maximian, on the fourth day before the Ides of August, in the city of Catania, when the blessed Euplus was outside the curtain of the audience chamber, he cried out saying: 'I am a Christian, and I desire to die for the name of Christ.' The Consular Calvisianus, hearing this, said: 'Let him who cried out enter.' Who had voluntarily presented himself before the Consular's tribunal, And when the blessed Euplus had entered the audience chamber of the Judge, carrying the Gospels, then one of the friends of Calvisianus, named Maximianus, said: 'It is not fitting for him to hold such papers contrary to the law of the royal commands.' The Consular Calvisianus said to the blessed Euplus: 'Where did these come from, and did they come from your house?' The blessed Euplus answered: 'I have no house here; my Lord Jesus Christ knows.' The Consular Calvisianus said: bearing sacred writings, 'Did you bring them here?' The blessed Euplus answered: 'I brought them here myself, as you yourself see.' The Consular Calvisianus said: 'Since you have now brought them, and reading them, read them in my presence before me, and tell me, so that I too may know.' And when the blessed Euplus had opened the Gospels, he read according to Matthew, saying: Matthew 5:10 'The Lord Jesus said: Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' Mark 4:11 He also opened according to Mark, saying: 'To all who believe in Me, to them it is given to know the kingdom of God.' Likewise according to Luke: 'The Lord Jesus said to the crowds: If anyone wishes to come after Me,

[22] Let anyone who wishes now compare the same Acts published from Metaphrastes by Lipomanus and Surius; and he will see how tattered they are, indeed clumsily patched together, with not only various kinds of torments added but also very many miracles. Even the arrest of Euplius and the first hearing -- how insipid! After mentioning the arrival of a certain Pentagurus in Sicily and the city of Catana with new edicts of the Emperors, concerning Calvisianus (whom, whom Metaphrastes calls only the Governor of Catana at Calvisianus while the Latin Acts call him "Consularis," Metaphrastes says was only the Governor in that city, and was confirmed in that governorship by Pentagurus) he then adds this: Meanwhile Calvisianus, puffed up by his father the devil and emboldened by the impious edicts of the Emperors, was greatly swelling with pride, displaying immense arrogance and haughtiness. Calling therefore his officers, he said: Go, you, go out to the squares of the city and the neighboring regions, and if you find anyone who confesses Christ, bring him bound to me. For if you do this, food and provisions shall be publicly supplied to you: moreover, you shall receive many honors from me.

[23] While he was saying these things, one of those who stood by him said: There is, he said, in this city a certain man named Euplius, accused, carrying a book with him, by which he deceives the people and the multitude itself, affirming that the God of the Christians is great. Hearing this, Calvisianus was greatly disturbed and said: Bring that man to me in bonds, bring him. Immediately the guards, searching for Euplius through the squares of the city, found him dwelling in a certain cell sought out by his order, etc. and teaching the Gospel of God. Seizing him suddenly, with his hands bound behind his back, they brought him to the tribunal of the Governor Calvisianus. Then the impious and wicked Calvisianus, having had both his hands and one foot bound to his knee, said: Are you the deserter of our gods and the despiser of the Emperors, who neither obeys their edicts nor worships the most powerful gods? etc.

[24] Is anyone so great an admirer of the Greeks and so great a friend of Metaphrastes as to think these are the true and legitimate Acts in preference to the Latin ones which we have cited? so perhaps the Acts of Saint Agatha were interpolated. Can we not suspect the same thing was done in the deeds of Saint Agatha by the same Metaphrastes or his copyists? That is to say, things were added from their own invention which are not found in the Latin Acts? Although here they adhered somewhat more closely to the Latin than in the case of Euplius, and what was added they took in part from the oration of Saint Methodius, as we shall say afterward, and perhaps from older Greek Acts than Methodius, which we shall present.

[25] But while these Acts do not have full authority from Metaphrastes, what is found in the Menaea, they must obtain it from the Menologia or the Menaea, that is, the books of sacred prayers which the Greek Churches have used in the celebration of Divine Offices from time immemorial. For that the hymns contained in them were composed and handed down by the most ancient Fathers -- Chariton, Euthymius, partly received from ancient Fathers, Theoctistus, Sabbas, and others -- is clear from the same Prolegomena of Wangnereck. Many things indeed were borrowed, and perhaps composed, by those Fathers, but also many things by others not equally ancient, some of whom were contemporaries of Saint Methodius, whom we have mentioned. But the complete series of the Menaea was arranged quite recently, not in their age. For they also contain hymns composed by Philotheus, the schismatic Patriarch of Constantinople -- indeed even a heretical one -- who is reported to have held that See around the year of Christ 1362, partly written by recent authors, even schismatics: as is noted in the same Prolegomena, number 28. Is that not an excellent recommendation from antiquity and the piety of the writer? Since, however, even those Greeks who have been reconciled to the Roman Church use the same Menaea, and the new Anthologion of Arcudius is said to have been approved by Clement VIII, which is a kind of breviary of the Menaea, we by no means reject them. But what has been taken from them, the Latin Acts recited in the Latin Church, we deny ought to be preferred to the ancient Latin Acts, or even compared with them: especially since these have been customarily recited in all Latin Churches from time immemorial: and the proper antiphons now also read in the Roman Breviary on the feast of Saint Agatha are composed from these same Latin Acts, as are the Readings.

[26] For the argument that Sicily, and especially Catana itself, was Greek, and therefore Greek Acts should be preferred to Latin, carries no weight. First, if this is so, let them produce Acts of Saint Agatha written in Greek at that time, what liturgical practice Sicily always followed, as we produce the Latin ones. The Menaea have nothing to do with the ancient Churches of Sicily, which always used Roman rites, as depending on the Roman Pontiff, as is clear from Saint Gregory and other Fathers. Granted, they may have adopted some Greek customs when, after the Western Empire was extinguished, they obeyed Greek Emperors, or when, after the island was occupied by the Saracens, very many fled to the Greeks and long awaited their help in vain. But who can prove that in the time of Saint Agatha all Sicilians spoke Greek indiscriminately? nor did it speak Greek indiscriminately at the time of Saint Agatha, Because they descended from Greeks and were called Greeks? By that reasoning, they would prove that many cities in Italy, some in Gaul and Spain, founded by Greeks, retained the Greek language down to those times, and that now in the Acts of Saints who lived there, and in other records, one must have recourse to Greek for them to be considered legitimate -- something to which we would certainly not assent. For since the Romans introduced the use of the Latin language into Africa and the Spains, and into our own farthest Belgian Gaul, and even Britain itself, removed from the whole world -- what should we think about Sicily, which had been connected by alliances with the Roman people much earlier, which had been so many times subdued or defended by so many armies for so long a time, administered by so many Roman Praetors for nearly a thousand years before the age of Saint Agatha? What of the fact that the inhabitants of certain cities were Campanians? Moreover, colonies led to many cities, and specifically to Catana -- did they immediately abandon the language of the ruling City?

[27] But what need is there of these arguments, when we have the Latin Acts of Saint Euplius, as is clear from the Acts of Saint Euplius, transcribed as they were from the official tablets of the governor's notaries? From which it follows that at least in judicial proceedings the Latin language prevailed, and among the more honorable people who attended the proceedings, even if the common people and a few others may have privately retained their native idiom: just as we see done by the Irish, who despise both the dominion and the language of the English, and in certain great provinces of Germany and Illyria, where the Teutonic language has thoroughly taken root in the cities and noble families, while the peasants still speak Slavic. But not even this held true at Catana, if what the same Inveges writes under the year 254, number 15, is true. For he says that the words inscribed on the tablet which the Angel placed within the sarcophagus of Saint Agatha were expressed by nothing other than this abbreviation of letters: and the epitaph of Saint Agatha. M. S. S. H. D. E. P. L. And both the citizens of Catana and the neighboring pagans understood that "a holy mind, a voluntary honor to God, and the liberation of the homeland" was signified: therefore they knew Latin: for no mention is made of an interpreter who explained the hidden mysteries. Whether, however, that inscription was formed from those letters, I cannot assert with confidence: I make use of the admission of the author who claims for Sicily the use of the Greek language in that era.

[28] These Latin Acts, formerly published by Boninus Mombritius, we have collated with sixteen manuscript exemplars; namely, whence these Latin Acts are published? one which Johannes Ulimerius, Regular Canon at Saint Martin's in Louvain, had formerly transcribed with his own hand; one which Silvester Aiossa sent from Capua, Stephen Schenking from Munster in Westphalia, Johannes Wilmius Dean of the Church of Saint Suitbert there from a most ancient codex; likewise from the manuscripts of the Churches of Saint-Omer, Saint Martin of Utrecht, Saint Mary Major at Rome, of the Fathers of the Oratory there, which was cited by Cardinal Baronius; of the monasteries of Rebdorf in Germany, Saint Maximin at Trier, Saint Martin there, Saint Mary of Bonfontaine in Gaul, Marchiennes in Belgium, of the Hospital of Saint Nicholas near Cues, and of the Professed House of the Society of Jesus at Antwerp. More exemplars from friends were at hand, which we thought it by no means necessary to consult, since they agreed in their beginning and end with most of these.

* Manuscripts: nine times

Section V. Greek Acts of Saint Agatha, Earlier Than Metaphrastes.

[29] In order to render due honor also to the Greek Acts of Saint Agatha (which we have only previously contended ought not to be considered superior to the much older Latin ones), we shall produce a threefold commentary written about her in Greek: threefold Greek Acts: first, Greek Acts, somewhat more concise than the Latin, composed by an unknown author and taken from the archive of the city of Messina; then those which have long been in circulation under the name of Metaphrastes; and finally the panegyrical oration on her by Saint Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople. If indeed these were to be arranged according to the age of the writers, we would place the work of Metaphrastes, as being later than Methodius, after the latter's Oration. But so that the Acts themselves might be compared by readers both with each other and with the Latin, we have joined them together: the Oration of Methodius, however, since it is not a simple narrative but one artfully adorned with all the colors of the rhetors, we have placed last. And concerning Methodius himself we shall treat in section seven, and concerning this oration of his.

[30] The earlier Greek Acts, moreover, we received from Catana, faithfully transcribed from the ancient Messanean codex, the earlier ones from the Messanean manuscript, as is established from the testimony of the Senate of Messina and of Catana, which I shall append. And they are indeed elegantly enough written, not without some errors against orthography, but which do not disturb the meaning at all. The former testimony reads thus: as is clear from the testimony of the Senate of that city: The Senate of the most noble city of Messina, and the Grand Chancellor of the illustrious university of the same city, attests and testifies that in its secret treasury (where are preserved the original ancient privileges of the Roman Consuls, Emperors, and Kings of Sicily, and also many Greek and Latin manuscript volumes, both sacred and profane) the Life of the Virgin Agatha was found, and its copy was transmitted to the most illustrious Senate of the most renowned city of Catana, as a most precious gift from the treasury, so that it might likewise be stored and preserved in the archive of the senatorial court of Catana: since in that Life the true and genuine homeland of the blessed Virgin Agatha is clearly expressed. The inscription of this our ancient original manuscript is therefore: "Life of Agatha the Virgin." their opening, The history begins thus: "In the reign of Decius Caesar, when Quintianus was governing Sicily, Christians were to be handed over to a bitter death. Then many others prepared themselves to die for the punishment, and the great-souled Saint Agatha, being from the homeland of Catana, of distinguished and illustrious parents. She, despising all things, armed herself for the contests on behalf of Christ. Concerning her the Governor Quintianus had previously heard, that in beauty and nobility and wealth she surpassed all others, and having seized the virgin, he laid a charge against her and accomplished what he desired against her. Having found as a pretext the impious decree, that as a Christian..."

she ordered her to be seized by the executioners, while she was staying outside Catana at Palermo. These words were immediately handed over to the Very Reverend Father Hortensius Scammacca of Leontini, a priest of the Society of Jesus, professor of Sacred Scripture, translated into Latin by Hortensius Scammacca: and a man most skilled in all learning and the Greek language at our college of Messina, as well as at Palermo, who rendered them into Latin thus: The Life of the Blessed Virgin Agatha. In the reign of Decius Caesar, when Quintianus was governing Sicily, an edict was issued that whoever had given his name to Christ should be handed over to a cruel death. Then many others prepared themselves to undergo punishment and to meet death: and also the great-souled holy Virgin Agatha, born indeed in the homeland of Catana, of noble and illustrious parents: she, having despised all things, was armed to undergo the contests for Christ. Concerning her the Governor Quintianus had previously heard by chance, that in beauty and nobility and wealth she far surpassed others, and he endeavored to contrive a charge, so that he might have the Virgin in his hands and carry out his decree regarding her. Having found as a pretext the impious edict of Emperor Decius, he ordered his officers to seize her as a Christian, since she was staying outside Catana, at Palermo, etc. Whence indubitable faith may be placed in the aforesaid most faithful transcription of this ancient history (as may be conjectured from the antiquity of the characters and the smoky, worn pages), as an authentic and trustworthy document. In testimony of which things, we have given these presents, secured at the foot with our customary seal of the city. At Messina, the twenty-third of April, eleventh indiction, 1613.

Franciscus Costa, acting as secretary. The seal of the city was affixed: on whose circumference these words are found: In the name of the Cross. S. P. Q. R. By Decree, Messina, Noble and Capital of the Kingdom.

[31] Behold the other testimony of the most renowned city of Catana. The Senate of the most renowned city of Catana attests and testifies the same sent here from Catana, with the attestation of the Senate: that the abovesaid copy of the Life of Saint Agatha, Virgin and great Martyr of Christ, born among us of noble and illustrious parents, has been and is faithfully transcribed from the original, formerly found in the treasury and museum of the most noble city of Messina, which was transmitted to us by its most illustrious Senate in the year 1613 with letters subscribed in public faith, and by our order it was inserted into the great codex in which are described the ancient diplomas and Bulls of the Roman Pontiffs, and all royal privileges, and the ancient monuments of our memorable affairs, which are preserved with the greatest diligence in the secret archive. And therefore to the aforesaid copy, as an authentic document, full faith is to be given in every respect. And in testimony of the aforesaid, we have caused these presents to be made under the great seal of our Senate, and subscribed by our hand and that of the principal Master Notary. Given at Catana, on the first day of May, fourth indiction, one thousand six hundred and fifty-one.

D. Alphonsus Paterno, Sworn Member. D. Hyacinthus Tudiscus, Sworn Member. Don Joseph Maria della Valle, Sworn Member. Don Franciscus Ramondetta, Sworn Member. Don Hyacinthus Paterno, Sworn Member, Knight of the Order of Alcantara. Don Caesar Ansalone, Senior Principal Master Notary.

The great seal of the city was affixed.

[32] Even in the few Greek words that are inserted in the testimony of the Messinese, one can see what we said before, errors in them against orthography, that certain things were written erroneously, as most often happens even in the most ancient Latin exemplars of all sorts of Lives. For, to omit other things, "hoplixeto" was written for "hoplizeto," "euron" for "euron" (with the accent corrected), "asebes" was written as "aseben," and at the beginning "exelthe prostagma" or something similar was omitted. Then "poinen," which that interpreter takes for "poinenai" or "eis poinen," we believe was erroneously written for "toinyn": and so Constantinus Lascaris understood it: Then, however, he says, for the present, many indeed and others prepared themselves to meet death, and also the great-souled Virgin, etc.

[33] For that most learned man translated that Life into Latin in its entirety, Constantinus Lascaris translated it, whether it was found at Messina or brought there from elsewhere: for being near death, he bequeathed by testament the copious and select library which he had acquired for himself with great effort from Greece for the public use of the Messinese; as Paulus Belli, a learned and serious man of the Society of Jesus, testifies at the end...

[37] He therefore also wrote the Acts of Saint Agatha, containing nearly the same things as the Latin ones, but interpolated in his own fashion, with some things perhaps taken from that Life he describes the Acts of Saint Agatha, which we said was transcribed from the Messinese codex. What if he also read the oration of Saint Methodius and gathered some things from there as well, just as he expressed the deeds and miracles of Saint Patapius from the earlier oration of Saint Andrew of Crete on him? When I first looked at that Messinese Life, beginning with the same words as the other one of Metaphrastes, I doubted whether it might not be the very work of Metaphrastes, merely expanded by certain additions, as sometimes happens at the hands of copyists. But by reading I discovered that it was generally more concise. What then if it was contracted from Metaphrastes? I asked myself. The style prevented me from thinking so, being plainly different from that of Metaphrastes, although the words are sometimes the same.

[38] Therefore, having weighed the whole matter with myself for a century, I determine as follows: that which has been published under the name of Metaphrastes from the earlier Acts: was rather drawn from this source and from the Latin Acts, whether in the style of Metaphrastes himself or of some scribe from the number of those we previously mentioned from Psellus and Wangnereck; that these scribes partly took down what he either dictated or ordered to be copied from ancient parchments, and partly reviewed what had been copied by others, and changed them wherever it was necessary. For we have discovered that there are approximately four kinds of commentaries in those volumes which contain the Greek Lives of the Saints. four kinds of his writings: The first is of those things which are taken from more ancient writers, first, of certain and approved authors, in their very own words, with the name of the author sometimes appended, or somewhere expressed in the context of the speech, but often also omitted. And the Lives which we find to be of this kind, we usually cite thus: By such-and-such an author, or by an anonymous author, in Metaphrastes. To these very Lives, however, he himself sometimes interposes now the names of Emperors, now some mark of time; sometimes slightly interpolated; and he does not always hit the mark: elsewhere he appends his own works to the labors of the ancients, but these do not carry equal weight. This can be seen in the Life of Saint Simeon Stylites on January 5, whose entire first part is by Theodoret, who died before the Saint himself, and the rest was added by Metaphrastes.

[39] The second kind of Lives is those which he himself either wrote or dictated in their entirety: and these are composed splendidly, gravely, and ornately, so that you recognize the offspring of a most eloquent and most holy man. second, which he polished. And from this work especially he seems to have been called Metaphrastes, that is, Interpreter, or Translator; though among the Greek historians he is commonly called Logothete, from the dignity which he held in the commonwealth. The third kind was elaborated by his scribes, who were themselves also endowed with an elegant style and approved by that most wise man: yet not with such learning and knowledge of antiquity that he would not have corrected many things himself, if he had had enough leisure to review everything. third, which were by his scribes, The fourth kind, finally, is plainly supplementary Lives, namely those which later people found elsewhere and added to the volumes of Metaphrastes, fourth, plainly by other authors: perhaps neither seen by him, nor, had he seen them, all to be approved. How widely this kind extends, and which works belong to it, is not always easy to determine: since many were perhaps collected or even copied at his expense, to be reviewed afterward by his own or his associates' effort, which, however, could not then be done.

[40] Now I see that we are asked to pronounce in which class these Acts of Saint Agatha should be placed. those of Saint Agatha are of the second or third kind: In the second or third. For they were polished either in the style of Simeon himself or of his scribes. The style sufficiently declares that they were produced in that workshop: but there is nothing to make us affirm that they were elaborated by his own hand rather than by the scribes who served him.

[41] These Acts were formerly translated into Latin by Gentianus Hervetus, published by Aloysius Lipomanus, whence are they published here? and from him by Laurentius Surius. We have obtained another Greek exemplar from the library of the Most Christian King, which Johannes David Henxtouius of Antwerp, translated by Johannes David Henxtouius: son of the most renowned physician Johannes Fortunatus Henxtouius, translated into Latin two years ago, both elegantly and faithfully. He was then fifteen years old, but remarkably imbued beyond his age with poetic, rhetorical, and Greek studies. We carefully collated his version with the original, so that no one might seize an opportunity for caviling, and we added Notes according to our custom. More Greek exemplars are reported to exist elsewhere, especially at Rome and in Sicily; but, as those cited from them indicate, they mostly agree with this one.

[42] Now it seems necessary, since we consider that Metaphrastes followed the earlier Greek Acts, collated with the earlier Greek Acts, and added certain things to them, and amplified or changed others, to demonstrate this by comparing several passages of both sets of Acts. The reader will more fully satisfy himself by collating both, should we ever publish the complete Greek texts. What therefore the Messinese Acts simply state, "With Quintianus governing Sicily," Metaphrastes learnedly amplifies: "With Quintianus governing the island of Sicily, belonging to the prefecture of Italy."

the constitution of the same most holy Patriarch Methodius concerning the reception of the lapsed, (some of which survive) or concerning those who denied the faith by various means and at various ages. Which constitution, along with various prayers and other rites pertaining to the reception of the lapsed, was published by the most learned James Goar in the Euchologion of the Greeks and illustrated with notes. In the aforesaid Balsamon there also survives another rescript or canon of the same Methodius concerning separations, or excommunications, and indeed, as may be gathered from the title, monastic ones.

[48] Two fragments of orations were published by our confrere James Gretser in volume 2 of his work On the Cross, of which one is against those who say, "What is the use of the Cross?" and the other is addressed to those who are ashamed of the Cross of Christ. Each fragment bears the name of Methodius the Bishop: that this is the same Methodius may perhaps not unreasonably be conjectured from these words:

"Hence the emperors of this realm, perceiving that the cruciform shape should be adopted for the dispersion of every evil habit, devised what are called in the Roman tongue vexilla." but some things are attributed to him by conjecture alone; So Gretser translates. For those words cannot be supposed to have been written by the other Saint Methodius, Bishop of Tyre, since in his day the emperors so far from forming the Cross on their standards actually persecuted it with every insult and outrage. And indeed this writer shows that he delivered or wrote this oration in the imperial city by these words: "the emperors who have reigned here ... devised," certainly not of the younger Patriarch Methodius of Constantinople, referring to those who reigned at Constantinople. There was indeed another Patriarch Methodius in the year 1241, but he neither presided over sacred affairs at Constantinople, which the Latins held, nor was he of such learning as to be able to compose so elegant a panegyric. For George Acropolites writes thus about him in chapter 42 of his History: "After him there was a certain monk called Methodius, who was the superior of the Hyacinth monastery at Nicaea, a man who boasted of knowing much but who knew little. But he, having enjoyed the throne for only three months, died." But let us return to Methodius the Confessor.

[49] Because, just as the Iconoclasts of our own time, so also those of old attacked sacred images in such a way Saint Methodius wrote especially in defense of the veneration of images, that they waged a most cruel war against the Saints themselves and the Virgin Mother of God, the holy men who defended the images also much more zealously defended the honor of the Saints themselves in their sermons and writings. Thus Saint Theodore the Studite composed a eulogy of Saint Plato and various hymns concerning the Saints. Methodius likewise, both in defense of the veneration of images, and concerning the Saints, as has been related from the Menaea, and published various works concerning the deeds of the Saints. Of these, two survive; namely, the Life of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, which our confrere Balthasar Corderius published in Greek and Latin. Concerning it, Anastasius the Librarian writes in his letter to Charles the Bald: "The text of this Passion was published by the Blessed Methodius, such as the Life of Saint Dionysius. who, sent from the Apostolic See to Constantinople as a Priest, held the pontificate of that city, and from that time is truly venerated and honored among the Saints by all on account of the struggle of his confession and combat." Flodoard, book 3 of the History of Rheims, chapter 18, listing the writings of Bishop Hincmar: "Likewise concerning the passion of Saint Dionysius," he says, "dictated in Greek by Methodius of Constantinople and written in Latin by Anastasius, Librarian of the Roman See." We shall treat more fully of this Life of Dionysius on October 9, in which some think that Methodius, "excerpting a few things from many earlier writings," as Anastasius says, mixed in much from the judgment and opinion of those who then flourished in Gaul, and perhaps in Rome, for their praise of learning, in attributing to one Dionysius what belongs to two. But of this elsewhere.

[50] The same author wrote an oration in praise of Saint Agatha, and an oration on Saint Agatha: and in it he embraced both the Latin Acts, and added other things partly from the Greek Acts, which in section 5 we judged to have been written before his time, and partly what he had long since learned in Sicily itself, whether from ancient tradition or from other sources. For that he was a Sicilian himself, born at Syracuse, and he was himself a Sicilian: we learned from the most learned and most courteous Leo Allatius. Certainly the already-cited Anastasius the Librarian, who lived in the same age as Methodius himself, writes that he was sent from the Apostolic See to Constantinople as a Priest, so as to seem to indicate that he was not born in Thrace or in another neighboring province. Whence is this published here?

[51] The same Allatius sent that oration to us, translated into Latin by Leonardo Pate, a professor of Messina: and the first part of it, down to section 10, in Greek, transcribed from a very ancient codex written on parchment, which exists in the Library of the Fathers of the Oratory at Rome: and he informed us that the remainder had been torn out by certain Sicilians who were examining that Library, because it treated of the birthplace of the Saint. Nevertheless, before that, the complete text had been transcribed from there and exists at Messina in the possession of the same Leonardo.

[52] Augustine Inveges fiercely attacks that Oration as spurious, and therefore says that it is not indicated whence it came. He admits that at Rome, in the library of the Fathers of the Oratory, there exists the beginning of it or some fragment, rejected by some as spurious; with the name of Methodius prefixed: but that the rest has been stitched onto this, with great variety of art, style, phrase, and words, so that it appears to have been interpolated by some modern writer, and perhaps more than one: nor is it stated where the autograph exists; it was merely sent from Rome to Vincent Raimund, a priest of the Society of Jesus, but a native of Catania. Why was it not produced when the dispute about the birthplace of Saint Agatha was being litigated at Rome, unless because it was believed it would bring no support, since the additions that would serve the cause of the Catanians had not yet been made; or if they had already been appended, because an authentic document could not be exhibited to the judges to prove it was transcribed from some ancient codex?

[53] I have never been able to persuade myself that serious and pious men would contrive such a fraud, that they would by evil design adulterate the records of ancient writers, (who could believe it?) especially of Saints. For this is not a simple crime of falsehood, but a grave impiety: since those for whom they once endured labors and death, now in heaven contemplating the most pure truth of the Creator and of all things, are, as it were, recalled to life in order to attack and overturn that truth. But that accusation is peremptorily demolished by the testimony of the most eminent man Leo Allatius, vindicated as genuine by Leo Allatius, which we have related, who also added that no one can doubt that the oration was written by Saint Methodius, on account of the style and learning which shines forth here and in his other works in an entirely similar way, whereas the style of many writers of his age is rough and in no way similar to this. To us also, as soon as we read it, and indeed an excellent work. the oration seemed learned and weighty, and plainly of such a kind that neither Saint Methodius nor any other writer of his age and rank should rightly be ashamed of it.

Section VIII. Other Writings about Saint Agatha by Later Authors.

[54] Contemporary with Saint Methodius and Metaphrastes was Saint Ado, Archbishop of Vienne in Gaul, as was indicated in section 4, somewhat younger than the former and older than the latter: Vincent of Beauvais also wrote about Saint Agatha, in his book on feasts he reproduced the Latin Acts with the original wording preserved, but somewhat abridged. Three hundred years after Metaphrastes there lived in Gaul Vincent, of the Order of Preachers, a writer of great reputation, commonly called Bellovacensis (of Beauvais), whether because he was born among the people of Beauvais or came from there, or resided there for a long time, or acquired that surname for another reason, since most make him a Burgundian: certainly he was not Bishop of Beauvais (as Possevinus, Miraeus, Vossius, and others have stated). He presents the same Acts in the Mirror of History, book 11, chapters 42, 43, and 44, usually in different wording: for what is noted in the Douai edition, that these Acts of Saint Agatha agree with those brought forward by Surius from Metaphrastes, is only true insofar as Metaphrastes agrees in many respects with the Latin Acts. James de Voragine, Bishop of Genoa. James de Voragine, of the same Order of Preachers, created Bishop of Genoa around the year 1292, a learned and holy man, as we have shown elsewhere, presents the same Latin Acts of Saint Agatha in his Lombardic History, or Golden Legend, almost in their entirety. Claude

Rota, a Professor of Theology of the same Order, reviewed them one hundred and fifty years ago. Saint Antoninus, an alumnus of the same institute, afterward Archbishop of Florence, who died in the year 1459, likewise reviews those Acts in part 1 of his Chronicle, chapter 7, title 7, section 5, from the Bellovacensis, Saint Antoninus, Bishop of Florence. Peter, Bishop of Equilo, as he does nearly everything else. Nearly a hundred years older than Antoninus (not his contemporary, as we once thought) was Peter de' Natali, Bishop of Equilo, who also narrates these Acts in book 3 of his Catalogue of Saints, chapter 84.

[55] Between the periods of these two writers, Peter and Antoninus, the great Menaea of the Greeks seem to have been collected (though this is not yet entirely certain to us), of which we treated in our above-cited preface to January. The collectors of the Menaea. In them there is also an abridgment of the Acts written by Metaphrastes; and the following is added concerning the annual celebration of Saint Agatha at Constantinople: "Her synaxis is celebrated in her martyrium, which is in the Triconchon," that is, in the place of the city of Constantinople called "At the Three Apses." The same epitome of the Acts, in the very same words, exists in the Anthology of Arcudi and in the Cytherean collection.

[56] Augustine Inveges cites other Latin Acts of Saint Agatha from a codex of the Senate of Palermo. Acts written by another anonymous author, When they were written, by whom, and what value should be assigned to them, I would not easily determine, since he only samples a few passages from them; such as this one about the birth of the most holy Virgin: Blessed Agatha was the daughter of a certain most noble pagan of the military order, who was called Agathonius by name, of the house and family of Altifloris. which report that she was born to aged and pagan parents at Palermo When the noble Agathonius was rich and abounding in all the goods of fortune, he was nevertheless tormented in spirit because he lacked an heir; for in the flower of his age he had followed military service, far from his wife and homeland. But when he had returned home, broken by old age and labors, he urged his wife to join him in beseeching Apollo, to whose worship he had been most devoted throughout his entire life, with prayers and vows, that he might bestow an heir upon them, if there were still any means. She, however, insisted that vows should rather be offered to Juno, the patroness of women in childbirth. At length they agreed that the husband would invoke Apollo and the wife Juno, and whichever deity had obtained offspring for them, to that one they would especially pay honor. promised by a mysterious voice; While they were praying on their knees, therefore, suddenly their entire palace trembled, and this voice was heard from within the house: The true God, who created heaven and earth and whatever is in them, whom you know not, will give you a daughter who will devastate the temples of Apollo and Juno throughout all Sicily. They were first horrified at that voice, then, when they had recovered themselves, they doubted whether they should rejoice more at the promise of offspring or grieve at the announced ruin of the idols. Two months later the woman learned that she had conceived, and she bore a daughter, to whom the name Agatha was given from the name of her father Agathonius. Then, when sedition arose among the citizens of Palermo, that they then migrated from there to Catania; Agathonius, greatly indignant, departing from Palermo with his entire family, set out for Catania, a noble city of that province.

[57] Then the author, whoever he may be, narrates the conversion of the Virgin to Christ thus: When therefore ten years had elapsed from the birth of the girl, during which she always obeyed her parents with all modesty and patience, etc. her impatient with idleness, She was, moreover, always impatient with idleness, and performed domestic tasks with her own hands, for which she was often rebuked by her mother: to whom the modest and wise Virgin would reply that it was not fitting for this life to be consumed in idleness; people must always be doing some sort of work, lest wicked thoughts which fall upon the mind be able to undermine it. By these arguments and others of this kind she obtained from her mother permission to receive a certain old woman into the house, from whom she might learn the art of weaving. This old woman was a secret Christian: converted when she was ten years old: who, observing the Virgin's soul inclined toward virtue, explained to her the life, passion, miracles, and glory of Christ; adding that if she loved Him with her whole heart, she would obtain not temporal and perishable goods, but eternal life, immeasurable riches, and inexplicable glory. Hearing all these things, the holy maiden began thenceforth to despise idols, and would rebuke the superstitious pagan ceremonies of her parents.

[58] Certain persons object to these Acts, and bring forward another name of the father, and even of the mother, from the more recent writings of some Catanians, fashioned perhaps to that tradition which prevails there. Moreover, the Palermitan Acts, since they are confirmed by no ancient testimony, were probably composed after Sicily was freed from the servitude of the barbarians, when were these Acts composed? others likewise from tradition, and perhaps long afterward, from popular tradition. From a similar narrative of the pious populace seems to have arisen what our Cornelius a Lapide writes about the flight of Saint Agatha to the island of Malta, for the sake of avoiding the marriage to which her mother was striving to compel her: so that she fled from Catania twice, first lest she be forced unwillingly into marriage, they report that she fled to Malta to avoid marriage, then to escape the snares of the impure man Quintianus, who was arriving in Catania. Metaphrastes may seem to have indicated the first flight, when in chapter 1, section 4, he introduces the Virgin relating that her first contest had been for continence, in which she conquered the devil as he sowed the seeds of pleasure, even before she was handed over to Aphrodisia. Although that victory can be understood as having been won over the flesh and the devil, since she resisted the titillation of the former and eluded the fraudulent suggestions of the latter. But whether the flight from the city in which she had her domicile was double, or single, or even none at all, let others decide. The Latin Acts make no mention of a flight; they only state: "He had Blessed Agatha seized by his officers." That is, Quintianus; as though she were apprehended at Catania. Paul Emilius Santorius writes that Agatha kept herself within her own domestic walls at Catania, and was dragged thence by officers sent for her.

[59] The words of Cornelius are these, in his Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 28, verse 1, where among the benefits proceeding from the Apostle Paul to Malta and the Maltese, he establishes as the fifth that Saint Paul often protected Malta from hostile attack. To say nothing of other things, he says, around the year of the Lord 1470, when the Moors were invading it with a fleet of eighteen thousand soldiers and were already positioning their artillery to batter the old city, on the third day Saint Paul appeared in a starry garment, such as he is depicted wearing in the Cathedral church, and brandishing a sword, riding a horse, accompanied by an innumerable multitude, and was seen to attack the ranks of the Turks: and when the Turks shot many arrows at him, they all bounced and ricocheted back upon themselves, and wounded and destroyed them. Two other tutelary saints of the island were also seen, and that she wove a veil there, to gain time: Saint George and Saint Agatha: who, fame has it, fled there to escape the Sicilian persecution and hid, and there wove that famous veil which restrains the fires of Etna; and this she did in the manner of Penelope, so that what she had woven by day she unraveled by night, because to her mother who was pressing her to marry, she, declining the marriage, would reply that she first had to finish weaving this veil. Wherefore they then placed a marble statue of Saint Agatha on the wall, the city was saved after her statue was placed on the walls but with its face turned away from the Turks and toward the city: but the statue of its own power turned its face toward the Turks, with as great a crash as that of the largest cannons; so much so that the Turks, struck with terror by it, raised the siege and took to flight.

[60] So Cornelius, without citing any author. Francis Abela in his description of Malta, book 1, note 4, narrates the same from him, but says it happened in 1551: as does also J. Baudouin, who in his History of the Order of Saint John, book 13, chapter 10, writes that a certain pious nun had told the prefect of the old city of Malta that it had been divinely revealed to her by Divine revelation: that the city would indeed be besieged, but that if a statue of Saint Agatha were placed on the rampart near the gate so as to be seen by the enemy, and the sacred Mass were reverently celebrated there once, the city would escape the danger. Which was arranged with distinguished pomp, so that the piety of the people might be satisfied and courage added to the soldiers. It was then observed that, though the Turks were continually hurling projectiles at the rampart where the Saint's image was, it was never struck: nor does he mention any other prodigy. Abela, at the cited passage, testifies that Peter Carrera in his commentaries on the affairs of Catania refutes the narrative of Cornelius and denies that the veneration of Saint Agatha is ancient in Malta: but Abela himself confirms it, the ancient and solemn veneration of her there. because a crypt is seen there, and a vast subterranean cemetery bearing the name of Saint Agatha, with ancient images of her and other Saints painted in the Greek style; where the Canons of the Cathedral Church are accustomed to assemble every year on the Saint's feast day to perform sacred rites, with the city magistrates in attendance, and to bestow a dowry on some poor girls who are to be given in marriage: and the entire populace flocks there to honor the same holy Virgin.

Section IX. Whether Saint Agatha Was of Palermo or Catania, the Two Cities Themselves Dispute.

[61] The Saints have a twofold homeland: one which brought them forth into mortal life, if indeed it should not rather be called exile than homeland, the homeland of the Saints, one celestial, the other terrestrial: burdened as it is with so many miseries; the other blessed, and, in proportion as each of them was most wise and most devout, sought with assiduous and ardent prayers, in which we are not only born but also enrolled, as the holy Bede says, and decreed as citizens. And so we read passim that Martyrs, when interrogated by tyrants about their homeland, responded that they were citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. So likewise, in the Life of Saint Athanasius, Bishop of Methone, January 31, chapter 2, section 3, Peter, Bishop of Argos, speaks: The homeland, therefore, of this blessed Father Athanasius whom I must now praise, is first and truly that celestial one, where together with the Saints he had been enrolled from eternity, and from his earliest childhood did not fall from election: but his other homeland, as far distant from the first as the darkness of shadows and the empty phantoms of things are from the light of truth, is Catania. This writer seems to have imitated Saint Andrew of Crete, who in his Oration on Saint Patapius speaks thus: "For this brave and noble man, whose homeland is that celestial Jerusalem, the mother of Peter and Paul." And with a few words intervening: "For I shall attempt, as far as my ability allows, whether by contrasting them or by opposed comparison, to show you eager listeners his twofold homeland: the one indeed, whose origin is from earth, and whose dissolution is into earth; the other from heaven, eternal and immortal."

[62] And indeed that earthly homeland, subject to decline, the Saints so little considered their own that they both despised it with noble spirits they fled from it, and strove with all their strength to escape from it: so far from wishing honor or any distinction to be assigned to themselves from it, or from binding themselves to it in any way. And this not only for the reason by which Cicero writes, in the Tusculan Disputations book 5, that Socrates, when asked what countryman he called himself, replied, a citizen of the world; for he was an inhabitant and citizen of the whole world; or by which Teucer is said to have pronounced, The homeland is wherever one fares well; but the holy men looked to this in their contempt and, as it were, renunciation of their earthly homeland, or in their voluntary forgetfulness of it, aspiring to that one: so that their spirit might more freely journey as a pilgrim, and might certainly rise in thought and will to heaven, where they might remember that they had been endowed with that most blessed citizenship: and there their fellowship with those most pure minds might already be.

[63] Nevertheless, it is not to be supposed that they so stripped themselves of love for their homeland and transferred it to heaven that they did not wish good things for their fellow citizens, especially those which are true and whose fruit is everlasting. For those who were commanded, both by the honorable instinct of nature and by the most weighty commandment of God, they nevertheless favor their own citizens, just as we are, to bestow love and honor upon their parents, could not also not love their homeland, which is a common parent: since both the wise prescribe, and the reason innate in us dictates, that a greater debt of gratitude is owed to it than to parents. And that most honorable sentiment of charity is still present even now in the Saints received into heaven, so that they wish well to those who are joined to them by blood and to the homeland which bore and nourished them. For although they more greatly protect with their favor and patronage those who either amplify their honor or imitate their good deeds, even if bound to them by no tie of birthplace or family, rather than those who are connected to them only by the community of homeland or even of blood, yet neither celebrate their glories nor follow their examples; nevertheless, where both factors conspire to merit their charity -- homeland, I say, or family, and imitation conjoined with religious veneration -- then at last they show a certain special benevolence and favor. And indeed the reverse happens, and their fellow citizens honor them more. that in the minds of mortals a greater ardor is engendered for honoring those whom they remember to have been born of the same stock, or to have lived under the same roofs, to have prayed in the same temples, and to have dwelt within the same walls; and a greater confidence of obtaining what they have humbly asked of them.

[64] Those cities, therefore, may rightly boast which brought forth Saints into this life and, as it were, sent them out into the field in which they won for themselves a most noble victory and an eternal triumph. For rightly does Saint Methodius say below in chapter 5, section 28: "The Martyrs," he says, "while they suffer torments and tortures for Christ, not only weave for themselves a crown of glory, therefore cities boast of their births, exhibit praise to the Church and honor to God, but also, while they provoke their fellow citizens to the imitation of their virtues as an example, merit for them heavenly favors, not at the price of gold and silver, but by the treasure of their outpoured blood. And indeed the bodies of holy Virgins slaughtered for Christ, lying in humble marble, are no less useful to their kindred and fellow citizens and homeland, where they were brought forth into mortal life, than the armies of the bravest men fighting for their country."

[65] For which reason, the zeal of those cities which strive to claim for themselves the glorious births of Saints seems by no means blameworthy: and contend for them: provided that they also endeavor to propagate the glory and veneration of the Saints themselves, and retain in their citizens that discipline of morals, and especially that method of educating youth in those arts by which the Saints attained the perfection of holiness. Thus we reported on January 22 that several cities of Spain contend about the cradle of Saint Vincent the Martyr. Other cities fight about the birth of other Saints. I do not know, however, whether the contest over the birthplace of any Saint has ever been waged more fiercely and devoutly than over that of Saint Agatha. For two cities of Sicily, most celebrated for their antiquity, wealth, and religion, Catania and Palermo, most fiercely between Catania and Palermo over Saint Agatha, affirm that she is their citizen. Nor is this controversy new: for Fazello, decade 1, book 3, chapter 1, where he treats of Catania and Saint Agatha, acknowledges that the people of Palermo contend about her homeland. Our confrere Octavius Caietanus pronounces this to be a noble contest (provided that things which can tear apart charity are absent) in the Plan of the work on the Saints of Sicily, page 60, in these words: "You have noticed, as I suppose, my reader, that I have assigned Saint Agatha in the Topographical Index to two cities: this was done intentionally, so that by this worthy contest they might be spurred on. And she is worthy, for whom not two, not, as for the most noble poet, seven cities of Greece, but all should contend with burning zeal."

[66] Nor was that controversy disputed on both sides only in published books, but was also brought before the judgment of the Roman Pontiff himself, a lawsuit also argued at Rome and debated before that most holy tribunal. Augustine Inveges sets forth at length the whole course of that litigation from the papers of Marianus Valguarnera. For when Pope Clement VIII had ordered the Breviary of public prayers, which were customarily recited in the Roman Church, to be reviewed, at the time of the reform of the Breviary under Clement VIII. a special congregation of Bishops and other learned men having been established for the purpose, which was called the Congregation for the Reform of the Breviary, it was suggested by Stephen Tuccius, a Priest of the Society of Jesus, a man most learned in theological doctrines and the knowledge of ecclesiastical antiquity, and equally most holy, that what was found in the Breviary published by the authority of Pius V under the Nones of February, "The Virgin Agatha, born of noble parents at Catania in Sicily," seemed to need correction: for it was transmitted by Simeon Metaphrastes, an ancient writer, that she was born at Palermo. First, therefore, those words, "born at Catania," were ordered to be deleted; afterward these were substituted: "born at Palermo."

[67] When, after Tuccius had long since died, Bernard Colnagus of Catania, of the same Society, himself also renowned for his reputation of rare erudition and especially of holiness, learned that a new Breviary, in which those words about the homeland of Saint Agatha had been changed in that manner, was about to be published shortly; the chief advocates were Father Colnagus and Valguarnera. he thought every stone must be moved to oppose that decree and to assert for his homeland the birth of its Patron Saint. There was then at Rome Marianus Valguarnera, a Palermitan knight, endowed with singular learning: he vigorously opposed Colnagus. The lawsuit was therefore joined. The chief advocates were Colnagus and Valguarnera: with the latter, Berlingerius Ventimiglia, himself also a Palermitan knight, had shared his efforts and labor. Various magnates on each side gave their support; the authority of Cardinal Simon Tagliavia de Terranova especially favored the Palermitans, which Colnagus intimated was very much an obstacle to him in a certain letter, from which Inveges cites this fragment: "In short, the most illustrious Cardinal Terranova is a Cardinal, I

[71] From these two (for I have not seen Carrera) I shall take and weigh the arguments brought forth on either side. Nor shall I bring forward anything at all on account of which either the people of Catania or those of Palermo could rightly be angry with me, whose arguments we shall report, unless they first wish to condemn their own writers. For if some testimony cited from those authors does not seem to me to establish what it was adduced to prove, I demand the right and privilege of denying the force of such an argument, and we shall weigh them moderately, and much more so of refuting anything that is false. For who would wish so unfair a rule to be imposed upon me, that if a plate of brass is thrust upon me in place of a sheet of gold, I may not cry out that it is brass? I profess moreover that in this entire commentary I shall say nothing which I do not trust will be as acceptable both to their holy Patroness and to themselves, as I most earnestly desire her to be favorable to me and them to be my friends. Indeed, were the works I have mentioned not already published, I would dare to ask both sides what our Octavius Caietanus asked in the year of Christ 1617 in the Plan of the Work on the Saints of Sicily, cited above, page 61: "We earnestly pray," he says, "that both cities, out of their love for the Saint, or rather their piety, write to us, setting forth the basis on which they defend their claim, and that they explain it copiously: then, having examined and weighed the reasons, we shall render our judgment, free from all partisan zeal." Thus he.

Section X. The principal argument of the Palermitans, from the authority of Simeon Metaphrastes.

[72] Palermo rightfully claims first place in this disputation for itself -- that happy and renowned city, noble and illustrious, the capital of the kingdom, the model of faith, the fatherland of princes, the seat of kings, In favor of Palermo: as Catania itself is said to have addressed it in a certain letter more than three hundred years ago. And it is indeed furnished with a smaller number of witnesses and supporters, well aware that testimonies ought to be weighed and balanced, not counted; and that the chief consideration is not how many men affirm some matter, but how wise and weighty they are: nor does the strength of an army reside in a disorderly multitude. Nevertheless I shall review everything that is adduced in the best faith, and shall neither diminish nor exaggerate anything, except insofar as the explanation of the matter itself makes it necessary.

[73] The first, therefore, 1. the authority of Metaphrastes, and most powerful argument by which the birthplace of St. Agatha is claimed for Palermo, is the authority of Simeon the Logothete, who is commonly called Metaphrastes. Those who have written in favor of Palermo esteem this so highly that they think all the arguments of their adversaries can be overturned by it alone. But while they strive to establish it too firmly, it is great, they put forward certain things not easily approved by learned men. For since, they say, the people of Catania and most Sicilians formerly spoke Greek, therefore Greek sources ought to prevail over others, and consequently Metaphrastes, who is preeminent among the Greeks. But we have shown above from the official Acts of the trial of St. Euplius that in the time of St. Agatha all Sicilians certainly did not speak Greek, not because he is Greek, at least in judicial proceedings. Yet even if we freely concede this to them, how will they establish that Greek writings, composed at least 1,160 years after the martyrdom of St. Agatha, ought to be preferred to Latin writings that were recorded in official documents at the very time by those who either themselves witnessed what was done, or received it from eyewitnesses and earwitnesses, and which have been cited by the ancient Fathers and inserted in the Roman Breviary? I ask whether, because the Romans spoke Latin, some history of the Punic Wars written in Latin after the five hundredth year of the Christian era ought to be more valued than the Greek of Polybius, who had either seen most of what he wrote being done, or had been present with those who did it, bringing them aid and counsel? Or if someone should commit the Belgian wars of our age to writing in the Teutonic language after 1,160 years, ought he to be preferred to our Strada solely because that language is then the native speech of the Belgians?

[74] It is not chiefly to be considered in what language some history has been written, but whether by those who saw, or who heard from others who had themselves seen: or if a long space of time intervened between the event and its description, but because he is learned, diligent, and furnished with other resources: at least whether he who commits it to writing is a learned, upright, and careful man, who can and habitually does examine all the monuments of the preceding age, so that faith ought rightly to be given to him: as among the writers of Roman history were Titus Livius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Therefore it is not because Metaphrastes was Greek that he alone is to be preferred to others who wrote about St. Agatha; but because, distinguished by the nobility of his birth, powerful in wealth and authority, and endowed with singular piety and learning, he was able to obtain very many monuments of the ancients, and desired to search through them diligently and adorn them with his style. For that Metaphrastes was such a man we have shown elsewhere; and it must be confessed that, on account of his very great occupations, he did not always achieve what he desired. Yet let him believe that his authority was so highly esteemed that judges immediately adjudicated the case in favor of the Palermitans on account of it, who does not know what Bellarmine and Baronius, who were among the judges, left written about him. We think of him not only more gently but far more honorably.

[75] Now let us see what he wrote about the fatherland of St. Agatha. He writes that St. Agatha was from Palermo, "The holy and magnanimous Agatha was from the city of the Palermitans, and was of a distinguished and illustrious lineage." Gentian Hervet translated: "The holy Agatha therefore, of great and lofty spirit, who was born indeed from the city of Palermo, or born at Palermo, was moreover sprung from a distinguished and famous family." The Catanians vigorously attack this translation of Gentian, and deny that the word hormomenos, though it means many things, is used in the sense of "born" or "sprung from," but only of "originating from." That is indeed the ordinary and more genuine meaning, so that it is the same as "originating from," as if "proceeding from some place" where one's parents or ancestors were born, just as in Livy, decade 3, book 4, Hippocrates and Epicydes were "born at Carthage, but originating from Syracuse," their grandfather being an exile, and they themselves Carthaginian by maternal lineage; yet it must be acknowledged that hormomenos often means the same as "born." Thus the Menaia on October 26, concerning St. Demetrius the Martyr: (for the Greek word hormomene signifies both) "He lived under the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian, born in the city of Thessalonica." This is clear from his Life, where it will be said: "whom the great city of Thessalonica bore." Concerning St. Justina, Virgin and Martyr, the same Menaia on October 2 speak thus: "who was herself also born at Antioch." This is clear from the Greek Life: "Her fatherland was, as we have declared, Antioch." The Latin Acts of the same Justina and Cyprian agree: "Moreover there was a Virgin, Justina, whose father was named Edesius, in the city of Antioch." Very many other examples of the word hormomenos used in this way might be adduced.

[76] The Catanians seek another escape: namely, that the Palermo from which St. Agatha is said to originate, or where she was born, is not that most celebrated city, but a village about three miles from Catania, now called Galerma. Not the village of Galerma near Catania, They confirm this by the authority of a certain Theodontius, a writer unknown to me, whom Giovanni Boccaccio cites in book 11 of the Genealogy of the Gods, chapter 10, where he relates that Thalia, a concubine of Jupiter, while pregnant was swallowed up by the earth, as she herself had wished out of fear of Juno; then, when the earth opened at the maturity of her offspring, she bore twins called the Palici from the event, "from returning again," as it were, whom the Sicilians worshipped as gods: and that there are lakes of immense depth, bubbling perpetually with a wonderful spring of hot waters, which the inhabitants formerly called Deli and believed to be brothers of the Palici, near the city of Menae, where the vestiges of the city of Palica are also said to be seen: about which matters many writers treat. When Boccaccio has related these things, (which was also called Panormus, he adds the following: "But why they were called sons of Jupiter, and the mother was swallowed up, Theodontius gives this explanation; he says moreover that not far from Panormus there was a not ignoble pit in a place called Thalia, into which all the water which fell from that slope of Mount Etna on account of rain would plunge: and whatever had then been cast into the cavern, not long afterward appeared to emerge in the boiling lakes or springs of the Palici. By which it appeared that the rain, which they hold to be born by the work of Jupiter, that is, of the air, was hidden in that place beneath the earth, and finally born again at the lakes of the Palici: and thus from Jupiter were the Palici born." Thus Theodontius in Boccaccio.

[77] Furthermore, since the city of Palermo is at the greatest distance from Etna, so that the water which flows down from it could not flow into a pit nearby, the Catanians conjecture that it is Galerma, a village perhaps formerly called Ganormos, perhaps through an error for Ganormus) as if "a pleasant harbor" or anchorage: which name the distant antiquity of the age may seem to have changed into Galerma, just as Panormus into Palermo. What if Ganormos was written, and Metaphrastes or his copyist read Panormos, deceived by the similarity of the two letters G and P? Inveges rejects this conjecture: yet he confesses that by Theodontius, perhaps also by Boccaccio, Ganormus appears to have been written; why the same name could not likewise have been in the codex used by Metaphrastes, he gives no reason. A double escape, however, not only the Acts of Metaphrastes but also other earlier Greek sources suggest: for both imply, nor could she have hidden there, but the latter especially, that the most prudent Virgin withdrew to Palermo in order to avoid the lust of the most impure Quintianus, who was then residing at Catania, to which city Agatha had been brought as a small child by her parents, and where she had grown up, the Palermitans acknowledge. But if Agatha had gone only to a nearby village, she would scarcely have been safe: nor would she herself say, according to St. Methodius, that she had lived quietly far from her fatherland and paternal home. She therefore withdrew to Palermo, from which she was at least of that origin, and perhaps had powerful kinsmen. Another reason is that the same Quintianus, after the death of the Virgin, nor could Quintianus have perished in the Simethus, set out toward Palermo to plunder her property, not toward Galerma, or Ganormus: for the river Simethus does not flow between this village and Catania, but a full eight miles from that city, while Galerma is only three miles distant: yet even the Latin Acts report that he perished in the Simethus. This escape is therefore blocked.

[78] They seize upon another argument, in this manner: From the words of Metaphrastes it is not certain that she was born at Palermo, but only that she drew her origin from there, since the word hormomene, which he uses, signifies the latter rather than the former in its more proper sense. For as to our having reported that Quintianus set out toward Palermo to seize her goods, this is also related by the earlier Greek Acts, which nevertheless assert that she was born at Catania. She perhaps had a house at Palermo, as Metaphrastes says, whether her own or rented at a price: there the tyrant, since she had confessed that she was born of a distinguished family, believed that much hidden clothing, silver, paintings, statues, and other magnificent things were stored, whether his avarice was deceiving him, or Agatha truly had the things her parents had left her stored away there, Quintianus heading there to plunder Agatha's property, since there had previously been no need to pour out everything at once upon the poor, the Church enjoying a peaceful tranquility under the Christian Emperors, the Philips. As for what Pirri writes, that when this controversy was being debated at Rome, several manuscript codices were brought forward, each of which had been written more than 1,100 or even 1,200 years before, How old are the copies of Metaphrastes? and that in them Agatha was very frequently declared to have been born at Palermo -- the Catanians deny that this is true: for they were merely several copies of the same Life written by Metaphrastes (as we ourselves assert, though they scarcely admit it); and in all of them nothing other than what has been related about St. Agatha's fatherland is found, and that of ambiguous interpretation. If moreover there were then codices of 1,200 years, they would have had to have been written long before Metaphrastes turned his mind to writing the Acts of the Saints: how then are they of Metaphrastes? Just as decrepit old men are accustomed to say they are older than they are, whether through failing memory or because it seems a fine thing to have far surpassed the common span; so also they think that authority is gained for books by an exaggerated antiquity.

Section XI. Other arguments of the Palermitans.

[79] The second argument is from the Greek Menaia, or descriptions of the Divine Offices for each month, where the following is read about St. Agatha: "She was from the city of Palermo in Sicily." 2. In favor of Palermo the Greek Menaia speak, Our Matthew Rader translated: "She was born a Palermitan in Sicily." Nor is there reason for anyone to cavil at this argument drawn from the treasury of the schismatic Greeks, since even the Orthodox use these Menaia, as we have shown elsewhere. And this is worth a thousand witnesses, since thousands publicly recite and approve these words in the Divine Offices.

[80] Third, from the Anthologion of the same Greeks, which was printed at Rome in the Vatican press itself in the year 1598, the Anthologion of Arcudi, compiled by Antonio Arcudi and dedicated to Clement VIII, where, just as most of the Lessons are the same as in the larger Menaia, so the mention of St. Agatha is made in precisely the same words.

[81] Fourth, from the book of Maximus, Bishop of Cythera, entitled "Lives of the Saints," the Lives of the Saints of the Cytheraean, which he transcribed almost word for word from the Menaia and translated into the common Greek language, and had printed at Venice: where the following is found: "She was from the place in Sicily called Palermo."

[82] Fifth, from the Greek Menologion, which is said to have been composed by order of the Emperor Basil the Macedonian, the Menologion of the Emperor Basil, adorned with images of the very saints whose encomia it contains, and preserved in the Vatican library. Because this Menologion is cited in favor of the Palermitans, I believe it is the same from which Pirri produces the following: "Agatha, Virgin and Martyr, from the city of Palermo in Sicily." But since I have not seen it, I can pronounce nothing about it, except that it is praised by Baronius, and is different from the one which, translated by Cardinal Sirleto, Henry Canisius published: for in the latter, St. Agatha is mentioned only in these words: "And of the holy Martyr Agatha."

[83] A letter of the Catanians, Sixth, there is the testimony of the Catanians themselves in a letter which Pirri reports to exist in a certain manuscript Chronicle of the Church of Agrigento, and from it Inveges, dated to the year 1325, in which they thus address the city of Palermo: "Do not forget, among all the praiseworthy acts of your valor, to raise the banner of that sacred Virgin Agatha for the defense of your people -- she whom common fame proclaims to have been born in you and whom the written record declares -- who, crowned by martyrdom in Christ Jesus, obtained the liberation of her fatherland." I cannot confirm the trustworthiness of this testimony. Let the responsibility rest with Pirri, who cites it.

[84] Seventh, from the adversaria of Marianus Valguarnera, where this oratorical praetermission is employed: "We set aside all our traditions, an attested tradition, lest they perhaps seem too trifling to anyone, that the Palermitans assert St. Agatha to be their citizen: the House in which she was born: the plot of her Vineyard, where now a church has been founded in her name: the Rock, bearing the footprints divinely imprinted when she was being carried from Palermo to Catania." Lest anyone should contest these, he adds the following as proof: "For the greater authority of these Traditions (because they denied that they were current at Palermo) the Palermitans sent to Rome the sworn testimony of seventy Elders of the city, both citizens and foreigners, indeed even Catanians, taken under oath before our Archbishop." Thus Marianus; these would carry somewhat greater force if they proved the tradition of earlier centuries, not merely of the last.

[85] Concerning that footprint of the Saint (for it is a single one, although Marianus uses the plural), Pirri writes thus: a footprint impressed on rock, "Witness is that rock from which she mounted her horse on departing; on which the Palermitans to this day venerate the Virgin's impressed footprint, in the church near the southern gate of the city, which takes its name from St. Agatha. From which rock, in ancient times, on the day sacred to St. Agatha, a healing liquid is said to have flowed for diseases, as Marianus Valguarnera told many that he had seen and read in the aforementioned manuscript codex of the Vatican library." Whence did Pirri learn that the Virgin here mounted a horse, when Metaphrastes and the earlier Acts only report that she placed her foot on the rock to fasten her sandal strap? Inveges under the year of Christ 234, number 8, writes that she mounted a horse at that place; and under the year 253, number 16, he maintains that she by no means completed the rest of the journey on foot. As for the Catanians' objection that this footprint does not resemble those which are seen impressed on stone at Catania, and indeed does not even appear to be human, being of a nearly round shape -- the same Inveges excellently refutes this: for it is the footprint of a foot shod in a girl's sandal, most similar to those seen at Catania: most similar in size and form to the Catanian ones; for as soon as he received the book of Petrus Carrera, in which those were depicted, he immediately went to that church, applied the figure stamped from them to this one, and found them entirely alike. The rock on which the footprint is seen is rough and unpolished, three palms long, two wide. But even if we grant this, say the Catanians, of which no mention exists in Metaphrastes or any other writer who lived more than 150 years ago, what does it prove for Palermo being considered her fatherland? Even less does what follows.

[86] Eighth. A wild olive tree that sprang up suddenly at the prayers of St. Agatha, a wild olive tree born at the Saint's prayers, near the place where she had fastened her sandal strap. It is still shown in the garden of the church where we have said the rock signed with the holy Virgin's footprint is preserved, thick and tall, but changed into an olive by grafting. Yet I do not see how it designates a fatherland. Metaphrastes writes that thereby "the minds, or the character and feeling, of the Palermitans were stigmatized." Other Greek Acts more accurately refer it not so universally to all the citizens, but only to those who, having accompanied Agatha that far, had turned back: "Immediately a wild olive sprang up, reproving the minds of those unbelieving ones who had departed."

[87] Ninth. The argument is sought from a certain Latin Life of St. Agatha, which Inveges discusses under the year of Christ 234. An unpublished Latin Life, We said above in section 8, number 58, that it appears to have been composed after Sicily was freed from the tyranny of the Saracens, from common report rather than from any certain documents: and we can determine all the less how much we should rely upon it, since we have not seen it in its entirety. From those portions which Inveges recites, however, we learn that she was born at Palermo, and as a very young girl migrated with her parents to Catania, where at the age of ten she was joined to Christ. And from this at least a tradition older than the one previously established is confirmed.

[88] Tenth. The learned conjecture of Marianus Valguarnera, drawn from other indications and especially from the annual processions at Palermo, from the fact that among the principal processions (which, he says, "our ancestors decreed for none but Tutelary Saints or citizens") is the one which on the day of St. Agatha is celebrated most solemnly from time immemorial.

[89] Eleventh, adduced by the same Valguarnera, that very many churches in Palermo were already of old dedicated to St. Agatha. Churches dedicated to the Saint, For as to what some suspect, that they are not very old but were perhaps built at the time when the Palermitan Bishop was Giovanni Paterno, from the year 1489 to 1511, and indeed by Catanians -- just as he himself, being likewise a Catanian, decreed by law that the feast of St. Agatha be solemnly celebrated -- Inveges refutes this by the testimony of Pope St. Gregory I and of Tommaso Fazello. a gate named after her, But he seems to have had a different edition of Fazello than the Wechel edition of 1589 which we possess. For what in our edition, decade 1, book 8, chapter 1, page 169, last line, reads: "The third gate took its name from St. Agatha, whose little shrine is about 200 paces distant from it"; he writes this to be given on page 171 thus: "The fourth, on the same (northern) aspect of the city, in the age of the Kings of Sicily Roger and the Williams, as we read in their Privileges, takes the name of St. Agatha de Villa, from a nearby church of the same." In our book there is nothing similar on that page, and the Fourth Gate is said to take its name from the city of Mazara. But St. Gregory in the Register, book 7, Indiction 2, epistle 27, has the following: "Concerning the estates of Faianum, a monastery anciently dedicated to her in the territory of Palermo, Nasusianum, and Labinianum, situated in the province of Sicily, in the territory of Palermo, between the Superiors of the monastery of Saints Maximus and Agatha, which is called Lucusianum, and on the other side the administrators of the hospice established in this city, which is called that of Valerius, a long dispute has dragged on," etc. The same Inveges writes that this monastery of Saints Maximus and Agatha, called Lucusianum, was six miles from the city of Palermo.

[90] Twelfth. The same Palermitan tradition proclaims that the Saint had at Palermo a paternal palace and a villa, a palace and other possessions, perhaps in the suburbs, and ample possessions in the region called Zisa. The Catanians likewise display similar things at their own city.

[91] Thirteenth. Pirri cites Ado as a patron of the same cause, who in the booklet on feasts, which we mentioned above in section 8, number 54, makes no mention of Palermo at all, yet has the following: "After this, Quintianus set out on a journey to investigate the property of Blessed Agatha, and to seize all those of her kindred." Whence it follows that both her property and her kindred were not at Catania: her friends outside Catania: for why would he not first have laid hands on these, rather than pursue things at a distance? But he is not recorded to have seized any of her goods at Catania at all, nor to have caused trouble for any of the Saint's kinsmen. Did he fear the sedition of the people? Indeed, some hold that he departed from Catania solely to avoid this, which the Acts manifestly refute. And this is an argument of no little weight.

[92] Fourteenth. The Roman Breviary before the time of Pius V never indicated that she was born at Catania: but neither at Palermo. We have copies printed at Venice in the years 1479, 1490, 1524, Breviaries, and at Strasbourg in 1508, in which only the following is found: "The birthday of St. Agatha, Virgin and Martyr, in Sicily, in the city of Catania, under the Proconsul Quintianus, during the reign of the Emperor Decius. Which consular man, desiring," etc. What Cardinal Quignonez then

compiled (we have a fivefold edition of it) reads thus: "During the reign of the Emperor Decius, Quintianus, the Governor of Sicily, seized with love for the noble Virgin Agatha of outstanding beauty, in the city of Catania," etc. What extraneous elements favor Catania, we shall see below. The Breviary of Speyer of the year 1590 reads thus: "Agatha, a Virgin of Catania, born at Palermo of illustrious parentage." The Mainz Breviary of the year 1570 reads the same, except that instead of "born" it has "originating"; which word the Palermitans show is used very often in the same Breviary in the sense of "born" or "sprung from."

[93] Fifteenth. If certain writers call Agatha a Catanian, the Palermitans say that this is said because her relics are preserved at Catania, and she obtained the laurel of martyrdom there. If some affirm that she was born at Catania, or that Catania was her fatherland: the arguments of the Catanians are parried, "Of course," they say, "because Catania gave her back to heaven and as it were gave birth to her, it is called her fatherland." But the Catanians may ask in what manner of speech people are henceforth to speak when the question concerns anyone's fatherland? Whether a circumlocution is always necessary, so that one must say that someone came into mortal air in one place and flew into immortal light in another; since they would have the words for "being born" and "fatherland" be, at least for us Christians, of ambiguous meaning?

[94] Sixteenth. Testimonies of learned men, of which kind the Catanians accumulate many, testimonies of learned men, would need to be cited here: but neither have they come to our attention, nor have the Palermitans, relying chiefly on Metaphrastes alone, labored much over them: yet they have not passed over in silence Julius Mazarini of the Society of Jesus, himself also born at Palermo. He in sermon 45 on the Miserere writes thus: "Something similar is written from Metaphrastes in the Life of St. Agatha, and from Ado the Bishop. She was called from Palermo, her native soil, to Catania, for the sake of religion." What he then adds is indeed found in Ado, but is cited gratuitously as proof of her fatherland. The same Mazarini in sermon 106: "The noble Martyr and Palermitan Virgin objected to the tyrant Quintianus, saying: 'The highest nobility is that by which servitude to Christ is proved.'" Peter Ribadeneira, of the same Society, in the Lives of the Saints, writes thus: "She was born in the city of Palermo, as Metaphrastes asserts." Silvanus Razzi also relates that she was born at Palermo, in volume 1 of his work on women illustrious for sanctity, where he confesses that he describes the Life of St. Agatha from Metaphrastes, as does Rene Benoist in the French Lives of the Saints.

Section XII. Arguments of the Catanians from the Fathers and writers before the year of Christ 900.

[95] The many arguments of the Catanians: Now we must hear not so much the witnesses of the Catanians as contemplate their nearly complete battle array, and every kind of siege engine with which they attack their adversaries. We shall review these, as we did those of the Palermitans previously, in the best faith, but some somewhat more briefly, lest we be overwhelmed beyond measure by the sheer mass.

[96] First argument: from the most ancient and most approved Latin Acts, 1. from the Latin Acts, with which all others nevertheless agree on this point. In them, therefore, at question 3, number 13, the following is read: "While her body was being embalmed with spices, and they were placing it with the greatest care, there came a certain youth, clothed in silk garments, whom more than a hundred boys followed, all adorned and beautiful... He therefore, coming in, entered the place where her body was being prepared, and placed at her head a small marble tablet, where on the angelic tablet a promise of the liberation of the fatherland, on which was written: A holy mind, spontaneous honor to God, and the liberation of the fatherland." But what did those who witnessed these things interpret as the "fatherland"? This is clear from the following words at number 15: "Moreover, so that the inscription which the Angel of the Lord had placed might be evidently confirmed, after the cycle of a year, around her birthday, Mount Etna belched forth a conflagration... Then a multitude of pagans fleeing descended from the mountain, confirmed in the liberation of Catania, and came to her sepulchre, and taking the veil with which her sepulchre was covered, they set it up against the fire coming toward them, and at that very hour the fire stood still, divided... that our Lord Jesus Christ might prove that He had freed them from the danger of death and conflagration through the merits and prayers of St. Agatha." If Palermo was her fatherland, and liberation of this was promised in this epitaph, why then, "so that the inscription which the Angel of the Lord had placed might be evidently confirmed," was Catania liberated? If the highest magistracy in his city were divinely promised to Titius, would the prophecy be confirmed if it were bestowed on Caius?

[97] The Palermitans are not unaware of the force of this argument, but they strive to evade it by various circumlocutions. Responses of the Palermitans, that it was not brought by an Angel: For first they deny it was an Angel. Yet Metaphrastes, whom they regard as their unique patron, expressly thinks this is proven by this very miracle: "Moreover," he says, "so that the report which had already spread might be rendered certain and unshakeable -- namely that it was an Angel who had deposited the tablet on her tomb -- after the turning of the year," etc. Others say that the liberation of Palermo was promised, since it was truly the fatherland of the Martyr: that Palermo was liberated from Quintianus: for indeed it was freed from the fury of Quintianus by the merits of Agatha. Why then do the Acts report that the verdict of the epitaph was confirmed only after the turning of the year, when the torrent of Etna was repressed -- and not on the very day the Virgin died, or at most the next? Third: "We explain 'fatherland,'" they say in Inveges, "as where she was born to heaven, just as the Church customarily takes 'Birthday' for the day of death." that Catania was the fatherland of her martyrdom, I have never read that Rome is called the fatherland of Peter and Paul, Jerusalem that of Christ, or Paris that of Dionysius, even though they suffered death in those places, and certain nations call Rome the city of Peter, just as Zion is called the city of David, which was nevertheless not his fatherland, that is, his birthplace: for that is what everyone understands by the word "fatherland." 2 Kings 5:7 Fourth: they acknowledge that Catania is called her fatherland because she long had her domicile there: and this is indeed something; of domicile for it seems that one who is granted citizenship, though born elsewhere, acquires that city as his fatherland and as it were his mother, when he is adopted into the number of citizens, especially if he was educated there, which the Palermitans acknowledge about Agatha. Thus Father Julius Caesar Coturius used to say to me formerly, and of grace: that the city of Utrecht was his fatherland not by nature but by grace, because, born at Brussels, he had been imbued with piety and letters at Utrecht, and there had turned his mind to the Society of Jesus. Fifth: the Palermitans hold that in this epitaph of St. Agatha, by the word "fatherland" all of Sicily is understood. The words are to be otherwise explained. Sixth: they explain the words thus: "Agatha had a holy mind, gave spontaneous honor to God, and obtained for you, O Catanians, the liberation of your fatherland." Or seventh, in this manner: "Have, O Catanians, a holy mind, render spontaneous honor to God, and you will obtain the liberation of your fatherland." The Catanians, on the contrary, maintain that no need exists for these ingenious interpretations, when the sense of those words, which is obvious to everyone, is most clear and easy and true, and confirmed by so many miracles, not only in the year next after the martyrdom, but in all subsequent ages, as will be narrated below.

[98] Second. The Menaia, although in the Lesson, which they mostly take from Metaphrastes, they declare her born at Palermo, yet in the appended odes, which are mostly taken from the writings of the ancient Fathers, favor Catania. For they pray to the Saint to snatch her fatherland from troubled affairs, Second argument: from the Menaia, just as she once snatched it from the destruction that fire threatened. But what city had she previously snatched from danger? The one that preserves her relics. Is this not therefore her fatherland? Here are the very words of the Menaia: the city where her relics are, was liberated, "The uncontrollable onslaught of Etnean fire you checked by your prayers, O you of blessed name, and you saved the city that honors your venerable relic, O Martyr." And then in another canticle: and that is her fatherland: "Adorned with triumphal crowns, O divinely wise Agatha, with the right hand that governs life, now beseech that your fatherland be delivered from tempests, as you previously checked the onslaught of fire; that we all may magnify you unceasingly with hymns."

[99] Third: the Catanians adduce what St. Agatha said to St. Lucy in a vision. 3. Catania was illuminated by her as Syracuse by St. Lucy, These will be recited more fully below in the Miscellaneous Collection of Miracles, chapter 1. What is pertinent here is the following: "Just as through me the city of the Catanians is exalted by Christ, so through you the city of Syracuse will be adorned by the Lord." The

Palermitans hold that this distinction rests in the fact that each assumed the guardianship of the city in which she had suffered martyrdom, and increased its dignity by miracles. Sigebert of Gembloux, who wrote more than 540 years ago, makes the two Virgins equal in this respect: that each illuminated her own city with the splendor of faith, and now guards it from heaven. For he introduces St. Agatha speaking thus:

"The land that shall be marked by our death, We shall protect by the lot assigned to us: Catania rejoices in me as patroness; Let Syracuse be yours. Through me the true faith is revealed to Catania: That they may be equal in faith to Catania, Make Syracuse faithful: Under this bond of love they shall become companions."

But the Catanians hold that not merely by faith are the cities promised to be equal and sharers in the patronage of their Saint, but altogether companions in the same distinction, which is by no means determined by the words of the Saint. Therefore also by birth: But it is established that Syracuse was exalted by the birth of Lucy, by her examples of faith and piety, by other benefactions, and finally by her martyrdom, by the public veneration of her relics, by the glory of her miracles, and by her patronage before God. Unless Catania receives the same things from St. Agatha, the latter will indeed seem to have spoken falsely, if not vainly: "Just as through me... so through you..." When the most modest Virgin ought to have said: "As the city of the Catanians is exalted by Christ through me, still more will the city of Syracuse be adorned by the Lord through you."

[100] Fourth: The verdict of the Greek Acts, which we have said above seem to us ancient 4. from the Greek Acts: and of serious composition, is manifest: "The magnanimous Virgin Agatha, whose fatherland was indeed Catania, and whose parents were distinguished and illustrious." Then they say that she dwelt outside Catania, at Palermo: and they imply that she withdrew from Catania itself in order to avoid the lust of Quintianus. Finally they also show that she had property at Palermo, since Quintianus set out toward Palermo to seize it, and perished in the river Simethus.

[101] Fifth: Two hymns from the Breviary of the Mozarabs are adduced, which are believed to have been written or revised by St. Isidore, Bishop of Seville; 5. from the ancient hymns in the Breviary of the Mozarabs: these we have also given above. Concerning the fatherland of the Virgin, the following is found in the first hymn:

"For soon a bright youth, Bearing a written tablet, Proclaiming with a holy mind The defense of the fatherland: For the conflagration of Mount Etna, While in its most rapid course It was bending toward the city, The merit of the maiden shines forth."

For why, after the predicted defense of the fatherland, does he add the word "For"? Unless to confirm the promise by the subsequent event? And shortly after:

"You who once snatch your fellow citizens From a great fire."

The adversaries raise their usual shield: the fatherland of martyrdom, and fellow citizens of the city in which she lived and died, if she was not also endowed with its citizenship.

[102] Sixth: The Catanians consider St. Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne in England, who died in the year of Christ 709, to be a patron of their cause: 6. from St. Aldhelm, not I. For he overthrows the exposition of St. Agatha's words which we have already given according to their interpretation, as though she predicted that Syracuse and Catania would be equals in the glory of martyrdom alone, and not also by her birth. For he writes thus: "For just as the municipality of Catania is happily crowned above the other cities of Sicily by the martyrdom of Agatha, so by the privilege of the most famous recruit of Christ, Lucy, the town of Syracuse in Sicily is raised up with prosperous successes." But, they say, the same Saint affirms that those two Virgins were born among the same tribe of people in Sicily: whether however he called them peoples of the same tribute because they paid the same tax, or because they originated from the same nation, not sufficiently solid: these things do not touch Palermo, which did not pay tribute but tithes, and not to the same Quaestor as Syracuse; and Syracuse and Catania were founded by the Greeks, Palermo by the Phoenicians, and therefore was tributary to neither of them. These are too subtly contrived. The word "contribulis" is familiar to St. Aldhelm, which for him signifies not only what the Latin "tribulis" means, that is, "of the same tribe," but "of the same people or nation." Yet if anyone insists that he truly looked to the origins of those cities, I would not wish to resist too sharply. For also in the title of his book on the praises of virginity he calls certain Virgins "joined together by the bonds of kinship with their fellow tribespeople," because they sprang from the same nation of the West Saxons; and soon in chapter 1, treating of the Olympic games, he writes thus: "Another, borne with a troop of his fellow tribespeople on a caparisoned steed"; where they hold that by "contribules" are understood men of the same city or province.

[103] Seventh: The uncontested vote of St. Methodius in favor of the Catanians, in the Oration which we discussed in section 7, and which we shall give below. 7. from St. Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople, a manifold testimony: Agatha herself is introduced speaking thus in chapter 2, number 10: "While it was permitted to live quietly here (at Palermo, as others explain; he himself does not name the place), and to keep myself far from my fatherland and paternal home." And at number 11: "When she was approaching Catania, a great number of her fellow citizens came out to meet her: and the women indeed... were extolling among themselves in praises the constancy of the Virgin, because she had not deigned even to hear the impious marriage proposal offered by the Proconsul, and therefore had wisely resolved to change her place of residence." At number 13: "You have been a blessing indeed to your fatherland and fellow citizens, to whom your constancy in the greatest afflictions," etc. And in chapter 4, number 20: "Scarcely had Agatha touched the fires, when behold the land of her fatherland, pitying the lot of its daughter, trembled to its foundations, and as though endowed with maternal feeling," etc. And at number 27: "Today therefore let the Christian Church adorn herself... and proclaim Catania, the fatherland, worthy of glorification." And then: "Having been born of the most noble parentage in the city of the Catanians." Finally in chapter 5, number 28: "Her fellow citizens indeed raised a tumult against Quintianus." At number 31: "In so alarming a situation, by divine will, the angelic oracle deposited at Agatha's head came to their minds, concerning the liberation of their fatherland promised to them." And many more things are gathered in the same chapter to the same effect: "Agatha, likewise our fellow citizen."

He showed himself full of all good things; captives -- it is impossible to say how many -- he rescued, and a girl possessed by a demon he healed immediately. He also foretold the future and foreknew his own end. Having reached seventy years of age, he departed to the Lord in peace.

[109] May 3, Our Holy Father Peter the Wonderworker, Bishop of Argos.

He had Constantinople for his fatherland, and was born of pious parents, He was a Constantinopolitan, a monk, who with their whole household became monks. Following their example, Peter too became a monk and surpassed all in his practice, vigils, and meditation on divine things. Wherefore Nicholas, Patriarch of Constantinople, wished to persuade him to accept the highest priesthood at Corinth. But since he deprecated the burden, Paul, his own brother, was consecrated in his place. He came nevertheless with his brother to Corinth. But by the urgent solicitation of the Argives, together with the entreaty of the Nauplians, he too was consecrated Bishop of Argos by his brother. [Brother of Paul, Bishop of Corinth, ordained by him Bishop at Argos, most renowned for miracles.] And he devoted himself to beneficence to such an extent that nothing was left in his storeroom at the end of each day: whence he was also enriched with the power of miracles. When once, as famine was growing severe, he was feeding many thousands of men, and only a small amount of flour remained in a single vessel, he obtained through prayers poured out to God that it be filled to the top. It is hard to say how many captives he freed. He also suddenly cured a girl seized by a demon. He foretold the future and also foreknew his own death. Having reached seventy years of age, he departed to the Lord in peace.

[110] Nauplia (whose inhabitants' entreaty is said to have been joined with the solicitation of the Argives) was, sought out by the inhabitants of Nauplia together with the Argives, as Strabo has it in book 8 of the Geography, "the naval station of the Argives, so called because it is filled with ships." Stephanus moreover says: "Nauplia, a city of Argos," that is, of the Argive territory. For Argos itself does not lie on the sea. Those who are here called Nauplioi are called by Stephanus Nauplieis.

[111] We conjecture therefore that this Peter was conspicuous not only for the sanctity of his life but also for his learning; learned. for he was born in the royal city, where at that time Metaphrastes and others, especially from the Studite monastery, flourished with the praise of erudition, and the Emperor Leo himself, who was called the Wise and the Philosopher, provoked all to the study of the liberal arts by his own example. Whether however Peter wrote other things, we do not know: and if anyone should overturn this conjecture of ours about that oration by more certain authority, we shall willingly reconsider, and be grateful to him.

[112] Now let us hear what Peter wrote about the fatherland of St. Agatha. In the funeral oration for St. Athanasius, which we mentioned, he has the following: What does he write about the fatherland of St. Agatha? "The fatherland, therefore, of this blessed Father Athanasius, now being praised -- the first and true one is the heavenly one, to which, enrolled together with the Saints from eternity, from his tender youth he did not fail of his purpose. The second, as far distant from it as shadow and vain images of things are from the light of truth, is Catania, a city eminent in Sicily, far-famed. If I wished at present to recount all its remarkable qualities -- its position and beauty and magnitude, the temperateness of its air and the most wholesome quality of its waters, the abundance of fruitful and unfruitful trees, the great multitude of men who have shone in wisdom, courage, and justice -- I should be digressing inopportunely from my subject: such as the far-famed Virgin and Martyr Agatha, who was both born and raised in this city and suffered martyrdom for Christ, and who was pleased that the sacred relics of her body should rest there: before which indeed the fiery torrents flowing down from the towering Etna were, contrary to all expectation, reverently abashed." Rendered into Latin by Franciscus Blanditius.

[113] This translation is attacked on many points by Inveges and others cited by him. We shall weigh each of his objections. First,

those words, "Catana, eminent in Sicily, far-famed," he punctuates and explains differently: "Catania indeed nearby, but Sicily afar, most celebrated." For in the autograph the word is in the nominative, not in the dative case: nor is the preposition "in" interposed, to signify "in Sicily." Grammatical objections against that translation, resolved: But the translator rendered the phrase as "in Sicily": rightly, as if to say that Catania was attached to Sicily, adhering to it, lying upon it, and as it were held by Sicily as its own. If the word "far" were used in the sense of "remote," the construction would at minimum need to be "but remote Sicily." But the writer assigns only a twofold fatherland, heavenly and earthly; he does not again declare that he wishes to distribute this one into a remote and a nearby. Nor do I see (although I recall that some speak thus) why Catania should be nearer than Sicily to one who was born at Catania. If anyone wishes to adduce a region or province in praise of the person being treated, he can indeed, according to the precepts of the orators, which Inveges himself cites, say he was born in Sicily; and when he has enumerated the things that pertain generally to the commendation of Sicily, he will then add that among all the cities of Sicily, Catania or Palermo excels in this particular distinction, and finally also glories in the birth of such a man. But why one should be called nearer and the other more remote, I do not see. The region itself is indeed prior to and more ancient than the peoples, villages, and cities within it; not more remote. Thus Peter's words seem to require this punctuation and explanation: "Catania, situated in Sicily, far-famed." The matter of the nominative and dative is of the kind that careless copyists frequently commit, as may be seen even in our own Greek transcript. We have however received another from our colleague Paul Belli at Messina, from the library of the Basilian monks of the Holy Savior, in which "in Sicily" is expressly written in the dative.

[114] Inveges then accuses Blanditius of reading "therefore" for the relative pronoun, and translating "Igitur." Likewise other objections: Nothing was closer than for me to suspect it was placed for a participial form. When it was written, I restored the relative form, so that it means "of which," namely of Catania and Sicily. Inveges allows that the genitive "of which," that is, singular, may also be written: but with "Sicily" remaining in the dative, it can never be referred to anything but Catania. He also complains that the expression for "temperateness of air" is improperly rendered: he wants it to say "airs" in the plural. As far as we are concerned that is permitted, but it is not necessary, since it is scarcely used in the plural, and the meaning is the same in the singular. Equally, we shall say that there are various airs in different seasons in a single city, and that the air of the whole island is mild and gentle: lest anyone think there is any support in that word for persuading that what is said is said of an entire province, not of a single city.

[115] He is especially displeased that Blanditius translated "born, raised, and martyred in this city": for in the Greek the word "city" does not appear, but only "in this," namely Sicily. [And especially where St. Agatha is said to have been born in the city of Catania.] But if we retain the reading we have established -- "Catania, situated in Sicily" -- this cannot be said: and if the discourse is about Catania, "in this city" is repeated more elegantly. But unless the author wished these things to be understood of Catania, what need was there to adduce Agatha rather than Lucy, or any other Sicilian Saint? Why to join together the place of birth, education, and martyrdom? Why to make mention of the relics deposited there? Indeed, he ought not to have enumerated Agatha alone and her relics; but should have written that many holy persons were born and raised in Sicily, and that various cities are adorned and fortified by their relics. He wished therefore to add to the Catanian Athanasius an Agatha born from the same city. Thus below, when he writes that the parents of Athanasius migrated to the city of Patras in the Peloponnese, he adds: "in which city Andrew, the first called to the apostolate, ... attained the most blessed end through the cross." It is clear from the Greek that "in which city" must be added to avoid ambiguity. Therefore, just as here, as if for ornament's sake, when speaking of Patras, he adds that St. Andrew was crucified in that city, not generally in the Peloponnese; so when speaking of Catania as the fatherland of Athanasius, the other things he added about St. Agatha seem to pertain altogether and properly to Catania.

Section XIV. Pontiffs, Kings, Bishops, Saints, various writers, Breviaries, traditions, etc., cited in favor of the Catanians.

[116] The Catanians bring forth other arguments, and ones by no means lacking in force.

Ninth is the authority of Pope Urban II. The testimony of Pope Urban II, Urban was consecrated on the 4th day before the Ides of March, a Sunday, in the year 1088, and died on the 4th day before the Kalends of August, 1099. He was moreover, as Platina writes, "worthy of any great office for his learning and sanctity of life: ... a most holy Pontiff, who confirmed the Church of God not only by work and example but also by writings against the doctrines of the heretics." And therefore it does not seem that, if those who served as his secretaries had inserted anything, even only for ornament's sake, that did not agree with the truth or the received opinion of that age, he would have tolerated it, even though it did not otherwise pertain to the doctrine of the faith or the discipline of morals. He therefore, in the diploma by which he restored the Bishopric of Catania after the expulsion of the Saracens (which diploma, described in full from a legitimate copy, we shall give below), speaks thus: "It is established that the city of Catania (where Blessed Agatha was both born and suffered) was anciently distinguished by the glory of episcopal dignity." The Palermitans respond that the diploma smells of Sicilian phrasing: that what is in the parenthesis ("where Blessed Agatha," etc.) seems to have been inserted by someone, or should be read thus: "where Blessed Agatha was tortured and suffered": or was taken from a petition, as were other things. But at least it seems manifest that this opinion was received at that time, that is, more than 540 years ago, that St. Agatha was born at Catania.