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.

[117] X and XI are drawn from a double diploma of Pope Alexander III, Alexander III, of which we possess authentic copies of both. One was issued, as we shall say below, in the year 1168, the other in 1171. In both, the same words are read, transcribed from the diploma of Urban, and as it were confirmed.

[118] XII. Gislebert, a Frenchman, who was exercising a military office at the court of the King in Constantinople... St. Agatha herself, presenting herself through a nocturnal vision once, twice, and a third time, commanded that she be secretly removed from the church in which she lay and brought back to Catania, where she had been crowned with martyrdom for Christ. But she did not say she was born there, nor can this otherwise be concluded from her words.

[119] XIII. Bishop Mauritius, in the preface to his history of the Translation, testifies of Mauritius, Bishop of Catania, that the body of the most blessed Virgin and Martyr Agatha was brought back to her own people. I have seen a hymn cited, composed by the same Mauritius, in which he sings these things much more clearly:

Defend Sicily, O venerable Rose, and especially your homeland of Catania, so noble.

But the Palermitans give less authority to this testimony of Mauritius, because, though born elsewhere, he was nevertheless Bishop of Catania and was bound to advocate for his own Church. Even if he had thought it false -- would a serious and devout man do so? Would anyone wish to become a Bishop for the purpose of being compelled to lie, even lightly, for his Church?

[120] XIV. At least, then, the Archbishop of Palermo cannot be suspect to his own citizens. He is Nicholas Tudescus, of the Abbot-Archbishop of Palermo, most expert in Canon Law, who is commonly called the Abbot of Palermo -- because, I suppose, since previously his writings were cited under the name "Abbas," because he was Abbot of the monastery of Maniace, and when he was made Archbishop of Palermo, both names were joined, so that he was cited as "Abbas Panormitanus"; or because, having previously signed as Abbas, then as A. Panormitanus, readers thought he was called "Abbot of Palermo" when "Archbishop" should have been read. Although Pirrus contends that he was previously called Abbot of Palermo, and was a Palermitan by birth. Fazellus, decade 1, book 3, chapter 1, writes thus: "Nicholas, surnamed Todiscus, was a Catanian." Bellarmine, Miraeus, Ciaccone, Ughelli, and others who have written about ecclesiastical writers and cardinals assert the same. The distinguished Marius Aretius, a patrician of Syracuse, in his Chorography of Sicily, published in 1544, has this: "Nicholas Tudescus likewise, surnamed Abbas, most learned in law in recent years, who wrote much, born of illustrious parents at Catania, Archbishop of Palermo." And he himself, in the proem to the first part of book 2 of the Decretals, speaks thus of himself: "I, Nicholas de Tudesco, a Catanian Sicilian... trusting in the implored assistance, to the honor of Him whose matter is at hand, and of the most pious and devout Virgin, His mother, the most glorious Mary, and of Agatha, my patroness and compatriot, and of the most illustrious Lucy, a Sicilian, whose vigil we celebrate today, and no less of Benedict, whose habit I have worn from boyhood, I descend with a more confident and fortunate spirit to the completion of the work undertaken."

[121] XV. The monk Blandinus, who lived about five hundred years ago, in his Miracles of St. Agatha, chapter 1, number 2, has this: of the historian Blandinus, "That the Spanish pirates thus passed by Catania is attributed to the glory of her for whom the liberation of her homeland is her own."

[122] XVI. When the Emperor Frederick II had destined all the Catanians for slaughter, of the Emperor Frederick II, as is more fully narrated below in the Collection of Miscellaneous Miracles, chapter 9, these threats were divinely imposed upon him: "Do not offend the homeland of Agatha, for she is an avenger of injuries."

[123] XVII. Vincent of Beauvais, of whom we spoke above in section 8, number 54, writes of St. Agatha in book 11 of the Mirror of History, chapter 52: "She who, noble by birth in the city of the Catanians, of Beauvais, most beautiful in mind and body, always worshipped God in all holiness." Claudius Rota, of the same Order, and certain Breviaries have the same. But from this it is not established that she was born there, but only that she resided there -- which the Palermitans do not deny.

[124] XVIII. Louis, son of Peter II, King of Sicily, in a privilege by which he adorns Catania, which he calls the third sister, given to Palermo and Messina, with manifold immunity, speaks thus: of King Louis of Sicily, "Divinely, as we believe, blessed Agatha was the author of our birth at Catania, because she willed us to be born in her homeland."

[125] XIX. St. Vincent Ferrer, of the Order of Preachers, an apostolic man, of St. Vincent, who is reported to have died in the year 1419, has this in his sermon on St. Agatha: "She was nobler in birth, more beautiful in body, and more renowned in goodness, of the city of Catania."

[126] XX. St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, of the same Order, of St. Antoninus, is brought forward to support the same side; but he favors it even less than the two Vincents already cited. For he writes, part 1 of his Chronicle, chapter 7, title 7, section 5: "Blessed Agatha suffered, a Virgin noble in birth, beautiful in body, more lovely in faith, in the city of Catania in Sicily." Who denies this?

[127] XXI. One hundred and sixty years older than St. Antoninus was James of Voragine, of James of Voragine, Bishop of Genoa, formed in the same institutes of St. Dominic, author of the Lombard History, or Golden Legend, which we defended in the Preface affixed to January, chapter 1, section 4, against the ignorant censure of George Wicelius and the jests of Ludovicus Vives. He has nearly the same as the Bellovacensian: "Agatha, a Virgin of noble mind, most beautiful in body, in the city of the Catanians, always worshipped God in all holiness." And afterwards he thus expounds the angelic tablet placed in her sepulchre: "She had a holy mind, she offered herself willingly, she gave honor to God, and she wrought the liberation of her homeland."

[128] XXII. Paulus Regius, Bishop of Vico Equense in the Kingdom of Naples, of Bishop Paulus Regius of Vico, in Part I of his Spiritual Works, dedicated to Clement VIII in 1593, in which he embraced the Lives of many Saints, writes thus of St. Agatha on page 813: "Born of a most noble family at Catania, beautiful in soul and body, but far more beautiful in the glory of the Christian faith."

[129] XXIII. Paulus Aemilius Sanctorius, an illustrious writer of histories, of Archbishop Sanctorius of Urbino, as is said in his epitaph in Ughelli, who, after many offices illustriously discharged in the Roman Curia, was made Archbishop first of Cosenza and finally of Urbino, where he died at an advanced age; in his book On the Twelve Virgin Martyrs, which he dedicated to the same Pontiff, he begins the Life of St. Agatha thus: "Catania, situated at the foot of Mount Etna, was formerly a colony of the Naxians... From this town Agatha drew her origin, born in the consulship of Ulpius and Proculus Pontianus; put to death in her homeland, she has endured in later centuries to everlasting fame and remembrance."

[130] XXIV. Churches dedicated to her in the city of Catania, annual processions, and other things are brought forward, at Catania, churches dedicated to her; her palace there, another house, as also by the Palermitans above. Whether these prove her birthplace, let others weigh.

[131] XXV. It is said to be a tradition at Catania that her parents had a palace there, and that she herself, leaving it, dwelt in a small house, which is reputed to have stood on the street called Jacob, where now stands the most ancient chapel of St. Mary of Graces, concerning which see below in the Collection of Miracles, chapter 9, number 57. They again cite the testimony of St. Vincent Ferrer, which reads thus: "When her parents had died, she remained heiress of that great palace of her father; and following the example of Christ, she abandoned the palace of her father, and the ornaments, and the gold and silver vessels, and confined herself in a small house, like a simple person."

[132] possessions. XXVI. Concerning her estates near Catania, they cite the following from Father Colnago's manuscript memorial: "Not far from our city we can point out with a finger the estate which the common people today call Bonvicino, and which, by the not obscure voice of the people, is handed down as part of the patrimony of Blessed Agatha." Others add that her possessions extended from the river Simeto to the city of Lentini, and that the lower Simeto itself, commonly called la Giarretta di Sotto, is now, and has been for many ages past, called la Giarretta di S. Agatha.

[133] The Roman Breviary of Pius V XXVII. The Catanians produce Breviaries, and especially the Roman Breviary of Pius V, which the Church used from the year 1568 to 1602. In it these words are found: "Agatha, a Virgin, born at Catania in Sicily of noble parents." And that one must not allow it to be cast as a reproach by heretics against the Church that she once recited falsehoods in public prayers, by the authority of the Pontiff. For although in that revision of the Breviary which Clement VIII ordered to be made, certain things were changed, faith was not withdrawn from the previous readings, but the protest of the most noble city on the opposite side was merely indicated. Thus say they, who also cite other more ancient Breviaries proper to various Churches: as the Amiens Breviary, printed in 1550, which has: "In the city of the Catanians, the blessed Virgin Agatha was born of noble parents." The Erfurt Breviary, published in 1518: "When blessed Agatha, living chastely from her earliest age in the city of the Catanians, was flourishing." The Worms Breviary of 1576 has the same. and others. The Speyer Breviary of 1477 and 1507. But the Mainz Breviary of 1495 and 1507, and the Passau Breviary of 1505: "Agatha, a Virgin, noble in mind and most beautiful in body, in the city of the Catanians, always worshipped the Lord in all holiness." They cite yet others, which we have not seen; nor do these greatly tell against the Palermitans, since they admit that she lived at Catania from her earliest age.

[134] Revelations, XXVIII. There are revelations of certain pious women: Francesca Contarella, Agatha Bolana, and Francesca Colnaga, to whom it is reported to have been divinely shown, either through the Saint herself or in some other manner -- as Inveges writes from Carrera -- that Agatha was born at Catania and where her parents' magnificent dwelling stood. not approved. The Palermitans hiss down these oracles of mere women, as they call them. They certainly can have no weight in a judgment; since, even if they were truly given by divine agency (such as many are certainly opened to pious souls for their consolation or instruction), nevertheless, so long as they are not approved by the Church, they obtain absolutely no authority, and ought not even to be published in books, nor commemorated in sermons as true revelations.

Section XV. Many more recent writers favor the Catanians.

[135] The middle line of battle that has just been reviewed displayed Sovereign Pontiffs, Kings, Bishops, Saints, and other writers commendable for their antiquity, along with the siege engines of Breviaries and Revelations. In the rear guard we shall place several squadrons of more recent writers, to whom, however, their erudition has secured no small authority, many other writers: and to some of whom also a not inconsiderable sanctity of life. But lest we cite them one by one, we shall station them, divided rather into certain squadrons as it were, among the reserves.

[136] XXIX. The first squadron is of writers whose cited

works we have not ourselves seen, but only testimonies excerpted from them. Francesco Maurolico, Abbot of Messina, of whom we possess only his Martyrology, in his History of Sicily calls her a "Catanian Virgin." certain authors not read by us, The same is found in Pietro Ricordato, a Cassinese monk, in his Monastic History, where he enumerates the illustrious men born at Catania. Angelo Sangrino, Abbot of Cassino, in a certain hymn calls her the "Catanian Virgin," likewise "Martyr and Catanian Virgin," and "the fragrant bud of the fertile Catanian field." And Lorenzo of Foligno, Hymns, book 3, hymn 19: "distinguished by the stock of the Catanian city." Matteo Silvaggi of Catania, a theologian, historian, and mathematician of the Order of Friars Minor of the Strict Observance, who lived around the year 1490, speaking of Sicily, says: "There is the most illustrious city of the Catanians, the homeland of the most blessed Virgin and Martyr Agatha." Benedetto dall'Uva, a Cassinese monk, in a vernacular poem on the five prudent Virgins, says that Agatha was born at Catania, and that what is alleged to the contrary is fable. Bartolomeo da Paternione, a monk of the same family, in a certain Italian poem, speaking of Agatha, says: "This little Virgin was born at Catania."

[137] XXX. The second squadron, of those who merely call her Catanian, is very large; we shall name a few whom we have read ourselves. The distinguished Marius Aretius of Syracuse, in his Chorography of Sicily: others who merely call her Catanian: "Where the temple of the divine Agatha, the Catanian Virgin, now stands." And then: "It burned also in the year following the martyrdom of St. Agatha of Catania." Andreas of Evora, in his Book of Memorable Examples, under the heading On Chastity, calls Agatha "the Catanian Virgin," in precisely the same way as Lucy "the Syracusan Virgin." The same is found in M. Marulus of Spalato, book 4, On the Institution of Living Religiously and Piously through Examples, chapter 8, On the Chastity of Women. M. Antonius Coccius Sabellicus, Book of Examples, book 5, chapter 8, On Patience in Bearing Pain: "Agatha, a Catanian Virgin." Michael Monachus, a most learned man, author of the Capuan Sanctuary often cited by us, in his manuscript hymns of which we made mention above in section 3, number 16, has: "Hail, Catanian Virgin." And in another: "Hail, Rose of Catania."

[138] XXXI. The third squadron is of Sicilian writers who speak more expressly about her homeland. who say explicitly that she was born there, Antonius Philotheus de Homodeis, in his Topography of Etna, writes thus about the flow of fire rushing toward Catania: "Through the intercession of the Virgin Agatha for her homeland, Sicilians, that entire mass of fire... stopped." And afterwards: "The Catanians, still affected by the superstition of idols, on account of the martyrdom of their citizen Agatha, believing in Christ, became faithful Christians." Published at Messina in 1605 are Hymns and Epigrams in Honor of St. Agatha, Virgin and Martyr of Catania, by Lorenzo Valla, with the name of the author suppressed, who was Bartolomeo Petracci of Messina, of the Society of Jesus. In the first epigram she is said to have been born where she suffered death. In Hymn 2:

"But a grateful citizen more swiftly snatching her from the vast fire as she lay dying."

And he repeats the same afterwards.

And in Hymn 6:

"Pitying the misfortunes of her groaning citizens."

Finally, to omit other things, in this epigram he sufficiently declares his meaning, addressing St. Agatha:

"If you are sister and spouse of Christ, why do you allow your cities to entertain discordant wishes concerning you from afar? Not one city alone claims you as its citizen; Catania loves you as a citizen, and Palermo loves you too. The one says: 'She was born in the regions of Etna'; the other: 'Our Oretus saw her being born.' Since you are older than Christina and Nympha, whence comes it that Palermo performs its rites last for you? Why on the contrary do you deign to give Catania the first honor; you alone occupy the temple, you alone receive the vows? (Shall I say it?) You were born at Catania, but raised at Palermo, and you become bride and sister in different places. Soon you return to Catania, and leave behind what nursed you: thus here again you become a sister where you were born a sister."

Benedetto Salvago, Doctor of Both Laws, in his Apology for the Piety of the Messinese, section 7, briefly and elegantly amasses very many arguments; but in the end, together with another learned man whom he defends, judging it better to embrace the truth (as he says) in his heart than to quarrel, he admits that it could have been that she was born at Palermo; and that all citizens have two homelands: one of nature, or place; the other of citizenship, or law. Paolo Belli, of the Society of Jesus, distinguished for his erudition, prudence, and piety, in the above-cited Glory of the Messinese, speaking of Constantine Lascaris, not obscurely declares that he takes the side of the Catanians.

[139] XXXII. The fourth squadron, of Italians. Giacomo Filippo of Bergamo, of the Order of Augustinian Hermits, Italians, who died in 1518 at the age of eighty-five. In his Supplement to the Chronicles, at the year 741 before Christ's advent, he calls Catania "the homeland and sepulchre of the most holy Agatha." And in his book On Famous Women, chapter 85, he speaks thus among other things: "She was a young woman, and notably distinguished among the women of Catania for her lineage, her remarkable beauty, her celebrated talent and learning," etc. Leonardo of Udine, Doctor of Sacred Theology, of the Order of Preachers, in his Sermons on the Saints, reprinted at Nuremberg in 1478, speaks thus of St. Agatha: "Since she was born of the most noble parents in the city of Catania, having spurned the vanity of the world, she became a handmaid of Christ." Raphael Maffei of Volterra (whom we praised above when treating of St. Candidus the Martyr on February 3, page 330, as most illustrious far and wide for his nobility of birth, the abundance and elegance of his writings, and especially for his continence, modesty, austerity of life, and piety), in his Geography, book 6, speaking of Catania, says: "Now much more celebrated for the birth of the Virgin Agatha." In accordance with this one should understand what the same author writes in book 1 of his Anthropology, or book 13 of his Urban Commentaries: "Agatha, a Catanian Virgin and Martyr." Battista Mantovano, General of the Carmelite Order, who died in 1516 at the age of seventy-eight, in his account of the very agony of the Virgin indeed calls Agatha "Catanian," but in book 2 of his Fasti he more clearly expounds his meaning with these verses:

"Farewell, divine one, and deign in your remembrance each year to visit not only Catania, your homeland, and the Sicilian hearths, but also our borders, and to calm the minds of men, who throughout all Italy spread the savage fires of mad Mars."

Marco Guazzo, in his Chronicles published in 1553, writes thus: "Agatha the Martyr was born in the city of Catania on the island of Sicily." Constantius Felicius, in his Calendar: "Agatha, Virgin and Martyr, is venerated by the Church. She, in the city of Catania in Sicily, where she was born, endured many torments," etc.

[140] XXXIII. The last squadron is of Belgians, of whom I shall produce only two, distinguished writers known to me personally. Belgians. The first is Franciscus Haraeus of Utrecht, from whom, when he was already quite old, I once learned much at Louvain while I was pursuing the study of Theology; for he had traveled through nearly all of Europe, had even gone to Moscow with our Possevino, had lived at Rome with Cardinal Bellarmine, had dealt with most of the learned men of his age, and had read a great many things. He, therefore, in his Lives of the Saints, published in 1605, writes thus: "Agatha, a Virgin, born at Catania in Sicily of the most noble parents." The other is Aubert Le Mire of Brussels, Dean of the Cathedral Church of Antwerp and Vicar General of the Bishop, a truly polymath, and especially an indefatigable investigator of sacred antiquities. He, in his Survey of the Bishoprics of the World, has this: "Catania, an ancient episcopal city in Sicily, under the Archbishop of Monreale, boasts of its citizen and Martyr St. Agatha, whose body is preserved there in the Cathedral."

Section XVI. Our Judgment on the Entire Controversy.

[141] Most of those writers whom we have just produced as supporting the Catanians, when they were once cited at Rome, Marianus Valguarnera is reported to have replied in these words: one wrongly despises the writers already cited, "As for the trivial scribblers they oppose to us, who would not be indignant upon hearing this? Who could bear it with equanimity?" So Inveges records in his Annals of Palermo, part 2, page 191. I am astonished that an erudite man held the heads and writings of erudite men -- not to mention those distinguished by their profession of a holier life -- so cheap that he valued each at three obols. Greater is the courtesy and moderation of Augustine Inveges, who addresses even those he refutes with humanity and honor. We certainly esteem them more highly, and rightly so, men whose industry labored in composing books adapted to inflame piety or form morals.

[142] But I suppose some are already asking what we ourselves ultimately think about this entire controversy. First, we venerate what has been decreed by the Supreme Pontiff, that it should be written thus in the Breviary: we reverence the correction of the Breviary: "Whom both the Palermitans and the Catanians call their citizen." And we judge this to have been pronounced not only most truly but also most wisely. For one must be on guard not only lest anything false be inserted into the public Lessons and prayers of the Church, but also lest anything be of such a nature that it could ever by any argument be charged with falsehood, or certainly be called into doubt.

Furthermore, we candidly profess that we are endowed with neither such keenness of intellect nor such abundance of learning nor do we arrogate to ourselves judgment on the whole matter, that we should dare to pronounce judgment on a matter agitated with such great efforts and for so long a time; or, if we should pronounce one, that we could add such weight as to incline the mutually disagreeing parties to our opinion. We have certainly devoted the diligence and study of many months to examining and reviewing with the utmost fidelity what has been handed down by various authors. We have stated, however, what force individual arguments, or at least the principal ones, seemed to us to have; in which very matter we have left to each person the freedom of thinking differently, as we felt it had been left to us by those who wrote before us.

[143] We call to witness the Divinity who knows all secrets, and the most holy Virgin Agatha herself, nor are we pledged to either party: that it is all one to us which side has the stronger right, to which city, I say, the glory of the Virgin's birth is owed; for it cannot truly belong to both in the same way, since no one can have more than one birthplace. We therefore act here with such good faith and sincerity that not the slightest suspicion of partiality toward either side can attach itself to our name.

[144] Although it perhaps matters little or nothing to the honor of the holy Virgin in which city she was born, it matters a great deal, however (as it seems to us), indeed such controversies are otherwise useful, that the cities themselves contend with each other about this matter -- provided it be without hatreds and those movements of the soul that are contrary to the Christian communion by which they ought to be mutually bound. Rather, let them strive to outdo one another in the splendor and magnificence of their temples, in the solemn array of sacred rites, and above all in a constant emulation of the Saint herself. And indeed the zeal and practice of virtue will flourish in those cities as long as that contention endures. For if they begin to hold these things in contempt, they will thereafter labor little to demonstrate that she was theirs whose every glory arose from virtue, which they now despise. This contention should be fostered to the extent that the truth may clearly emerge, which it is wrong to wish to resist. Moreover, the arguments that men distinguished for piety, innocence of life, and erudition devise or unearth from other sources for this purpose -- whether these open a way to the truth should be maturely investigated, not the men themselves immediately attacked or crushed by public authority. And this is the reason why, though we approve as fruitful these controversies about the birthplaces of Saints, we treat them unwillingly, or even about their relics -- provided they be modest and amicable -- we nevertheless pursue them with our pen most unwillingly, since it is never possible to satisfy truth and both parties at once; and often, truth being preserved, neither party can be satisfied.

[145] Finally, we wish both these most noble cities to flourish in peace, wealth, and glory, but above all in religion and the study of all virtues, and to amplify the honor of the holy Martyr under whose patronage they so earnestly labor, even through this very contention. For ourselves, we implore the favor and protection of the same glorious Virgin.

ACTS OF ST. AGATHA

from Bonino Mombritius and sixteen Latin manuscripts.

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

BHL Number: 0133

From Latin manuscripts.

QUESTION I

St. Agatha, Variously Tempted, Is Struck with Blows.

[1] We recite the history of the passion of the most blessed Virgin and Martyr ^aAgatha, who suffered in the province of Sicily, in the city of ^bthe Catanians, under the Emperor Decius, in the ^cthird consulship of Decius himself, on the day of the Nones of February. St. Agatha suffered under Decius in his third consulship.

[2] ^dQuintianus, the Consular governor of the province of Sicily, hearing the holy reputation of the Virgin Agatha, who was consecrated to God, sought by manifold devices to gain access to her. For through the individual crimes of his mind, seized by Quintianus the Consular governor, he stirred up the impulses of individual vices within himself: since, desiring to extend his reputation for worldly glory, he caused the handmaid of God, born of the most noble parents, to be arrested, so that he who was ^eborn of ignoble stock ignoble, might thereby sound in the ears of the common people that he was so great and such a man as could subjugate to himself even persons of high rank; while as a lustful man, at the sight of the most beautiful Virgin, he stirred up the lust of his eyes; lustful, and as a greedy man, he gave free rein to his avarice toward her possessions; and as an idolater and servant of demons, impious, inflamed by the fervor of his impiety, he could not bear to hear the name of Christ.

[3] Seized by these and similar furies, as we have said, he caused Blessed Agatha to be arrested by his officers she is handed over to Aphrodisia to be corrupted, and had her delivered to a certain matron named Aphrodisia, who had ^fnine daughters most shameful, just as their mother had been. He did this so that for thirty days they might daily caress her and change her ^gmind; and now by promising pleasant things, now by ^hthreatening harsh ones, they hoped to recall her holy mind from her good purpose. To them St. Agatha said: "My mind is established and founded in Christ: your words are winds, your promises are rains, your threats are torrents; she resists with prayers and tears, however much they dash against the foundations of my house, it cannot fall; for it is founded upon a firm rock." And saying these things, she ⁱwept daily and prayed; and as ^kone thirsting in the heat of the sun desires the streams of springs, so she longed to attain the crown of martyrdom and to endure various torments for the name of Christ.

[4] desirous of martyrdom: Aphrodisia, therefore, seeing that her mind remained immovable, went to Quintianus and said to him: "Sooner could stones be softened and iron be turned to the softness of lead than the mind of that girl be recalled from her Christian intention. Aphrodisia and her daughters achieving nothing with blandishments and threats, For I and my daughters have without ceasing taken turns succeeding one another, and day and night we have done nothing else but endeavor in every way to incline her mind to consent to good counsel. I also offered gems and illustrious ornaments and garments woven with gold; I promised houses and suburban estates; I displayed varied furnishings of the house, servants of every sex and age; but all these things she counted as nothing, as the earth she tramples beneath her feet." Then the enraged Quintianus ordered her to be brought before his tribunal, and sitting in judgment, she is brought before the tribunal, he seized upon this beginning of discourse: "Of what condition are you?" Blessed Agatha answered: "Not merely freeborn, but of illustrious family, as my entire kindred bears witness." she confesses herself, though noble, a handmaid of Christ; The Consular Quintianus said: "And if you are proved freeborn and noble, why by your manners do you ^lshow yourself a servile person?" St. Agatha said: "Because I am a handmaid of Christ, therefore I show myself a servile person." Quintianus said: "Certainly, if you were freeborn and noble, how do you claim to be a handmaid?" St. Agatha said: "The supreme freedom is that in which the servitude of Christ is proved." Quintianus said: "What then? Do we not have freedom, who despise the servitude of Christ what true freedom is: and follow the worship of the gods?" St. Agatha answered: "Your freedom has sunk to such ^mcaptivity that it not only makes you servants of sin, but also makes you subject to wood and stone."

[5] Quintianus said: "Whatever you may have blasphemed with your furious mouth, punishment will be able to avenge. But tell me, before you come to torments, why you despise the sacred things of the gods?" St. Agatha said: "Do not say 'of the gods,' but say she mocks the gods: 'of the demons.' For demons are those whose images you cast in ⁿbronze, whose marble and plaster faces you gild." Quintianus said: "Choose for yourself one of two counsels, whichever you wish: either to incur various punishments among the condemned as a fool, or as a wise and noble woman -- as nature has dictated to you -- sacrifice to the all-powerful gods, whom the true divinity shows to be true gods." St. Agatha answered: "May your wife be such as your goddess Venus was; and may you be such as your god ^oJupiter was." When Quintianus heard this, he ordered her to be [p]struck with blows on the face, and said to her: "Do not with rash mouth prate to the injury of the [q]Judge." she is struck with blows: St. Agatha answered: "You said your gods are those whom the true divinity demonstrates; let your wife therefore be such as Venus, and you as Jupiter, that you too may be numbered among your gods." Quintianus said: [again she mocks the gods, to whom not even the Judge himself would wish himself or his wife to be similar:] "It is clear that you choose to endure various torments, since you exasperate me with repeated insults of your speeches." St. Agatha answered: "I marvel that you, a prudent man, have descended to such foolishness that you call those your gods whose life you would not wish your wife to imitate; and you say that injury is done to you if you live by their example. For if they are true gods, I wished you well, that your life might be such as theirs is reported to have been. But if you execrate their company, you agree with me. Say, then, that they are so wicked and so utterly sordid that whoever wished to curse someone would wish that person to be such as their execrable life was."

[6] Quintianus said: "What is this superfluous course of words to me? she despises his threats: Either sacrifice to the gods, or I will cause you to perish by various torments." St. Agatha answered: "If you promise me wild beasts, at the hearing of Christ's name they will become tame; if you apply fire, Angels will minister to me the saving dew from heaven; if you inflict wounds and lashes, I have within me the Holy Spirit, through whom I shall despise all your torments." Then Quintianus, shaking his head, ordered her to be taken into a dark prison, saying to her: "Think with yourself and repent, that you may be able to escape the horrible torments that will fiercely tear you." Agatha answered: "You, minister of Satan, you repent, that you may escape perpetual [r]torments." she is thrust joyfully into prison. Then Quintianus ordered her to be dragged more quickly to prison, because she was [s]refuting him with public speech. But St. Agatha most joyfully and gloriously entered the prison, and as one invited to a banquet, rejoicing, she commended her contest to the Lord with prayers.

p. MS. Schecking: lapidibus with stones.

q. MS. Baronius: Principis of the Prince. Rebdorf: Ducis of the Duke. Certain manuscripts: Iniuriam Iudicis without in.

r. MS. of St. Mary Major and certain others: aeternam damnationem eternal damnation.

s. Certain manuscripts: confundebat was confounding.

QUESTION II

St. Agatha, Tortured on the Rack and Her Breast Cut Off, Is Divinely Healed.

[7] On the following day, therefore, the most impious Quintianus ordered her to be brought before his eyes, and said to her: "What have you resolved concerning your salvation?" Agatha answered: "My salvation is Christ." Quintianus said: "How long, wretch, do you prolong your vain intention? Deny Christ St. Agatha again confesses Christ: and begin to worship the gods, and take counsel for your youth, lest you be consumed by a bitter death." St. Agatha said: "You deny your gods, which are stones and wood, and adore your Creator, the true God, who made you; for if you despise Him, you will be subject to the most severe punishments and perpetual fires." she is tortured on the rack, Then the enraged Quintianus ordered her to be suspended on a great ^arack and ^btortured. While they tortured her, Quintianus said to her: "Abandon your resolution of mind, so that provision may be made for your life." St. Agatha answered: "In these punishments I delight and she exults in her torments: just as one who hears good news, or as one who sees him whom he has long desired, or as one who finds many treasures -- so I delight, placed in these temporal punishments. ^cFor wheat cannot be placed in the granary unless its husk has been vigorously trampled and reduced to chaff; so too my soul cannot enter the paradise of the Lord with the palm of martyrdom unless you cause my body to be thoroughly handled by the executioners."

[8] ^dThen the enraged Quintianus ordered her breast to be ^etortured, and when it had been twisted for a long time, he ordered ^fit to be ^gcut off. her breast is cut off, Blessed Agatha said: "Impious, cruel, and dreadful tyrant, are you not ashamed to cut off in a woman what you yourself sucked at in your mother? But I have breasts intact within my soul, ^hfrom which I nourish all my senses, ⁱwhich I have consecrated to the Lord Christ from infancy." and thus she is thrust back into prison without medicine and food: Then Quintianus ordered her to be sent back to prison, and commanded that no physician be permitted to enter to see her, and that ^kneither bread nor water be given to her.

[9] When she had been shut in, behold, around midnight ^lthere came a certain old man (whom a boy carrying a light preceded), bearing various medicines in his hand; and declaring himself to be a physician, the Apostle appearing to her, he began to address her with these words: "Although the mad Consular has afflicted you excessively with bodily punishments, yet you have wrung from him severer torments by your replies. And although he has twisted your breasts and had them cut off, ^myet his abundance shall be turned to gall, and his soul shall be in bitterness forever. Nevertheless, because I was there at the hour when you suffered these things, I observed and saw that your breast can receive the cure of healing." she herself refusing bodily medicine, Then St. Agatha said to him: "I have never administered carnal medicine to my body, and it would be shameful now to lose what I have preserved so long from the earliest age of my life." That old man said to her: "I too am a Christian and I know medicine; do not be afraid of me." Agatha said to him: "And what modesty could I have before you, since you are an elder and advanced in years? ⁿI, though a girl, have had my whole body so torn that the very wounds do not permit anything to be stirred in my mind from which modesty might be aroused. But I give you thanks, Lord Father, that you have deigned to bestow your care upon me; yet know this: that medicines made by human hands shall never touch my body." The elder said to her: "And why do you not permit me to cure you?" Agatha answered: "Because I have my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who heals all things by His word, and whose word alone restores all; He, if He wills, can make me whole." Then the elder said with a smile: "He Himself sent me to you, for I am His Apostle; she is cured by a word, and in His name know that you are to be saved." And when he had said this, he was suddenly taken from her sight.

[10] Then St. Agatha, casting herself into prayer, said: "I give You thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, that You are mindful of me and have sent to me Your Apostle, who has comforted me and restored my inward parts." And when she had completed her prayer, looking upon all the wounds of her body, [her breast also restored, a light persisting throughout the whole night; she refuses, with the prison opened, to flee:] she recognized that all her members were healed; for her breast also had been restored. Moreover, throughout the whole night, light so shone in the prison that the guards of the prison fled in terror and left the prison open. Then those persons who were imprisoned there said to St. Agatha that she should depart. But she said: "Far be it from me that I should lose my crown and deliver those who are my guards to tribulations. For I, aided by my Lord Jesus Christ, will persevere in the confession of Him who has saved me and ^ocomforted me."

Certain authors hold that her breast was twisted and cut off while she was still stretched on the rack; others say she was first taken down from the rack, stripped again of her garments, her hands bound behind her back, tied to a column, lashed with ox-hide thongs, and tortured in her breast. Carrera cites an ancient image, received from the Vatican library, how were her breasts cut off? which shows St. Agatha bound to a column, with two executioners on either side, of whom the first applies a burning torch to the wound of the breast already cut off and lying on the ground, while the other cuts the second with an iron knife of the kind shoemakers use for cutting leather. Others conjecture that three torturers were employed for this barbarous ministry, based on these words of an ancient hymn attributed to St. Isidore of Seville:

"The cruel Judge rages in fury, stirs up his three men, and orders the delicate body of the holy maiden to be tortured on her breasts."

But the same hymn, in a manuscript sent to us, presents the first two verses thus:

"The cruel Judge hisses in fury, stirs up his torturers, on the breasts," etc.

QUESTION III

St. Agatha, Tortured Again, Expires, Is Buried, and Preserves Catania.

[11] Now it happened that after ^afour days, Quintianus ordered her again to stand before his tribunal, and said to her: "How long will you rage against the decrees of the most unconquered Princes? Sacrifice to the gods; otherwise, know that you shall be prepared for harsher torments." Agatha answered: "All your words are foolish, vain, and wicked; she insults the profane Judge: your commands defile the very air. Whence you are wretched, without sense, and without understanding. For who would wish to invoke a stone for his aid, and not God, the supreme and true, who deigned to cure me of every wound that you inflicted upon me, so as even to restore my breast, perfectly whole, to my body?" Quintianus said to her: "And who is it that has cured you?" Agatha answered: "Christ, the Son of God." Quintianus said: "Do you dare to name ^bChrist again?" Agatha answered: "I confess Christ with my lips and never cease to invoke Him in my heart."

[12] Quintianus said: "Now I shall see whether your Christ will ^ccure you." Then he ordered sharp ^dpotsherds to be scattered, and live coals to be placed beneath the potsherds, she is rolled over potsherds and coals: and her naked body to be rolled upon them. ^eWhile this was being done, the place where the holy body was rolled was suddenly shaken, and a part of the wall fell and crushed the Judge's counselor, named ^fSilvanus, and his friend, named ^gFalconius, by whose counsel he had perpetrated his crimes. The entire city of the Catanians was also shaken ^hby the force of the earthquake. by an earthquake and a popular uprising, Then all ran to the tribunal of the Judge and began with great tumult to protest that he was wearying the holy handmaid of God with impious tortures, and that on this account they were all sustaining danger. the Judge, terrified, has her led back to prison, Then Quintianus, fleeing, on one side feared the earthquake and on the other dreaded the sedition of the people. Therefore he again ⁱordered her to be taken back to prison; and he himself, fleeing ^kthrough a back door of the tribunal, left the people at the gates. Holy Agatha, entering the prison again, stretched out her hands to God and said: "Lord, who created me and there, praying, she expires: and guarded me from my infancy, and caused me in my youth to act with courage; who took from me the love of the world; who kept my body from defilement; who made me conquer the torments of the executioner -- iron, fire, and chains; who amid my ^ltorments conferred upon me the virtue of patience: I beseech You to receive my spirit now, for the time has come for You to command me to leave this world and to arrive at Your mercy." When she had said these things before many with a mighty voice, she gave up the spirit.

[13] When the devout people heard this, they came with ^mgreat haste she is embalmed with spices and buried, and, taking up her body, placed it in a new sarcophagus. And while her body was being embalmed with spices and they were placing it with the greatest care, there came ⁿa certain youth clothed in silken garments, followed by more than a hundred ^oboys, all [p]adorned and beautiful; whom no one had ever seen before in the city of the Catanians, nor did anyone see him afterwards, nor was anyone found who could say he knew him. Coming, therefore, he entered the place where her body was being [q]prepared, and placed at her head a small marble tablet, a wondrous inscription placed by Angels, on which was written: A HOLY MIND, [r]VOLUNTARY HONOR TO GOD, AND THE LIBERATION OF HER HOMELAND. He therefore placed this inscription, as we have said, within her sepulchre at her head, and stood there as long as it took for the sepulchre to be closed with all care. When the sepulchre was therefore closed, he departed and, as we said, was never again seen or heard of in the region or in the whole province of [s]Sicily. Whence [t]we have suspected that he was her Angel. And those who had seen it, making this inscription known, rendered all the Sicilians attentive; and both Jews and even Gentiles, in harmony with the Christians, began in common to venerate her sepulchre. she is invoked even by pagans and Jews.

[14] Then Quintianus set out with his staff to investigate her possessions Quintianus perishes miserably, and to seize all of her kindred. By the judgment of God, he perished in the middle of a river. For while he was crossing the river by boat, two horses, stamping and kicking about him, one attacked him with a bite, and the other, striking him with a kick, hurled him into the river [u]Simeto; and his body was not found to the present day. Whence fear and veneration increased around Blessed Agatha, and no one ever molested her kindred.

[15] That the inscription which the Angel of the Lord had placed might be clearly confirmed: after the turn of a year, around the day of her feast, the fire of Etna repelled by the veil of St. Agatha, Mount Etna erupted in flames, and like a rushing torrent the violent fire, melting both stones and earth, was coming toward the city of the Catanians. Then a multitude of pagans, fleeing, descended from the mountain and came to her sepulchre, and taking the [x]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, [y]divided. The fire began on the [z]first day of February and ceased on the day of the Nones the fifth of the same month, which is the day of her burial -- so 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: to whom is honor and glory and power for ever and ever, Amen.

The same author writes that a most sweet dew was divinely sent, so that Agatha did not feel the burning. Inveges says that sensation was deadened in her, so that although she was scorched and roasted by the coals, she felt no pain. did St. Agatha, rolled on the coals, feel the burning? The Latin Acts and Metaphrastes recognize no new miracle here; Methodius recognizes and extensively proves one, chapter 4, number 21. The Menaea expressly sing in a certain ode that she endured the cutting off of her breasts, the burning of fire, and the tearing of her body. Sanctorius graphically describes this final torment and her experience of it. St. Aldhelm, in his book On the Praise of Virgins, writes thus:

"Thus also the executioners roasted the maiden with fire, burning her virginal limbs with dark irons; but quicker than a word the flame lost its force, burning the maiden's limbs with harmless fires."

p. Others: armati armed. Others: albati clothed in white.

q. Certain manuscripts: condebatur, and perhaps more correctly; for it was not fitting that a youth should enter while the body was being embalmed, doubtless by matrons and virgins alone.

r. So Mombritius and various manuscripts; but certain ones have: Mentem sanctam spontaneam, honorem Deo, etc. Inveges attests that these things were written only in initial letters: M. S. S. H. D. E. P. L. That tablet is said to be now preserved at Cremona, as will be stated below.

s. So various manuscripts; but St. Mary Major: Siculorum. Some: Siciliae.

t. So Mombritius and most manuscripts: whence it appears that these Acts were written by eyewitnesses. Two manuscripts, however, have: "it is suspected by many." Rebdorf: "all faithfully believed." Capuan: "there is no doubt." Because, namely, these Acts were not read under the name of the first writers themselves, certain persons thus corrected, or rather corrupted them.

u. MS. Ulmerius: Psemithum. St. Omer, Bonnefont, Marchienne, Utrecht, and two of ours: in flumine Semetro. Baronius: Simethum. Capuan: Symetheon. The name of the river is absent in Mombritius and the manuscripts of St. Maximin and Schecking. Metaphrastes: Psemythum; in Hervetus: Psemithum. Inveges calls it Simetus. On the orthography of the name, Cluverius discusses in Ancient Sicily, book 1, chapter 10. Carrera reports that it is called "the great river," "the river of Catania," and "the river of the Giarretta," because it is crossed by a ferry, which the Sicilians call Giarretta. There is, moreover, a double crossing of the Simeto (as he says): the upper, and the lower, which is closer to the sea and is called that of St. Agatha, or of Lentini, from the road which leads from Catania that way to Lentini.

x. St. Antoninus: "the curtain with which it was covered." Or perhaps qua by which? Our manuscript: "her veil they set up," etc.

y. Other manuscripts: divinus divine. Some: divinitus divinely.

z. Manuscripts of Baronius, Ulmerius, and two of ours: "the day before the Kalends."

OTHER ACTS

by an anonymous Greek author, from the manuscript of the Senate of Messina,

TRANSLATED BY I. B.

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

By an anonymous author, from a Greek manuscript, translated by I. B.

CHAPTER I

The Homeland of St. Agatha, Her Arrest, Her Constancy Tested by Blandishments and Scourges.

[1] When Decius Caesar was reigning and Quintianus governing Sicily, a broad edict was issued that whoever called himself a Christian should be put to a bitter death. Then, therefore, many others also prepared themselves to face death, and above all the magnanimous Virgin St. Agatha, in the persecution of Decius, St. Agatha prepares herself for martyrdom, whose homeland was Catania and whose parents were illustrious and distinguished. Despising all other things, she armed herself for the contests on behalf of Christ.

[2] When Quintianus the Governor had previously heard of her -- that she far surpassed others in beauty, wealth, and nobility -- he watched for every opportunity to lay hands upon the Virgin ordered to be seized by Quintianus, who had long had his eye on her, and to obtain her consent. Having therefore found a pretext in the impious edict, he ordered her to be arrested as a Christian by his lictors, while she was living outside Catania, at Palermo. When they found the Athlete, they questioned her thus: "Do you know the edict of the Emperor? Why do you not sacrifice to our gods? If you sacrifice, we shall ^blead you back with glory and honor to the Governor. the lictors urging her to comply, If not, he will inflict upon you every grievous and bitter thing." But the holy Virgin, trusting in her heavenly armor, stood invoking God. While the lictors waited, she entered her house and, fixing her eyes upon heaven, said: "Lord Master, Jesus Christ, she was praying to Christ: You see my soul, You know my desire. Rule in me; guard me against the tyrant. I am Your sheep; make me worthy to conquer the devil."

[3] When her prayer was finished, she went out like a most firm wall and set off vigorously on the road with the lictors. Meanwhile, speaking with herself, on the road she meditates with tears: she said: "First I fought for my chastity and overcame the devil, the inciter of evil, who secretly sows all manner of wickedness in the human race. I give You thanks. And now, having the immortal King, the Lord Jesus Christ, as my spectator, attended by innumerable Angels, I shall face death." Saying these and similar things with tears, she made her way. And while walking, she placed her foot upon a certain stone, about to tie her loosened sandal-strap; and looking behind her, she saw no one following among the citizens who had escorted her. Then the Saint, moved by great sorrow, prayed, saying: "O almighty Lord, she obtains a miracle to rebuke the fickleness of those who lacked faith in her, for the sake of those who have lost faith in Your handmaid, who is about to undertake the contest for Your name, show a miracle." And immediately a wild olive tree sprang up, rebuking the minds of those unbelieving ones who had departed.

[4] When she had entered Catania, the Governor ordered her to be handed over to a certain matron named ^cAphrodite, who had nine daughters, for thirty days, so that by ensnaring her with malicious words and deeds, they might change her mind she is tempted by Aphrodite and her daughters for thirty days, and entice her to sacrifice to idols. These women, assailing the holy Virgin now with promises, now with blandishments, now with threats, found her stronger than adamant and utterly impregnable. "^dI am one," she would say; and she conquered herself, and would say: "My mind is founded upon rock, who is Christ; in vain: therefore it is most firm and immovable." Seeing this, Aphrodite went to Quintianus and reported: "It is easier to soften stones and to change iron into lead than to draw this Virgin's soul away from Christianity." She then clearly explained, without any dissimulation, what she herself and her daughters had said and attempted, but that they had been entirely unable to persuade her, since she recoiled from everything that was proposed.

[5] Quintianus, sitting in judgment, ^eordered her to be brought into the praetorium and addressed her thus: "Of what family are you born?" before the Governor she confesses herself noble but a handmaid of Christ, The Saint answered: "I was born not only of freeborn and noble, but also of the wealthiest parents." Quintianus said: "If you are freeborn and illustrious, why do you present a servile demeanor?" Agatha, ^fhumbling herself, said: "I am indeed a handmaid of Christ, and therefore, as you rightly say, I comport myself as a servant." Quintianus said: "You seem to me truly free; why then do you make yourself a servant, which you are not?" And Agatha said: "Our freedom and glory consist in those things by which the servitude of Christ is declared." Then Quintianus: "What about us? Are we not free, who execrate the servitude of Christ?" Agatha answered: "You have descended into such servitude and captivity idolaters are slaves: that you are not only servants of wicked demons and of sin, but also makers of detestable and senseless idols, bestowing upon stones and wood the honor that belongs to God."

[6] Quintianus said: "If you rave and blaspheme, we shall punish you severely. But before the torments are applied, tell me: why do you execrate the veneration of the gods?" And Agatha: "Do not say 'of the gods,' but 'of the demons.'" Quintianus said: "Choose a good and right mind for yourself and sacrifice to the gods. Otherwise you will be punished and suffer many dire things, she mocks the gods, and in the end you will sacrifice after all." Agatha answered: "May your wife be such as your goddess Venus, and you as Jupiter your god. I shall not be ashamed of the faith of my Christ." and wishes the Governor to be similar to them; she is scourged: Quintianus, hearing this, ordered her to be beaten with rods for having insulted the Governor. The Saint said: "Do you not wish to come into the lot and number of the gods you promote? I marvel at you, who do not wish to be like your gods and to enjoy their life. I wished that this might befall you; and you, enraged, have commanded me to be beaten." Quintianus said: "What need is there of many words? Either sacrifice, or I will torture you with various punishments." The Saint answered: "Even if you set wild beasts upon me, at the hearing of the name of my God they will become tame; if you apply fire, the Angels of my Christ will supply dew; if you inflict wounds and scourges, despising the torments, the Spirit of truth will snatch me from your hands." Then Quintianus, shaking his head, ordered her to be led away to a dark prison, saying: "Think, Agatha, and let yourself be bent by repentance, lest you suffer dire scourges." she is cast into prison: The Saint said: "You yourself do penance, that you may escape the eternal torments prepared for you." The enraged Quintianus ordered her to be dragged away and cast into prison.

CHAPTER II

Other Torments of St. Agatha; Her Breast Cut Off, Healed by St. Peter.

[7] On the next day, he said to her, brought before him: "Have you thought about your salvation?" She answered: again before the Governor she mocks the gods: "My salvation is Christ." And he: "Deny Christ, Agatha, and venerate the gods, lest you cut short your life prematurely." The Saint replied: "You deny your gods, which are stones and wood, and draw near to the Creator and true God." The enraged Quintianus ordered her to be suspended and lacerated with spatulas. While the Saint was thus being tortured, she said: she is cut with spatulas on the rack; her breast is twisted and amputated: "Your torments bring me joy and life; I exult while I suffer these things at your hands." The enraged Quintianus ordered her breast to be twisted, and when it had been twisted for a long time, he commanded it to be cut off. Then St. Agatha said: "Impious and cruel tyrant, were you not ashamed to do such things to a breast, which you yourself sucked at in your mother? But even though you have cut off the outer breast, I have another inward one in my soul, which you cannot cut off." Then, enraged, he ordered her to be thrust back into prison, she is sent back to prison, to be killed by starvation: and forbade any physician to be allowed to enter to see her, and that neither bread nor water nor any other treatment be given to her.

[8] While she was in prison, around midnight the Apostle Peter appeared to her in the likeness of an old man (preceded by a boy carrying a lamp St. Peter appearing in the guise of a physician, and many medicines), himself professing to be a physician. Then addressing her, he said: "The tyrant raged against you with cruel scourges, but by bravely enduring you showed him your more illustrious character; wherefore he commanded your breast to be amputated. And indeed his soul shall be in everlasting pain, but you shall join in the dances with the Saints. and wishing to heal her breast. Nevertheless, let me heal your breast." But the Saint said: "Medicine has never been applied to my body, and now I consider it shameful for it to be corrupted." The old man answered her: "I too am a Christian, and having confidence that I might heal you, I have come here; do not be embarrassed." She replied: "For many reasons, most consonant with reason, I shall not allow you to apply treatment to my body. For why," said the old man, "do you refuse medicine?" And she: "I have the Lord Jesus Christ, who restores all things by His word." she refuses, and is healed by his word: Then that old man, smiling, said: "He Himself sent me to you, and I am His Apostle. And behold, in His name you are made whole." And having said these things, he ceased to be seen.

[9] Then the Saint began to pray in this manner: "I give You thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, that You have been mindful of me and have sent Your Apostle to me, who has renewed my members." And looking at herself, she found herself well, and her breast as it had been before. And for the whole remaining night, a light shone around the prison, so that the guards fled, leaving the prison open. Those who were in the prison, seeing what had happened, the guards struck by heavenly light, the prison opened; she will not depart: addressed St. Agatha thus: "Behold, the doors are open, and none of the guards is present; go out and flee." The Saint answered: "May this not happen to me, that I should be deprived of the crown of my contests and cast the prison guards into danger; for I have as my helper our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God."

a. Spathesesiai.

CHAPTER III

The Death of St. Agatha, Rolled on Coals; Her Burial; Catania Preserved by Her Veil.

[10] After the fourth day, Quintianus ordered her to stand before his tribunal, and looking at her, said: "How long do you persist in contempt of the edict of the unconquered Emperors? Either sacrifice to the gods, or you shall endure many torments." The Saint replied: "Your words are vain, and the edicts of your Emperors are wicked, she laughs at the Governor's words, defiling the very air. He is a fool who worships stones and wood. You saw the breast amputated at your command -- behold, another has grown in its place." and proclaims herself healed by Christ, her breast also restored: The furious Quintianus: "Who healed you?" Agatha answered: "Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God." Quintianus said: "Again you confess Christ, whom I shudder even to hear?" The Saint said: "I shall never cease to glorify Him with heart and lips."

[11] Then Quintianus: "Now I shall know whether Christ will heal you." And immediately he ordered sharp potsherds to be scattered she is rolled over coals and potsherds: and burning coals to be cast among them, and the Virgin to be rolled upon them with her body naked. While these cruelties were being done there, the place suddenly trembled with an earthquake, and a part of the pavement collapsed and crushed Silvanus, the counselor of Quintianus, by an earthquake and the rush of the people, and his friend Falconius, by whose counsel he was perpetrating these iniquities. The entire city of the Catanians was also shaken by the force of the earthquake, so that all the citizens ^acame to the palace and vehemently disturbed the Governor. the Governor, terrified, has her led back to prison, Then Quintianus, whether from fear of the earthquake or of the people, sent the Saint back to prison. Entering it, the Saint raised her hands to heaven and said: "I give You thanks, Lord, that You have given me the grace to fight valiantly for Your name, taking from me the desire for this present life and bestowing such strength upon my body. praying, she dies: Hear me, Lord, and deem Your handmaid worthy to leave this vain world and become a sharer in Your abundant mercy." When her prayer was ended, she immediately returned her spirit to the Lord.

[12] The people, hearing what had happened, gathered with great care and reverently laid down the relics of the holy Martyr Agatha. she is buried, A certain youth, however, with a hundred boys, an epitaph placed by an Angel, splendidly dressed and unknown to all the Catanians, came to the place where the sacred body still lay; bringing a marble tablet, he placed it in the sepulchre, on which he had thus inscribed: "A holy mind, voluntary, honor to God, and the liberation of her homeland." When he had placed this inscription within, at the head of the Virgin, and sealed the monument, he departed, never again seen in the city. Whence some believed that he was truly the Angel of the Virgin.

[13] When Quintianus heard that the holy Martyr of God was dead, he went to seize her property (for she was wealthy), and setting out with his whole cohort, he headed toward Palermo. He had scarcely begun his journey the Governor is hurled into a river by horses and perishes, when divine judgment overtook him. For wishing to cross a certain river named the Psimethum, he entered a skiff with his horses and was drowned. For two of them, rushing upon him, the one suffocated him with its mouth, and the other, striking him with its hooves, hurled him into the river. And though his wicked body was long sought, it could not be found. When these things had thus come to pass, the honor and veneration of the Saint increased among the Christians.

[14] After a year, on the very day on which she had been laid to rest, Mount Etna erupted fire, fire flowing from Etna, which streaming out like a river burned everything, and approaching, seemed about to consume the entire city of the Catanians. The neighboring inhabitants and citizens, fearing the fire and placing their confidence in the Virgin, fled to her sepulchre, and taking the veil placed around that same sepulchre, they set it against the fire; repelled by her Veil, and immediately, by God's providence and the prayers of the Virgin, the fire stopped. It had broken out on the first day of February and was arrested on the fifth day of the same month -- on which day we celebrate her most famous solemnity, praising our Lord Jesus Christ who has bestowed such great graces upon her, of which may we all be made worthy. Amen.

OTHER ACTS by Simeon Metaphrastes, from the Greek manuscript of the King of France, translated by Joannes David Henxtovius.

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

By Metaphrastes, translated by J. D. Henxtovius.

CHAPTER I

The Homeland of St. Agatha. Journey from Palermo to Catania.

[1] When Decius Caesar was reigning, and Quintianus was administering the island of Sicily, pertaining to the ^bprefecture of Italy, an edict was promulgated that whoever practiced the pious worship of the true God should be put to a bitter death. The holy and magnanimous Agatha, therefore, ^cborn of the city of Palermo, in the persecution of Decius, but of the most noble parents, when she understood the impious decree to be published, counting for nothing her homeland, her birth, her glory, Agatha prepares herself for the contest: and whatever pertains to this temporal life, armed herself to undertake the contests for Christ.

[2] Quintianus the Governor, however, when he had heard that the holy and noble Agatha far surpassed all ^dmaidens by Quintianus the Governor, of her age in the respectability and elegance of her beauty, devised a way to seize the Virgin of Christ and draw her to his side. And in this wicked mental agitation he did not cease daily to scheme and attempt everything, impure and avaricious, until he might bring the frenzy of his lust to fulfillment. Wherefore he ordered the illustrious handmaid of Christ, born of a distinguished family, to be arrested on the pretext that she was a Christian, and brought into his presence. She was adorned with a remarkable composure of character and grace of speech, so that she could easily subject to herself the minds of beholders by the singular beauty of her appearance. Quintianus, however, being impure and perverse, ^ecaptivated by love at the sight of the Virgin, and at the same time coveting her fortunes, betrayed in his very countenance the perturbation of his mind.

[3] Driven therefore to fury in these ways, as we have said, Quintianus she is ordered to be seized: commands his soldiers to arrest St. Agatha. They, going out from Catania, address her thus: "A decree has been promulgated against you by the Caesar and the Governor, because you do not sacrifice to the gods the soldiers urging her to obey, whom the Emperor worships, nor do you venerate them in the ancestral manner. But even now resolve to sacrifice to the gods, so that we may lead you with all honor and glory ^fto the Consul." St. Agatha, having received a shield from on high, generously prepared not worldly but heavenly weapons against the tyrant. As the lictors pressed her to set out on the road with them, to be presented to the tyrant, she entered ^gher own house, and raising her eyes to heaven, said: "^hLord Jesus Christ, You know my soul, she prays to Christ: You perceive my love; be Yourself my guide against the tyrant. Behold, he is already prostrate, already trampled by me. And now, Lord, for the sake of Your great and surpassing name, ⁱin which I have led a pure and chaste life, I beseech You, ^khasten and conquer the devil, receiving my tears."

[4] Having thus prayed, she departed from Palermo, like a firm wall fortified on every side by a rampart; and she marched briskly with the soldiers, she goes bravely to Catania, meditating with tears: pondering in her mind the beauty of virtue. "First," she said, "I undertook the contest for continence, and the author of all wickedness, the devil, who continually sows seeds of pleasure in the human race, I conquered and trampled, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. But, O wicked one and enemy of truth, do you not see that my arena is immortal, in which the righteous and the Angels alike exult, and which the immortal Son of God Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, encircled by thousands of legions of Angels, watches?" And saying these things to herself, she shed tears.

[5] While she was on the way, the strap of her shoe was loosened, ^lwhich she fastened by placing her foot upon a stone. And looking behind her, when the Palermitans withdrew, she saw no one following from among the whole number of citizens, men and women, who had been escorting her; for they had all left her and returned home. She, moved by a great sense of sorrow, prayed thus to God: she obtains that their fickleness be divinely noted, "O almighty Lord, for the sake of those who have lost faith in Your handmaid, who is about to fight for Your name, display some great sign." And suddenly a ^mwild olive tree sprang up, marking the character and mind of the Palermitans.

CHAPTER II

The Constancy of St. Agatha, Tested by Blandishments and Torments.

[5] Now that she had entered the city of Catania, the Governor ordered her to be handed over to a certain matron named ^aAphrodisia, St. Agatha is handed over to a certain woman to be perverted: who had young ^bdaughters, so that by the enticements of words and manners they might lead her astray, change her mind, and induce her to sacrifice to idols. These women, now promising her great honors, now threatening her with menaces, hoped to draw the holy Virgin to idolatry by their allurements. ^cBut when they tried to steal away her reason and sense with these deceitful blandishments, she bravely spurns the allurements and threats of the woman and her daughters: the noble Martyr of Christ answered them thus: "My mind is founded upon rock, nor can it ever be separated from the love of Christ. Your words have vanished like the winds; your society is rain; your threats are rivers. These have indeed dashed against our house, but they could by no means shake it, for it is founded upon a rock, who is Christ." While saying these things, she did not cease to flood her bosom with a copious flow of tears. For as the deer pants after the springs of water, so her soul longed to go forth into the arena, hastening with great eagerness to endure every kind of torture for the faith of Christ.

[6] Aphrodisia, therefore, perceiving the unshaken and immovable spirit of Agatha, approached Quintianus and said: "It is easier to soften stones or to convert iron into lead. ^dFor I and my daughters have unceasingly, day and night, done nothing else, now pressing promises, now thundering threats. I set before her eyes pearls, splendid ornaments, precious garments, gold, houses, suburban estates, and slaves; but all these things she regards as she does the earth she treads beneath her feet, and esteems them as absolutely nothing." Then the enraged Quintianus ^eordered her to be brought to his tribunal, and sitting in judgment, he addressed her thus: "Of what family are you born?" she is brought before the Governor: St. Agatha said: "I am not only of freeborn and illustrious family, but I also have a kinship abounding in ample wealth." Quintianus said: "If you are freeborn and illustrious, why have you assumed by your manners the person of a servant?" Agatha said: she confesses herself, though noble, a handmaid of Christ, "Rightly indeed; for I am a handmaid of Christ, and therefore I profess myself a servant." Quintianus said: "If you are truly freeborn, how do you affirm yourself to be ^fa servant?" Agatha answered: "Our freedom and glory is situated in this: that the servitude of Christ be displayed." Quintianus said: "What then? Do we lack liberty, who detest the servitude of Christ?" Agatha said: what true nobility is: "You have been reduced to such servitude and captivity that you have not only become servants of sin, but also worshippers of senseless and execrable images, bestowing upon stones and wood the honor that is owed to God."

[7] Quintianus said: "If you blaspheme insanely, punishment can be exacted from you. But before you fall into my torments, explain for what reason you abhor the religion of the gods." Agatha answered: "Do not say 'of the gods,' but 'of the demons'; whose images you transmute into bronze, whose faces formed of marble and plaster you gild." Quintianus said: "Take good counsel for yourself and sacrifice. If you do not, you shall undergo various tortures with the throng of the condemned; and when you have branded your most distinguished family with a shameful mark, she mocks the gods, you will at last, compelled by pain, sacrifice to the all-powerful gods." Agatha said: "May your wife become like Venus your goddess, and may you become like Jupiter your god." and wishes the Governor and his household to be similar to them; When Quintianus heard this, he ordered her to be beaten with rods, saying: "Do not with an arrogant mouth heap insult upon the Governor." Agatha said: "Those whom you have said are your gods -- do you not wish to be numbered in their lot?" Quintianus said: therefore she is scourged, but defends her words: "It is manifest that you desire more torments, since you provoke me with so many insults to proceed to them." Agatha said: "I marvel that you, otherwise a prudent man, have reached such a pitch of insanity that you do not wish to become like your gods and to enjoy the fellowship of their life. For if they are your gods and you venerate them, since I prayed that your life might be such as theirs, for what reason do you interpret that I wished to do you an injury? But if you reject their condition, then you too, along with me, call them abominable."

[8] Quintianus said: "To what end do you hurl your insolent words? Either sacrifice to the gods, she despises the torments, or I shall deliver you to various punishments." Agatha said: "If you set wild beasts upon me, at the hearing of Christ's name they will become tame; if you apply fire, Angels will supply me with dew from heaven; if you inflict scourges and blows, I have the Spirit of truth, who will free me from your hands." Then Quintianus, shaking his head, ordered her to be dragged to a dark prison, saying: "Consider again and again within yourself, she is led to prison, Agatha, and let you repent, that you may be able to avoid my torments." Agatha said: "Let yourself repent of your deeds, that you may escape eternal punishments." Then Quintianus, inflamed with anger, ordered her to be dragged to her prison. But St. Agatha, filled with a great sense of delight and as it were leaping for joy, ^kcommended her contest to the Lord with prayers. exulting:

[10] Quintianus, inflamed with rage, first ordered her breast to be twisted, she is tortured in her breast, and it is cut off and then, after it had been long and savagely wrenched, commanded it to be amputated. But St. Agatha said: "Impious, cruel, and sacrilegious tyrant, were you not ashamed to inflict this upon a woman, and to cut off the very breast which you yourself sucked at your mother's bosom? Yet even though you have severed my outward breast, I have another breast in my soul, which you will never be able to destroy: for it has been consecrated to Christ my God from my infancy." she is confined to prison, to be killed by hunger and thirst: Quintianus in fury ordered her to be thrust back into prison, and forbade any physician to be admitted to her, or any bread or water to be given to her.

[11] While she was shut up in prison, about midnight, the Apostle Peter appeared to her in the form of an old man, preceded by a boy carrying a lamp, St. Peter entering like a physician with an Angel, himself bearing many medicines in his hand and declaring himself to be a physician, and he addressed her with these words: "The impious tyrant has indeed applied many and terrible torments to you; yet he has accomplished nothing thereby, but rather has wasted away at the sight of your constancy: and for this reason he ordered your breast to be twisted and then cut off. But his soul shall remain in pain and anguish forever. and offering hope of healing, Since, however, I was present when you suffered these things, and directing my attention I perceived that your breast can be healed, for this reason I have come here." St. Agatha replied to him: "Never at all have I applied medicine to my body; and now I would consider it shameful she refuses bodily medicine, to break the excellent custom which I have steadfastly maintained from earliest childhood." The old man replied: "I too am a Christian, and I am confident that you will be healed by me, and for this reason I have come to you. Only do not be ashamed, nor fear me." The holy woman answered and said: "How indeed can it be that, since you are worn out with age and I am a young woman, though with a body consumed by torments, the very wounds should trouble my mind? with prudent modesty, Yet I should be more ashamed to expose the wounds themselves indecorously. Therefore I thank you, venerable Father, that you have deigned to come here to apply care and healing to my body. Yet I would have you know that I will never under any circumstances allow medicines prepared by human skill to be applied to my body." "Why then," said the old man, "do you not permit me to heal you?" St. Agatha said: "I have my Lord Jesus Christ, who heals all things by his mere command, and raises up the prostrate by his word. He himself, if he wills, can also heal me, his unworthy handmaid." The elder said with a smile: "He himself has sent me. but she is healed by his word: For I am his Apostle. See how you have been completely healed." Having said these things, he was suddenly withdrawn from her sight.

[12] Then Agatha, prostrating herself in prayer, said: "I give you thanks, when he disappears, she gives thanks to Christ: O Lord Jesus Christ, that you have been mindful of me, and have sent your Apostle, who has strengthened me and restored my members." When her prayer was finished, turning her eyes to her body, she found both the wounds healed and the breast restored. Throughout the whole night light shone through the prison, the prison shining and open, she refuses to flee: so that the guards, terrified by the brightness, fled away and left the prison doors open. The prisoners who were there, when they had seen what had happened, said to St. Agatha: "Behold, the doors stand open, and no one guards them; go out and seize the chance to flee." "Far be it from me," said Agatha, "that I should be deprived of the crown of my struggles, and bring the prison guards into danger. For having the Lord my God Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, as my helper, I will persist to the end in the confession of him who has healed and consoled me."

CHAPTER IV

The final contest of St. Agatha. Her death, and the tyrant's. Catania preserved by her aid.

[13] After the fourth day, Quintianus orders her to be brought before the tribunal, after four days brought before the Governor, and says to her: "How long will you continue to resist the edicts of the Emperors? Either sacrifice to the gods, or I will torture you with harsher torments." The Saint replied: "All your words are vain; and the deeds of both you and the Emperors are unjust, such as would pollute the very air itself. Therefore, wretched man devoid of all sense, tell me, who would implore the aid of stones and wood, which have no sense? Do you see that in place of the breast which you cut off from me, another has grown, by the power of my Lord Jesus Christ?" [she proclaims that she has been healed by Christ, and that her breast too has been restored: she is rolled upon burning coals and broken pottery:] Quintianus, struck with frenzy, exclaimed: "Who has healed you?" Agatha replied: "Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God." Quintianus said: "Do you again invoke the name of Christ, whose very name I do not even wish to hear?" Agatha said: "I will not cease to invoke him with my lips and to glorify him in my heart."

[14] Quintianus said: "Now I shall find out whether Christ will free you." And he immediately ordered sharp pottery shards to be strewn upon the ground, and burning coals to be scattered among them, and her to be cast upon them. While this was being done, suddenly the place was shaken by an earthquake, by earthquake, and the rush of the people and a part of it collapsed, crushing the Governor's assistant, named ^aSilvanus, and his friend Falconius, at whose instigation in particular he had raged so cruelly. Nor was this all: but nearly the entire city of Catania was violently shaken by the earthquake, so that the citizens rushed from all sides to the praetorium, and greatly terrified the Governor.

[15] Then Quintianus, first struck with terror by the earthquake, then disturbed by the rush of the people, ordered St. Agatha to be led back to prison. Entering it, she raised her hands to heaven and said: "I give you thanks, O Lord, the Governor terrified, she is led back to prison, and there dies while praying: who have deemed me worthy to contend for your holy name, and having taken from me the desire for this present life, have also supplied endurance to my body. Hear me, O Lord, your handmaid, and make me worthy to leave this world and to attain your abundant mercy." Having thus prayed, she immediately gave up her spirit.

[16] When the people heard this, they rushed with the greatest zeal to the prison, she is buried and placed the relics of the great-souled Martyr in a safe location. A certain young man, leading with him a hundred boys most splendidly adorned, unknown to all the citizens of Catania, a wondrous inscription placed by an Angel. coming to the place where the saint's relics had been deposited, placed there a marble tablet which he had brought, inscribing upon it these words: A HOLY MIND, A SPONTANEOUS HONOR OF GOD, AND THE LIBERATION OF THE FATHERLAND. When he had placed this tablet inside at the Saint's head and sealed the coffin, he departed, and was never again seen anywhere in the city: whence it was suspected that he had been an Angel of the Martyr.

[17] When Quintianus learned that the Martyr had departed this life, he betook himself to seize her possessions: accordingly, having taken his entire cohort, he was hastening ^bto Palermo. But scarcely had he set out on the journey when, by the just judgment of God, he perished in a certain river not far from Catania, named the Psemithus. the Governor, thrown into the river by his horses, perishes. For when he wished to cross it and had entered a ferry-boat with his horses, two of them began to rage and attack him: one, rushing at him with its mouth, was suffocating him, while the other did not cease to kick him until it hurled him into the river Psemithus. His body, though sought by many, could never be found.

[18] After these events, the honor and veneration of the holy Martyr increased, and no one dared to cause trouble for any of her kindred. ^cMoreover, in order that the report which had already spread -- that it was an Angel who had placed the tablet at her tomb -- might be rendered certain and unshaken, the following sign appeared on the anniversary of her martyrdom. For Mount Etna vomited forth fire, Fire flowing from Etna which rolled down like a river with a great roar, dissolving stones from the very summit as if they were wax, and the fire appeared about to seize and utterly consume the city of the Catanians. Those who lived around the mountain, therefore, even though they were pagans, rushed to the temple of the Martyr, repressed by the veil of St. Agatha and taking up the veil with which the urn was draped, they set it up against the fire. And behold, by Divine providence, the fire was suddenly repressed. This miracle occurred on the fifth of February, the very day on which Agatha finished her contest, on the very anniversary of her death. on which we too with festive celebration proclaim our Lord Jesus Christ, that by the prayers of this holy Martyr we may obtain the pardon of our sins, and great mercy, now and always and unto the ages of ages, Amen.

ORATION OF ST. METHODIUS, ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE, ON ST. AGATHA

From the Manuscript of the Fathers of the Oratory at Rome Translated into Latin by Leonardo Pate.

Agatha, Virgin Martyr, at Catania in Sicily (St.)

TRANSLATOR: LEONARDO PATE.

CHAPTER I

The praise of St. Agatha drawn from Divine predestination, prophecy, sex, virginity, and name.

[1] Since admiration itself has roused me to speak, Exordium. since likewise the will itself impels me to desire; and on the contrary, desire itself persuades me that I should most eagerly wish -- for all of you (Fathers and Brothers, as many as are here present together and standing near me) -- to break forth from my silence into speech, moved by admiration, and to find a release from the bonds of my desire and silence on this memorable day consecrated by the sufferings of the holy Martyr Agatha; The Author, provoked to speak by admiration of the miracles, and that which renders you astonished and therefore given over to silence, this indeed I shall utter, though myself amazed, even from my own inability to speak. For there are, there truly are, certain things altogether unexpectedly wonderful, which just as they sometimes produce silence, so also they sometimes supply eloquence: both of which effects are produced by the magnitude of the miracle and by the very amplitude of the subject. But this public and extraordinary spectacle -- to which even the eyes themselves bear witness (for it has long been quite beyond expectation) -- I shall endeavor to explain by bringing forward arguments. For just as in composed discourses the seed of fruitful wisdom is the observance of precepts, so the exhibition of miracles emanates from martyrdom for God's sake, and from the virginity and purity of mind, which are the true imitations of the Divine virtues. What pertains, therefore, to the production of miracles, I shall set forth to you toward the end. But now, to make a beginning of my narrative, I shall commend the Martyr herself, who indeed, as I was saying, is the fountain and source of miracles; and first I shall clearly explain where and for what reason we have assembled.

[2] The annual commemoration of the holy Martyr has gathered us all into this one place, on the feast of St. Agatha, as you know, O my teachers -- of an ancient Martyr indeed, and a preeminent one on account of her remarkable contest, but truly a recent one, who conquers as if contending even now on account of the divine miracles with which she is daily crowned and beautifully adorned. A Martyr who at the proper time displayed the ardor of her love toward God, and in continual seasons holds in her hand the ^bpower and efficacy of miracles as a just recompense, he praises her, who continually works miracles, since both the readiness of her courageous soul, with which she was endowed, and her body utterly beloved for Christ's sake are manifested, so that whatever she received, she would repay. She gives indeed her body, and the firm resolve of her free will, and these things confirmed by God according to the Divine election; but she receives the renown of her name and a royal diadem, made more illustrious than if she had borne sons or daughters, and indeed exalted above every shameful pleasure of offspring.

[3] And since I have mentioned what pertains to the bearing of children, and have made reference to a royal diadem, I shall now begin to speak. [A woman, but a virgin (which he beautifully illustrates with antitheses), devoted to chastity from infancy,] She is indeed a woman by nature alone, not by choice, as is the rest of the female sex, whose custom, as if they were foretelling the future, devotes itself even in childhood play to rearing and nurturing children; but she is a virgin, who was never seen even in play to mimic girlish trifles. I said "woman," but added "virgin." A woman indeed, because from the beginning the name was given by the wise Adam (for he was then truly wise, since he had not yet fallen into sin), and Moses, writing frankly, also indicated the interpretation of the name which Adam had added, saying: "She shall be called Woman, because she was taken from man"; Gen. 2:23 but a virgin, because she was born of the immortal Word of God (who also for my sake tasted death in his flesh) and of the undivided Son of God; as the Theologian John says: "But as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become children of God, to those who believe in him, who were born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." John 1:12 The woman, therefore, the virgin who has invited us to our religious feast, is that woman well betrothed to one husband, Christ, to use the words of the Apostle Paul concerning the union of the bridal chamber; a virgin upon whom not even the bridegroom's attendant himself struck fear, lest she be deceived as once our grandmother Eve was by Satan through the crafty serpent. 2 Cor. 11 A woman who does not even bear the mark of the laceration inflicted upon her by Decius: a virgin who conceals the wounds inflicted by Quintianus. A woman unconquered in torments; who did not submit to the weight of tyrannical edicts: a virgin who did not yield to the rabid fury of rulers driven by frenzy. A woman who in the tempest of the most imperious waves by no means suffered shipwreck: a virgin who did not fall into the nets of those who held power. A woman who upholds the laws of justice: a virgin averse to extravagance of clothing, who does not fear to write her own way of life with her own hand. A woman who subjugated the swelling pride of arrogance: a virgin who strenuously completed the course of martyrdom. A woman who did not suffer her beauty to be counterfeited with ^cpurple, painted shadows, and veils upon her face, nor to stain her garments and the features of her hands with cosmetics and preparations made from quicksilver: but a virgin who, from the light of conscience and the color of the blood of the true and divine Lamb, adorned and embellished both her lips and cheeks and tongue; Devoted to the Passion of Christ, and moreover by continual meditation of mind she revolved within herself and carried inwardly the death of her devoted Lover, as though he were even now dripping with blood; so that this robe of her confession might not only bear the indelible mark of the purple blood of Christ already deeply absorbed, but might also impart to coming generations the treasures of virginal ^deloquence, together with an unfailing spring of words, in such elegant colors.

[4] She, therefore, truly good, since she is a portion of God, belongs to that same Bridegroom of hers, and in turn to us by the communion of goodness, by which she reflects the force and meaning of ^eher name: Agatha, granted by God himself, the very fountain of goodness, and given as a gift. rightly called Agatha, that is, Good, What indeed is more beneficent than the supreme good? And what more worthy of being celebrated with the praises of commendation could anyone find than Agatha? Agatha, whose goodness corresponds to her name and to the reality itself. Agatha, who by her illustrious deeds displays a good name, and in her very name demonstrates the things she has illustriously accomplished. Agatha, who by her very name attracts all people to hasten to her with the greatest eagerness: who also by her example teaches that all should without delay press onward with her to the true good, who is God alone. Agatha, who raised a standard of what had been decreed concerning her, that she should come into being, and once born into the light, she accomplished what had been decreed by grace. Agatha, divinely foretold to her parents by ^fprophecy, divinely foretold, and foreknown by God from eternity. Agatha, who did not disappoint even those who gave her this name, and who is at hand to those who invoke this name, and readily responds.

[5] But indeed all individuals are manifest to God, as the sacred Scripture says: "All things are naked and open before the eyes of him to whom our discourse is directed"; but all things have been predefined by the One who knows: for foreknowledge itself implies the knowledge of God the Creator regarding individual things, which indeed has the character of Divine consent and concurrence, predestined by God and moreover the manner of the free will of those who, created solely by the Divine good pleasure, freely come forth into action: predestination, however, does not permit the final fall into errors, but confers upon the one who is predestined the good and favorable will of God the Creator together with free human choice; and just as by a manner altogether most blessed among all, our most holy Lady and Queen, the Virgin and Mother of God, was chosen from among all nations by the divine Word, which dwelt in her and formed her; so also this daughter and handmaid of the same Mother of God (who is now adorned by us with joyful acclamations, and who offers our praises and our thanksgivings to God through the Virgin Mother of God) had been predestined to be a Martyr and chosen; Heb. 4:13 that she might be a Martyr and prepared by the Divine free purpose, just as the Virgin, our Lady, was made the dwelling-place of God. and bride of Christ. For from this same one and only Lady, and Virgin Mother of God, and Mother Virgin, this disciple and handmaid, and (so to speak) daughter of the Mother of God, learned to surrender herself as a bride to her Lord and God and the Maker of all things.

CHAPTER II

The ardor of St. Agatha hastening toward martyrdom, strengthened by the imploring of Divine aid and by miracles. Her first contest with the shameless procuress.

[6] Agatha, therefore, truly good and most deservedly a friend most dear to God, endured this indeed so that she might be a woman, and unfit for the bearing of children, but so that she might guard her virginity, she both wished with the greatest vows and absolutely resolved. She laughs at the edict of Decius, When, therefore, she heard that a certain written decree of the Emperor Decius was being published far and wide throughout the whole Roman dominion, Agatha derided it: and having, as it were, barred the door against the blowing winds of human consent, she set up against them the very posts of nature, and the boundless inclination of her soul, and interposed her body, like the veil in the midst of the Temple of Jerusalem, as the curtain of her resolute mind, which might ward off consent; and by the very contemplation of her mind, joined to the Seraphic spirits, she supplicated her thrice-holy God solely for the obtaining of mercy, employing words of the following kind in a free and noble thanksgiving before God: and as formerly the pleasures of the body, "You indeed, O Lord, have long since, when the enemy was waging war for the sake of my body and using the very members of the body like a horse, and employing nature itself against nature, deigned that I should subdue and trample him underfoot; you likewise also now, O lover of mankind, who well know my unfailing love toward you, be my helper in this contest, and so that she may conquer the torments receive the fountain of tears which bursts from my inmost heart, and grant me a glorious victory over this same enemy, O lover of souls and of the human race, who have most benignly not disdained to attribute and bestow upon us even the fact that you entered with your own hand into a victorious contest with this same enemy of ours: for which reason also, O Lord free from sin, you put on our flesh, taken from us for our sake."

[7] She, however, was praying these things to Christ, not to avoid the contest, but that strength might be supplied to her for martyrdom. For Agatha had heard that a certain woman given to the vilest arts was communicating with Quintianus about her, she prays with tears: and therefore, being utterly prepared, she fell prostrate with her face to the ground, and moved by hatred against the persecutor and against sin itself, and by a burning desire of love toward God, she cast herself at the untouched feet of the Lord, just as that woman with an issue of blood once came to the hem of his garment: and indeed she did not staunch the flow, for this her condition did not permit; rather (just as John the virgin received from his reclining upon the Divine and immaculate breast the stream of theology) she received streams of tears, that they might flow more abundantly. Matt. 9:20 full of hope. She rises, therefore, after the fullness of prayer, as though she had received a token of Divine assistance, and in her heart and with certain hope she promises herself victory through faith, and therefore she speaks thus: "Behold, already by the power of Christ the hostile might has been reduced to ashes, trampled underfoot, and extinguished by my chastity: as for what remains, with confident and cheerful spirit I shall hasten to the arena."

[8] And so with the greatest constancy of mind she proceeds to the tyrant amid the lictors, rejoicing, she accompanies the officers, since she remembered nothing at all of the nobility of her birth, nor of her great and many worldly possessions, and without uttering even a word pertaining to her own affairs, she outpaced with simple and unencumbered step those who were leading her: indeed she outstrips them: so that spectators saw these men rather being dragged by Agatha than Agatha being dragged by them, spectators who could not even follow her swiftness with the keenness of their eyes. And those who ought to have been instructed by the readiness of her virginal soul, and stirred to a prudent boldness in meeting death for virtue's sake, abandoned by her own people, on the contrary, through innate inconstancy, like deer, harboring the deep-seated trembling of their hearts, with a swift reversal wretchedly abandoned the blessed virgin. But she, as she was walking, shedding tears in abundance, spoke thus with herself, turning to prayer, and kindled herself to greater constancy. "First indeed for the sake of virginal modesty I contended for Christ my bridegroom, she commends herself again to Christ with tears, shunning pleasure as an abominable thing, lest I be taken by surprise through enticements. Come now, be present also to the eagerness of my soul, O my sweetest and most radiant one, who alone accomplish and can do all things: show that this humble mind of mine is higher than all terrible things; so that I may even in my soul consider them as nothing, and esteem them as no more than a light tune or noise, even if there be ten thousand who threaten me with death."

[9] At these words, as though she truly beheld with her eyes -- for she certainly perceived with her mind -- her enemy, and she taunts the devil: she reproached him as if he were present, saying: "Do you not see my arena, O enemy of truth, and you who are an alien to it, to behold which the entire multitude of angels and of the just comes running with exultation and, as is fitting, rejoicing together? But you do not observe me meanwhile, O deceiver, sleeping under the shadow of my Lover, and valiantly contending under Christ, the judge of the contest and the prizes, and therefore practicing what my Master has taught, and hoping to fulfill it in reality with all my strength. For I foresaw my Lord before me always, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be moved."

[10] While she was saying such things, it happened that in the very swiftness of her course the strap of her sandal came loose: but even when she wished to tie it, she showed the greatest manly diligence, she fastens the loosened strap: and turning around, and looking at absolutely none of her companions, she poured forth prayers to the God who was helping her: ^a"Lord Almighty, who do not forsake those who love you and place their hopes in you, be my helper in the second contest, which I see being prepared for me and for which I am girding myself, she prays for her hosts, with your grace assisting me: but to those who received me for this time, while it was permitted to dwell here in quiet, and to keep myself ^bfar from my homeland and my father's house, so that I might not even hear with my ears the marriage proposals of Quintianus, repay a fitting recompense, and cause that my words, which I spoke privately concerning you the true God, and concerning your only-begotten Son, and concerning chastity, and concerning judgment, may persevere in their hearts. But since I fear that their memory may slip away, and she obtains the sudden appearance of a wild olive to admonish them, (for behold, all have secretly abandoned me) display, I beg, to the inhabitants of this city some great miracle." And when the virgin had prayed this, immediately a barren olive tree sprang up, which publicly marked with shame those who under the pretense of honor had escorted her and had timidly fled.

[11] The valiant virgin, however, encouraged all the more by this miracle (for she had already perceived that, her prayers having been heard, the Divine presence was with her, and his angels, who would protect her from the injuries of the lictors), set out on her way with an intrepid heart. When she was approaching Catania, received by the citizens of Catania who came out to meet her a great number of her fellow citizens came out to meet her, and some women indeed pitied her lot, while some others, in whom there was a more Christian spirit, quietly extolled among themselves the constancy of the virgin, because she had not even deigned to listen to ^cthe impious marriage proposals of the Proconsul, she is praised and for that reason alone had wisely decided to depart. The matrons of the foremost rank of the city, who had been given a place by the officers on account of the fame of her nobility, wealth, and riches, approaching Agatha to greet her, received her with a holy kiss, and congratulating her on her return, they encourage her and heartened: to complete her course in a manner worthy of virtue: and she who so steadfastly ran in the first contest for the sake of preserving her virginity for Christ her bridegroom, by the very act of migrating and fleeing overcame the enemy; now in the second struggle for the profession of faith she should fight bravely even unto death, vanquish Quintianus, and at last gloriously triumph by dying. And she said: "I have placed my hopes in God: his Son will supply me with strength; relying on his aid, I hope and desire to overcome the tyrant's threats, scourges, torments, tortures, and indeed death itself."

[12] The Governor, however, when he learned that Agatha was approaching the city, in order to calm the somewhat troubled citizenry and especially the spirits of her relatives, she is handed over to Aphrodisia to be corrupted; ordered her to lodge in the house of Aphrodisia, a noble but notorious woman, and to be received with the greatest honor, taking care that none of her kinsmen should be allowed to enter. What was in your mind then, O most pure virgin, when you saw yourself enclosed in that place of Aphrodisia, and of the nine little women most similar to their mother -- a brothel rather than the respectable house of noble women? What were you pondering in your virginal soul in that sordid and foul den of infamous Sirens, more truly a brothel than a secluded and worthy women's chamber? I certainly do not fear that you did not stop your chaste ears against their profane enchantments; but I truly wish to know, if it were permitted, upon what meditations of divine things you fixed your most holy mind during those thirty days and nights. But since these things, which should be more secret than anything else, we mortals are not permitted to hear from you dwelling in heaven, let me at least now compare you with holy men who fell into calamities of this kind.

[13] For how very similar to David I should judge you, most holy virgin, but she is like David, who, fleeing from the fury of King Saul, hid indeed in the caves of wild beasts, but there, conversing with God, seemed to himself to be prostrate as in an august and sacred temple before the divine altar, where he poured out prayers and tears, where he implored divine help, where he offered himself and his life as a sacrifice to God. You, however, in the house of Aphrodisia... offered these and other things to Christ with far greater ardor, who did not defraud you of your desires. Indeed, even while held in bondage there, to Daniel, you were imitating that man of desires, Daniel, who in the fetid den of lions burned the fragrant incense of prayer to the supreme Deity, and at length on the seventh day deserved to escape unharmed from the jaws of seven famished lions. But you, most pure virgin, having contended for the thirty days themselves against ten lionesses in a domestic den for the preservation of your virginity for God, to Jonah, deserved to emerge far more whole. Nor were you forgetful of Jonah, who, cast into the abyss, using the very belly of the fish as though it were the Temple of Jerusalem, poured forth praises and prayers to God; and when these were heard by God, he was cast out alive from the mouth of the fish onto land, and publicly preaching, he provided for the salvation of the great city. You, however, Agatha, you were truly a good virgin for yourself, a good Martyr also for God, and finally a good citizen for your homeland and fellow citizens: since, for those who beheld and admired your constancy amid the greatest afflictions, you gave an example of Christian virtues, she contemns all his promises and threats: so that neither by the promises of riches, nor by the proposed delights of pleasures, nor by the threats and dangers of torments, nor indeed by the decree of the Emperor Decius concerning the endurance of the ultimate tortures, could you be moved from the resolution of preserving your virginity and the profession of the Christian faith. For you were like a firm rock in the sea, which contemns rather than fears the blasts of winds, the onrush of pelting rains, and the assaults of raging waves, and breaks them more firmly than it yields to them.

CHAPTER III

The torments inflicted upon St. Agatha, grievous and manifold. Her breast restored to her by St. Peter, and her wounds healed.

[14] When that whole crowd of worthless women had admired Agatha's virtues, Aphrodisia goes to Quintianus and reports that she and her daughters have wasted their efforts; and that it would be easier for the rocks of Etna to be converted into wax than for the heart of Agatha, hardened in the obstinacy of preserving her virginity for Christ, to be softened even a little. She answers Quintianus intrepidly, Then he orders the virgin to be summoned to his tribunal, and he, who had long suppressed by cunning the rekindling flames of his former desire and rage, like Etna, which is not said to hurl fire from its dreadful jaws at all times, but at certain intervals of time, when it has contained the flames boiling within, forthwith vomits forth greater rivers of fire and hurls forth globes. "I know indeed," he said, "that you are born of a noble and wealthy family; and the splendor of your blood is attested by your kinsmen, whose service I have used more than once in the great affairs of the empire: and she glories in the servitude of Christ, what then is the reason that, having set aside our gods, you lead the humble life of Christians, in the manner of servants, in obscurity?" And she: "Rightly do you call me a servant; for I am the handmaid of Christ my God, whom all created things, whether they will or not, serve. But this condition does not obscure the innate nobility of my family, but rather makes it more illustrious: nor would I call myself noble and freeborn, if I did not serve the one true God and his only-begotten Son chastely and piously, but were enslaved to the vices and pleasures of life, and to your gods, who are not truly gods."

[15] When Agatha had spoken these things quite intrepidly before the Governor, and therefore she is struck with a slap on the face: immediately an officer struck her in the face with his sacrilegious hand, so that the virgin of Christ, truly a good disciple of a good Master, might begin her martyrdom with similar beginnings, and the bride might appear like ^aher Bridegroom. O how beautifully the beloved virgin then displayed to her beloved the reddened cheeks! How piously she lifted to heaven her face adorned with virginal blush and becoming bruises, and directed her eyes, sprinkled with tears and blood, toward Christ, so that by those very eyes, wounded for love of him, she might wound the divine heart, and lure and inflame the pierced heart of her Bridegroom to a greater love of her!

[16] After, therefore, the many threats hurled at Agatha, Quintianus orders her to be thrust into a dark prison. [she is thrust into prison, but a stone prevents her from falling, as her feet adhere to it,] But she proceeded with great joy of spirit and gladness of countenance, and as though invited to a nuptial banquet, she hastened to the dungeon sunk into the ground. While the officers were attempting to thrust her down with great force, it happened by divine power that the hard stone yielded as if in reverence to the virgin's feet, and kept Agatha immovable: her footprints, impressed there, are venerated by all mortals with great religious observance; and it retains her footprints: so that by this miracle too Christ might declare Agatha similar to himself as ^bhe joyfully ascended into heaven and triumphed over earth, even though she was descending into prison, inasmuch as she, by proceeding gloriously thither, seemed to be celebrating a most joyful triumph over the defeated Aphrodisia before angels and men.

[17] The virgin, therefore, willingly and gladly is shut up in the prison: where, spending a sleepless night, she devotes herself with tears to the contemplation of divine things, and prays that Christ may supply her with heavenly strength in the agony of her tortures. Scarcely had dawn broken when the virgin is again brought before the tribunal of Quintianus: suspended on the rack, she is scourged: with iron claws, where, when she had boldly professed that she preferred to die for the defense of the faith of Christ and her virginity, immediately with her hands and feet bound she is stretched on the prepared rack: rods are readied, her virginal body is beaten with whips; then her sides are furrowed with iron claws and hooks; next she is burned with glowing metal plates; finally her barely grown breasts are twisted, and cruelly torn apart with serrated pincers; in which torture the great-souled virgin reproaches Quintianus for his insolent cruelty: [with hooks, with burning plates, with the cutting off of her breasts she is tortured; which she reproaches the tyrant:] "Truly," she says, "you are impious and cruel, an enemy of human nature; for you are not ashamed to have breasts savagely amputated from a virgin, which as an infant you gently sucked at your mother's breast. But although you have cut off these perishable breasts, you will by no means be able to tear away those others, which I keep hidden in my soul, consecrated to my Christ from infancy."

[18] Quintianus was inflamed when he heard the intrepid words proceeding from the manly heart of the girl, still not broken. And lest he confess himself defeated, she is ordered to be wasted by starvation: he orders Agatha to be led back to prison, and commands the guards to keep constant watch, lest any kinsman send in a surgeon, or dare to supply food or drink secretly. There the virgin, enclosed, intent upon sacred prayers, addressed Christ with these words: "O you who can now rightly be called a bridegroom of blood, I give you immortal thanks, that by your power you have made me superior to torments: receive, I beseech you, these sufferings of my breast in praise and honor of your name, and for the glory of your Church." And behold, in the silence of midnight, by St. Peter appearing, amid the shadows of that dark prison, a certain old man of venerable appearance (preceded by a boy who carried a torch before him), and he affirmed that he was skilled in surgery, she refuses medicine, and promised that the severed breasts could be healed. Then she said: "Medicines indeed, venerable old man, I have never applied to my body; but I have my Lord Jesus Christ, who, by a single command, if he wills, will heal me." "And I," said the old man, "am his Apostle, she is healed by his word: and in his name, do you not see that you have been healed?"

[19] But why do I linger in this prison? Already that Catanian theater has long been summoning me and all of you with its rising flames, and commands us to be present in spirit for the spectacle about to be exhibited there, where the most tender body of the virgin is placed upon flaming coals and burning fragments of pottery. And now this appearance of a bed seems to me to be that which the Bride described and commended as being of flowers, in which neither the purple roses of glowing fire are lacking, nor the lilies of a virginal body. Let therefore the rosy fires embrace, she is rolled upon burning coals and fragments of pottery: and let them rather caress than burn the virginal lily; let them embrace, I say, and not tear it with their thorns: let the fire burn as it pleases among the thorns, as in the bush of Moses, and if it loves to burn, let it burn its own thorns, but spare the lily of the most pure virginity. For Agatha lies and is surrounded by flames, as a lily by thorns. The privilege of this reward is merited by her vow of virginity, made to God from infancy, and preserved in unblemished purity.

CHAPTER IV

The death of St. Agatha, her burial, and the inscription placed by the Angel: the first part of which is explained.

[20] Scarcely, therefore, had Agatha touched the flames, when behold the earth of her homeland, pitying the plight of its daughter, trembled from its very foundations, and as though endowed with maternal feeling, by a sudden earthquake opening its jaws in more than one place, it cried out with many mouths and clearly testified how vehemently it grieved and how justly it detested that unworthy and cruel spectacle, in exactly the manner in which, when the Creator of all things was nailed to the cross, the whole element of earth trembled, unable to bear the monstrous crime and impious wickedness of the Jews. One might perhaps venture to say that the Catanian earth at that time was, as it were, playfully exulting and dancing, because on that fiery bed, as in a nuptial chamber, it saw its daughter Agatha now placed as the bride of Christ, hoping that from the bloody martyrdom of its daughter bravely consummated, a most abundant harvest of descendants would be born to the light of the Gospel. For truly that man unwillingly confessed that the blood of the Martyrs is the seed of Christians. But I judge far more certainly that this same convulsion of the earth was caused not by air violently confined in its bowels, nor by waters bursting forth from those same depths, stirred by Angels but truly by Angels descending from heaven, to whom it is familiar to shake the earth and by their coming to deter the impious from doing evil, and to confirm pious minds in the pursuit of good works. This we read to have happened at the sepulcher of Christ shortly after he rose in triumph from the dead: at which, when the Angel descended, there was a great earthquake, and when it had opened the sepulcher, it indeed turned the soldiers guarding it, struck dead with fear, to flight, while from the pious women it dispelled all fear.

[21] Who, therefore, would doubt that the Angels brought aid to Agatha as she lay amid the flames, and sprinkled those fires and flames with heavenly dew? she is preserved by heavenly dew, Had not this virgin of ours, divinely illumined, promised herself this salutary rain of dew when she was addressing Quintianus, saying: "If you apply fire to my body, Angels will provide me with saving dew from heaven"? poured out through Angels or Christ himself, Would Angels, and Christ the King of Angels himself, hold as empty the hopes of Agatha placed in them, so that Quintianus would consider the virgin's words vain and without force? Would the soul of this virgin, which had always shrunk from the deadly fires of lust and had taken care to extinguish them entirely, and had clung fast and been fixed upon God, now allow the instrument of her body -- which for the sake of preserving the faith of virginity she had suffered to be cast upon burning coals and sharp flaming pottery -- to endure from those same flames even a moderate injury beyond her conceived hope? Would that Son of man, whose glory is as of the only-begotten of God, who chose to be the fourth present with the three youths in the Babylonian furnace, to such a degree that the fire harmed them in nothing -- would he leave Agatha, lying on that fiery bed for his sake, and betrothed to him, since she had clung to him from infancy and had become one spirit with him, to be consumed by burning? He was present, present was the Bridegroom to his bride Agatha, who through his Angels made into spirits both caused the earth to tremble and brought forth winds from the hidden place of his treasures; and he made that fire spread beneath Agatha like a breeze of dew blowing, she is preserved unharmed. so that the fire dared neither to touch the virginal little body, nor to sadden her spirit, nor to inflict any distress. He was present, I say, Christ, and with him a noble troop of Angels, at so noble a spectacle, and one worthy to be beheld by heavenly eyes, so that with the fullest right Agatha could have cried out: "You have seen, O Lord, and watched my contest, how I fought in the arena, and because I wished to keep the faith of my virginity, I was ordered not only to be suspended on the rack and to have my flesh torn from my breasts and whole body, but also to be placed upon fire: but the fervor of your divine love supplies me with strength, O good Bridegroom, and sustains me amid these flames as among rose blossoms, and surrounds me with the fragrant incense of coals as of fruits and spices, so that I cheerfully endure these cruel torments of the executioners and these burning coals, and lovingly embrace them, not as tormenting fires, but as spring flowers and purple crowns caressing me, and I allow myself to be adorned with these as with red rubies, and I rejoice, receiving precious necklaces and jewels, every bridal ornament, and the garment of martyrdom, so that adorned with these ornaments I may be admitted to the heavenly bridal chamber."

[22] Meanwhile, Quintianus, terrified by the earthquake and the death of two of his friends, crushed before his eyes by the collapse of the walls, on account of the tumult of the people, sent back to prison, and disturbed by the great tumult of the people, and overwhelmed by the rising outcry of the Catanians who wished to keep the virgin safe, immediately ordered Agatha to be led back to prison: she, attended by the host of the citizens of heaven and surrounded by the multitudes of the people, celebrating a triumph over Quintianus already conquered and over all the torments, entered the venerable -- shall I say prison, or royal palace, or rather the most sacred vestibule of a heavenly temple? -- where the virgin, standing with her eyes raised to heaven, and her virginal arms spread in the form of a cross, loosed her tongue in prayer with these words: "Lord Jesus Christ, good Master, I give you thanks, having prayed to God, she dies: who have deemed me worthy of this honor, that I should contend for your name; who have taken from me the love of mortal life, and have supplied me with heavenly strength to endure the torments; do you, the same Lord God, hear my prayers, and make your handmaid worthy to leave this earth, and, adorned with the purple robe of triumphal martyrdom and covered with the bridal flame-colored veil, to arrive happily at the unfading crown of eternal glory." When these prayers were completed, she immediately delivered her immaculate spirit to God.

[23] When the people standing around the prison learned this, with great devotion and reverence she is honorably buried, they reverently laid the body of the noble Martyr in a monument. Would Christ, the Bridegroom of Agatha, who is glorious and wonderful in his holy Martyrs, not render this beloved bride of his, and the preeminent Queen of the Sicilian Martyrs, whom he had honored with miracles even while she lived on earth, far more illustrious when she soon triumphed with him in heaven? And would he permit the body of the virgin, whose tongue Christ had made an eloquent witness of his divinity and whom he had commanded to profess publicly her chaste love and nuptial fidelity to him -- would he permit the body tortured for these reasons to rest inglorious in an obscure marble tomb? He made, indeed he made, the sepulcher of this most worthy bride of his glorious, not through one or two Angels sent from heaven, visible to a few women, as was his own cave, where outside Jerusalem the Bridegroom himself had lain, a hundred Angels appearing and singing but through a hundred heavenly spirits clothed in the human form of handsome youths, who, while the virginal body was being reverently interred by the Christian citizens, conspicuous to all, sang a heavenly psalmody. A certain one among them, a young man by far the most beautiful, approached the sepulcher not yet covered, one of them placing the epitaph, and placed at the virgin's head a marble tablet brought from heaven, on which her praises were briefly inscribed: A HOLY MIND, SPONTANEOUS, AN HONOR TO GOD, AND THE LIBERATION OF THE FATHERLAND.

[24] What does this one mouth of mine, and my mortal tongue, dare further to celebrate the praises of Agatha, which not a hundred mouths of Angels, nor as many heavenly tongues, could attain with flying words? namely her guardian, But those very praises, in profound silence, that Angel greater than the rest, lately the guardian of the virgin, wrote with heavenly fingers at the dictation of God, and marveling at the angelic and nearly divine virtues of Agatha, immediately departed. Certainly so that he too might be present and become a sharer in the heavenly joys with which the entire heavenly city overflowed at the triumph of the most great-souled of all Martyrs, and that he might by right be the Paranymphus at the entrance of the most beautiful bride of Christ into the bridal chamber prepared for her by the Mother of Virgins, the Virgin Mother of God: and soon departing to be the paranymphus of her soul entering heaven. and so that this same guardian Angel, who had always been present at the contests of Agatha's disputes and torments, and had perceived them to be above the capacity and strength of a girl, as an ear-witness and eye-witness, and had watched each thing with admiration, might soon sing throughout all heaven the virginal victories, and invite the blessed hosts of the heavenly army to praise the Son of God and the Virgin Mother of God, because he had wrought such a victory in a defenseless virgin.

[25] But perhaps the Angel departed more truly for this reason: that since he had publicly testified to the most pure holiness of her virginal mind, the most ardent love and desire of the spontaneous Martyr, or because he blushed, having been surpassed by her in the body, and the extraordinary honor displayed to Christ the Bridegroom amid the greatest tortures of her tender body, he blushed to remain near so noble a body, because he recognized that Agatha had performed through it far more illustrious deeds on earth than he himself, a pure and simple spirit, had accomplished in heaven against the dragon; and therefore he hastened to put off the aerial semblance of a human body, having confessed himself far surpassed by a mortal young woman, and he vanished into the air in exactly the manner in which, from the Patriarch Jacob, with whom a similar Angel was wrestling and could not overcome him, the Angel sought to be released as dawn was rising. as that one who wrestled with Jacob, And because the most joyful soul of Agatha was already ascending like a heavenly and rosy dawn to the celestial summit and the exalted throne of glory, and had already put off her mortal body, it seemed unseemly to the Angel to linger on earth and still exhibit himself visible to mortal eyes. Or certainly it befell this Angel and his heavenly century at the sepulcher of Agatha what once befell the two Seraphim, and those who had sung the Trisagion while Isaiah listened. who, while they sang to the divine Word about to assume mortal flesh that angelic Trisagion, and proclaimed that divine holiness was most fitting to him, veiled themselves entirely with their wings, unable to contemplate the majesty and glory of the One seated upon the throne. Isa. 6 For the Angel of this our virgin, when he had declared the holy mind of Agatha on account of her most perfect virginity, and likewise her holy will on account of the most bitter tortures cheerfully endured, by which Christ God was wondrously becoming glorious throughout all of heaven and earth, perceiving that he had sung a new Trisagion, and that by the wondrous splendors of Agatha's sanctity the angelic mind was overwhelmed, thought it best to take counsel for himself with invisible wings, and so he vanished on high.

[26] But I beseech you, O heavenly century of Angels, lend me at least one angelic tongue and hand for a brief span of time, so that I may bring to light the heavenly epithalamium which you deposited together with Agatha's little body in the dark sepulchral marble, and so that I may be permitted to expound the few words (as is your custom) inscribed therein and enveloped in hidden mysteries. And indeed you most rightly began to celebrate the praises of Agatha from the holiness of her virginal mind. St. Agatha from infancy vows her virginity to God and diligently guards it, For this virgin, while she was still an infant, taught by no mortal master but with the Holy Spirit inwardly persuading her, consecrated her virginity to God, and strove so earnestly to cultivate it throughout the whole course of her life that she stained it with no worldly cares or nuptial conversations; indeed, forgetful of all created things, devoting herself to divine contemplation, she rendered it yet purer, and therefore soared to the extraordinary heights of divine love, and most ardently desired to reach the agony of tortures for the defense of her Bridegroom's faith. and she suffers much; For these reasons it came about that God seconded her ardent desires, sparkling from a pure and eager mind, and that eternal, glorious, immortal honor sprang forth for him; and the Church herself, both white and red, began to appear before mortal and heavenly eyes.

[27] ^aLet the Christian Church therefore adorn herself today, since she has already dipped her glorious purple in the most pure blood of the Martyr Agatha, and let her rejoice and exult, and sing of her victories and triumphs, and proclaim her homeland Catania worthy of glory, and fill the whole world with the renown of the name of Agatha and of Christ. For indeed what created thing displays more admirably the power of God, what more commendably his wisdom, what more lovingly his goodness, than to behold manly spirits and heroic virtues in the frail little body of a woman? Among women, moreover, what could you find more illustrious illustrating the glory of God in both; than tender virgins consecrated to God by a vow of integrity? Among virgins, however, after the Virgin Mother of God, what more delightfully produces astonishment, or what more wonderfully delights the Church of Christ, than this singular virgin Agatha? She indeed, having followed the counsel of the wise King, resolved that God should be honored not only from the first-fruits of her body, but also from her entire substance. For since she was born of the most noble parentage in the city of the Catanians, most beautiful in body, rich in wealth, [noble and rich and distinguished by remarkable gifts of nature, she devotes all these to the honor of God:] admirable in eloquence and charm of speech, conspicuous for the virtue of prudence, and endowed with singular fortitude of soul, she dedicated these and all other ornaments of body and soul, each and every one, to Christ God and to his honor and glory; indeed she despised even herself as nothing for the love of Christ, and continually rendered worthy honors to her Lord until the close of her life. All of this is attested by the brief epithalamium and angelic oracle, which was written by divine inspiration not for the useless adornment of words, nor for showy eulogies, but for recording in eternal memorials the true virtues of Agatha.

CHAPTER V

Catania preserved by the merits of St. Agatha, the fires of Etna repressed by her veil. The martyrdom of St. Lucy foretold.

[28] But let it not weary us to consider for a little while the final words of the heavenly oracle; for they are the second part of that which I proposed at the outset. For indeed Martyrs, while they suffer torments and tortures for Christ, not only weave for themselves a crown of glory, furnish praise to the Church, and render honor to God, but also, while they summon their fellow citizens to the imitation and example of their virtues, they merit for them heavenly favors, not by the price of gold and silver, but by the treasure of their poured-out blood. Nor indeed are the bodies of holy virgins, slaughtered for Christ, lying in humble marble, through her relics she is a protection to her homeland: less useful to their kinsmen and fellow citizens, and to the homeland where they were born into mortal life, than armies of the bravest men fighting for their country. For who could have achieved so sudden and easy a victory over the most cruel Quintianus and his followers, she frees the citizens and kinsmen from Quintianus, except the merit of Agatha before God, and her power against enemies? Her citizens did indeed revolt against Quintianus, and put him to flight, and were able to expel him, struck with fear, from the city; but he, because he escaped unharmed from their hands, became fiercer, and was plotting against the relatives of Agatha, now driven into exile, to satiate his rabid spirit partly with slaughter and partly with punishments, and to consign their fat fortunes, together with Agatha's patrimony, to the treasury of the Emperor. These things the impious man was scheming, when he was drowned, but he by no means escaped the vengeance of the most pious virgin. For as Quintianus sat in a skiff while crossing the river Simethus near Catania, two fierce horses, now hurling bites at his face, now striking kicks upon his body, tumbled him half-dead into the stream: and his servants could not find him, though they searched for him a long time, neither alive nor dead. The army of evil demons immediately found him, and dragged his wicked soul, struggling to depart, extracted from the whirlpool, and brought it, destined forever, to the nearby flames of Etna.

[29] For God fights on behalf of his saints, who, just as he suffocated Pharaoh, pursuing the Israelite tribes by land and sea, at last engulfed in the Red Sea with his chariots and horsemen; so too he drowned Quintianus, thirsting for slaughter and plunder, as once Pharaoh: carried off and submerged by his own horses in the river and sea waters. O how beautifully the chorus of Catanian women adapted the canticle of Mary, saying: "Let us sing to Agatha, for she has been gloriously magnified; by horses she has cast the horseman into the sea. therefore she merits the victory song of Mary. Agatha is my strength and my praise, and she has become my salvation. She is my sister, I will glorify her. Agatha is my glory, and I will exalt her. The enemy said: 'I will pursue and overtake them, I will divide the spoil, my soul will be satisfied.' The fury of the horses blew, and he was submerged in the mighty waters. Who is like you among the mighty, Agatha, magnificent in holiness, terrible and praiseworthy, and working wonders? You are truly the glory of the city of Catania, you are the honor of our people: and because you have loved virginity, the Lord has delivered Quintianus into your hand, and you shall be blessed forever."

[30] Come now, hearers, and let us pass from the waters of Agatha's miracles to the fires of Etna. Most of you have read, I believe, the name of Etna in the ancient histories of our writers, which we still possess: or at least you have heard the fame of that mountain, most celebrated throughout the whole world: but perhaps there are some present here to whom the name of Etna is still unknown. From the fiery torrent erupting from Etna, Etna, then, is a lofty mountain which, far surpassing the clouds, looms over the city of Catania. Those of our countrymen who have sailed into the port of Catania testify that its slopes are perpetually white with snow, and they report that the lower reaches are inhabited by numerous villages and estates. They also testify that the craters of Etna's summit perpetually smoke, and by belching forth fiery vapors and sulfurous ashes scatter them all around, with great damage to the fields, forests, and livestock. Now it happened, on the very Kalends of February of the year following the martyrdom of Blessed Agatha, devastating everything far and wide, that when the sides of Etna were broken open, a hellish and turbid fire, boiling more violently than usual, erupted, and raging like a steep and broad torrent, devastated everything in its path, and directed its course against the Catanian villages and the city itself.

[31] What plan do you suppose that pagan people, terrified by the frequent shakings and rumblings of the earth, and stunned, nearly lifeless, by the horror of the flowing conflagration, adopted? [the pagans, remembering the liberation of the homeland promised in the epitaph of St. Agatha,] In this dreadful emergency, as God willed, there came to their mind the angelic oracle deposited at the head of Agatha, concerning the liberation of the homeland promised to them. Taking courage, therefore, they said: "Let us hasten to the sepulcher of our virgin, whose aid we now for the first time publicly implore. For certain is the promise inscribed in her heavenly epitaph concerning the liberation of the homeland, and there should be no doubt concerning either the efficacy of so great a Martyr's merits before God, or the favorable disposition of our virgin toward her homeland. For if once the natural piety of two brothers, citizens of ours, had the power to hold back the fires of Etna from devouring them, because they carried their parents upon their pious shoulders -- in memory of which pious deed our ancestors bestowed sacred honors upon them -- what must our fellow citizen Agatha likewise do, who suffered herself to be cast upon living fires and glowing pottery lest she abandon our God and the Parent of all things? And who willingly chose to pour out her mortal life rather than break the pledge of chastity once given to Christ? If, while Agatha was still mortal and desiring to be burned for Christ, the fires of the executioners dared not touch her, will these flowing fires dare to overwhelm the native soil, the city and citizens, the palace of her birth, and the most sacred monuments of the Martyr, against the will of her who now stands near Christ, endowed with immortality? By no means indeed will this fiery torrent touch the Catanian earth, which, still sprinkled with the virgin's fresh blood, cries out more powerfully before God than the blood of Abel: and therefore we must not despair, with the recent merits of so good a citizen as Agatha pleading our cause."

[32] Speaking thus with one another, they hasten running to the sepulcher of the holy Martyr, pour forth prayers and tears, draw out the veil which covered the virginal body, raise it aloft on a pole: they take her veil from the sepulcher: and thus armed and confident, they advance to meet the raging fires. Wondrous to behold: immediately those headlong fiery torrents, as though reverencing the power of the virgin present and the majesty of the Martyr, halt their course, lay aside their fury, and extinguish their heat. Why should I here proclaim the scarlet cord hung from the window of Rahab, which at the sight of itself, on account of a life preserved for only two Israelites, merited the preservation of her entire household? For it would be shameful to compare the ribbon of that once wicked little woman with the venerable veil of a virginal head. more holy than the ribbon of Rahab of Jericho, It would also be unseemly to adorn the thrice-excellent Agatha with borrowed ornaments and begged cosmetics, since she herself more than sufficiently excels by her own praises and merits. Let it be permitted, however, to compare this veil of the virgin to the sacred censer of the Priest Aaron, rather similar to the censer of Aaron which, when he had filled it with fire and incense and set it against the conflagration and stood between the dead and the living, the plague immediately ceased. For this veil, since from its contact with Agatha it had imbibed certain sacred fragrances, and had preserved itself and its mistress lying amid the flames safe and unharmed, merited this prerogative of power against fires, that at its sight and fragrance all conflagrations tremble and are immediately quenched, without the destruction of any mortal.

[33] Let it also be permitted here to set before your eyes the Ark of Moses, and of the Ark of Moses, which, when it entered the bed of the Jordan borne upon the shoulders of the Priests, the waters stood still in amazement and swelled up like a mountain, and did not dare approach it, reverencing, in the manner they could, the presence and majesty of the divine power. You have beheld the Ark dividing the waters of the Jordan and halting their course? I ask you now to perceive with the eyes of the mind the fires of Etna, running down like a torrent as though they were molten metals, dissolving everything in their path, even rocky mountains, as though they were wax: and when it was raised aloft, repressing those terrible fires, whose heat and course neither great springs, nor rivers running from melted snows, could extinguish, or even mitigate. But what can springs and rivers avail against so great a fiery flow, when the Ionian Sea itself suffered its waters to be burned like oil, and therefore was compelled to yield a place within its moist and deep bosom, and fleeing, had to change its ancient shores and contract itself far back? When therefore neither the high mountains of the hardest stones, nor immense cliffs, nor even the hostile element of the sea could make any headway against the Etnean fires or blunt their force, the small veil of the virgin Agatha, raised aloft by her citizens and exposed to the winds, immediately (wondrous to tell) both extinguished the conflagrations and checked their rapid course. leaving behind a monument of bristling rocks. As a monument of this illustrious deed, those turbid fires, converted into steep mountains of bristling rocks and scorched crags, stand erect as an eternal trophy of virginal victory, and confirm the truth of the oracle concerning the liberation of the homeland, brought down from heaven by the Angels. For this reason also that veil, as the standard of Agatha triumphing over fire, surrounded by the joyful applause of the peoples, was enclosed in the chest in which the very Leader of the victory reposed, so that it might be preserved with greater veneration and piety in times of adversity for the homeland.

[34] O a hundred and a thousand times truly good virgin, and Martyr! Good, I say, for yourself and for Christ your Bridegroom; good also for your homeland and for your citizens, whom you preserved safe by so evident a miracle! Truly there is no other city St. Lucy praying at the sepulcher of St. Agatha for her mother that has experienced its holy citizens so favorable to it as the region of Catania has experienced Agatha. Nor did so good a virgin have a favorable disposition toward her own people only, but she also poured out her benefactions with full hands upon strangers as well. Moved by the fame of these, the virgin ^dLucy, the most noble among the Syracusans, persuaded her mother Eutychia, who was suffering from an issue of blood, that they should go together to Catania, to the temple and sepulcher of the holy virgin Agatha. And when she had arranged for the unbloody sacrifice to be offered there for her mother, and had mingled her own prayers with tears, and by embracing the sepulcher of Agatha and piously kissing it, she fell into a light sleep. And she seemed to see the Blessed Agatha in heaven shining brightly among choirs of Angels and virgins, she herself appears in glory, more august in appearance than all, and to hear her uttering these words: "Lucy, virgin, whose integrity invites me to call you Sister, and declares her mother healed and a crown of martyrdom prepared for her. why do you through me beseech Christ, the Bridegroom of us both, for the health of your mother? You yourself, on account of the unblemished flower of your virginity, have obtained it, and behold she has already recovered. But I also declare to you what is to come; for after the crown of martyrdom, which you will shortly put on, you, the bride of Christ, will enter with me into the heavenly bridal chamber; and just as through me the city of the Catanians is made illustrious by Christ, so through you the city of Syracuse is adorned." And having spoken these things she departed on high, and Lucy, awaking, found her mother healed.

ON THE RELICS AND CHURCHES OF ST. AGATHA

A Historical Commentary.

Agatha, Virgin Martyr, at Catania in Sicily (St.)

By the Author J.B.

Section I. The Church and Relics of St. Agatha at Rome in the Suburra.

[1] What was done at Catania over many ages after the martyrdom of St. Agatha, for her glory, partly by the kindness of God and partly by the devotion of mortals, Paul Aemilius Sanctorius briefly touches upon at the end of his narrative concerning her, and at last concludes thus: "Add, amid barbaric savagery, the force of arms, the plague of the times, fire and sword, in the overthrow of all things, among the most warlike and fierce peoples of Italy, fortresses were built, monuments were raised, and walls and cities were dedicated to Agatha." Temples erected in honor of St. Agatha: We cannot pursue all these things: we shall collect some matters concerning her relics and miracles, as they present themselves, and concerning the temples dedicated to her in certain principal cities.

[2] one at Rome on the Quirinal Hill And first, there stands at Rome her most ancient temple, situated at the end of the Quirinal Hill toward the flat area of the Suburra. For three hills are visible on the eastern part of the City: the Esquiline, the Viminal, and the Quirinal, which, as they descend toward the Roman Forum, leave between them a valley which was formerly called the Suburra, and is flat at first, then rises, as is clear from Marlianus and our Donatus. The latter indeed, in book 5, chapter 18, points out the location of the temple thus: "The Viminal Hill has on its west the opposite part of the Quirinal, and to the intervening valley was given the name of the Flat Suburra, where at the base of the Viminal, almost opposite St. Agatha's, was the temple of Silvanus," etc. near the Suburra,

[3] Ricimer the Goth, who in the year of Christ 457 was made Patrician from Master of the Soldiers, and then in the year 459 was Consul, and died in the year 472 under the Consulship of Festus and Marcianus, having shortly before with barbaric treachery slain the Emperor Anthemius, his father-in-law; this Ricimer, then, as Baronius writes in his Notes to the Martyrology, most magnificently adorned that church of St. Agatha with marble veneers and noble paintings interwoven in mosaic work, in which the images of the most sacred Savior and the Twelve Apostles are depicted. This is made clear by an ancient inscription which is read there in the apse with these words: adorned by Ricimer, FLAVIUS RICIMER, ILLUSTRIOUS MAN, MASTER OF BOTH BRANCHES OF THE MILITARY, PATRICIAN AND EX-CONSUL ORDINARY, ADORNED THIS IN FULFILLMENT OF HIS VOW. After this, however, when the Gothic Kings, who were also Arians, reigned at Rome, their priests claimed that same church as their own, as if by hereditary right, and held it until they were driven from Rome and Italy. occupied by Gothic Arians, So Baronius. Concerning this church of St. Agatha, Anastasius writes thus in the Life of St. Gregory: "He dedicated the church of the Goths, which was in the Suburra, in the name of the Blessed Martyr Agatha." Platina, in his life of Gregory, calls that church "the work of Flavius Ricimer, a man of consular rank, as the mosaic letters indicate." Indeed the mosaic letters, already cited from Baronius, indicate that the church is older than Ricimer, and was merely adorned by him.

[4] How it was purified by St. Gregory, he himself relates in book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 30, writing thus: "But I should not pass over in silence what, two years ago, heavenly piety also displayed in this same city for the condemnation of the Arian heresy. Of those things which I relate, the people witnessed one part, while the priest and the custodians of the church testify that they heard and saw another. The church of the Arians in the quarter of this city which is called the Suburra, long closed, since it had remained closed until two years ago, it was decided that it should be dedicated in the Catholic faith, with the relics of the Blessed Martyrs Sebastian and Agatha brought in: and this was done. For we entered that same church, coming with a great multitude of people and singing praises to the Almighty Lord. purified by St. Gregory, And while the solemn rites of the Mass were being celebrated in it, and the crowd of people was pressing together due to the narrowness of the place, certain of those who were standing outside the sanctuary suddenly felt a pig running hither and thither between their feet. While each person felt it and pointed it out to those standing near him, the devil departing in the form of a pig, the same pig made for the doors of the church, and moved all those through whom it passed to amazement; yet it could be seen by no one, although it could be felt. This divine piety showed for this reason: that it might be clear to all that the unclean inhabitant was departing from that place."

[5] "When, therefore, the celebration of the Mass was finished, we departed: but that same night a great noise was made in the roof of that church, as if someone were running about in it, wandering to and fro. then on two nights causing a commotion; On the following night the sound grew louder, and suddenly resounded with such terror, as if the whole church had been overturned from its foundations; and it immediately ceased, and no further disturbance of the ancient enemy appeared there; but by the terrifying sound which it made, it was made known that it was being forced to leave the place which it had long held."

[6] "After a few days, in great serenity of the air, a cloud overshadowing the altar, a cloud descended from heaven over the altar of that church and covered it with its veil; and it filled the whole church with such great terror and sweetness of fragrance that, although the doors were open, no one presumed to enter. The priest also, and the custodians, and those who had come to celebrate the solemn rites of the Mass, saw the thing but could by no means enter, and they inhaled the sweetness of the wondrous fragrance. and a sweet odor spread about. Lamps divinely lit, On another day, when the lamps in it were hanging without light, light was sent from God and they were lit. Again after a few days, when the solemn rites of the Mass had been completed and the lamps extinguished, the custodian had left the church; after a little while he entered and found the lamps, which he had left extinguished, shining.

Thinking he had carelessly failed to extinguish them, he now anxiously extinguished them and, going out, closed the church. But after a space of three hours he returned, a second time: and found the lamps, which he had extinguished, once again lit and shining: so that from this very light it might be clearly evident that the place had come from darkness into light."

[7] The relics of the holy Martyrs Sebastian and Agatha which are reported to have been brought into that church, most editions of St. Gregory's works record as having been those of Sts. Stephen and Martha: but our manuscript reads as we have already published, and John Gillotius noted that other copies so report. And Pope St. Zacharias in his Greek translation of the Dialogues clearly has: tou makariou Sebastianou kai tēs hagias Martyros Agathēs leipsana; as we noted on January 19 in the Acts of Sts. Marius and Martha, section 1, number 4, and on the 20th in the Acts of St. Sebastian, section 4, number 19. And so reads John the Deacon, who in his Life of St. Gregory, book 2, chapter 31, writes thus: the relics of Sts. Sebastian and Agatha brought there: "Moreover, since the basilica of the Arians, in the quarter of this city which is called the Suburra, had remained closed until the time of Gregory's pontificate, it pleased him that it should be dedicated in the Catholic faith, with the relics of the Blessed Martyrs Sebastian and Agatha introduced therein: and this was done. For Gregory, coming with a great multitude of people, singing praises, entered the aforesaid basilica." And the rest, which has already been related, he narrates in almost Gregory's own words. Gratian also, De Consecratione, distinction 1, chapter 22, records that the relics of Sts. Sebastian and Agatha were placed there, as does St. Antoninus, part 2, title 12, chapter 3, section 9.

[8] Not only did St. Gregory purify that church, but he also saw to it that the revenues which it had formerly possessed were restored to it, for the maintenance of the building and the sacred rites. So he himself writes in the Register, book 3, letter 19, which is addressed to Leo the Acolyte: "Since, therefore," he says, "the church of St. Agatha, situated in the Suburra, which was once the den of heretical depravity, annual revenues restored: has been restored, by God's favor, to the worship of the Catholic faith; therefore, admonished by the tenor of this authority, you shall not cease to collect the rents of all the houses established in this city which the aforesaid church is found to have possessed in the times of the Goths, year by year, and you shall by all means take care to expend whatever is necessary for the maintenance of the building, the lights, and other repairs of the same church. Whatever may be left over, we command you to enter into the ecclesiastical accounts."

[9] The same Gregory also magnificently adorned this same church of St. Agatha with painted images. Pope Adrian I attests this near the end of his lengthy letter to King Charles of the Franks, in which the objections against the Seventh Council are refuted, and at the same time he confirms what we have said about the relics of St. Agatha, writing thus: "But also the church of the Arians, which St. Gregory himself mentions in his Dialogues, paintings placed: it pleased the same St. Gregory that it should be dedicated in the Catholic faith, with the relics of the Blessed Martyrs Sebastian and Agatha introduced there: and this was done. And after the miracle which occurred in that church, the Blessed Gregory himself caused it to be painted with various images, both in mosaic and in colors, and erected venerable images therein, and they have been venerated from that time until the present day."

[10] Pontiffs granted a sacred Indulgence to those who visit that church on the Nones of February, that is, on the very feast of St. Agatha, Indulgence on this day: as Octavius Pancirolus testifies in the Index of Feasts and Perpetual Indulgences, appended to his Hidden Treasures of the Nourishing City. The same author, under the second region of the Monti, church 49, which is this very Suburran church, attests that a finger of St. Agatha is preserved there. Finger of St. Agatha. Whether it was placed there by St. Gregory, or whether other relics are deposited in the altar or hidden elsewhere, we do not know.

Section II. Other Churches of St. Agatha, a Cemetery, and Relics in the City.

[11] There is another church at Rome dedicated to the honor of St. Agatha, with a monastery, by St. Gregory II, who governed the Church from May 22 of the year 715 until February 11 of the year 731. Anastasius in his Life: "For at that time, the mother of the Pontiff, Honesta both in character and by name, was taken from this life. Another temple across the Tiber After her death, Gregory converted his own house into a church in honor of the holy Martyr of Christ, Agatha, with upper rooms added from the foundations, and whatever was necessary for a monastery he built anew: he offered urban and rural estates there for the needs of the monks. He also made in the same church of the Blessed Agatha a ciborium of silver, founded and adorned by St. Gregory II: which weighs seven hundred and twenty pounds, six silver arches, each weighing fifteen pounds, ten baskets each weighing twelve pounds, and he bestowed many other gifts." Baronius shows that the death of Honesta occurred in the year 717. How long the monks possessed that church is obscure. It was given by Pope Clement VIII to the Congregation known as the Christian Doctrine. It is situated, as Pancirolus writes, in the eighth region, Trastevere.

[12] There formerly stood another temple of St. Agatha on the Via Aurelia, mentioned by Donatus in book 4, On the City of Rome, chapter 3. Pope St. Symmachus built it, another on the Via Aurelia by St. Symmachus, who held the See from November 22, 498, to July 19, 514. In his Life, Anastasius writes: "He built the basilica of the holy Martyr Agatha on the Via Aurelia, on the property called Lardarium, and constructed it from the foundations with a baptismal font, where he placed two silver arches." Concerning this property and church, the following is reported from a certain Bull of Leo IX, given in his fifth year, Indiction VI, the 12th of the Kalends of April, that is, the year of Christ 1053, in book 2 of Subterranean Rome, chapter 12: "We also grant one estate in its entirety, which is called Cleandris, with the church of the holy Martyr Agatha situated on the hill of Pino. Moreover, the house called Lardaria, at the second milestone from the City, and the estate called Attalianus, with houses, vineyards, and lands, as it appears to be designated, with baths, crypts, and monuments, situated outside the gate of the Blessed Apostle Peter on the Via Aurelia." The same things are reported as transcribed from an older bull of Pope Leo IV, given in the year 854, Indiction II. It is now destroyed: yet ruins and certain traces of ancient paintings are visible at the villa called the Casale of St. Agatha, and it is approached both from the gate of St. Peter and from the Via Aurelia, situated where those two roads converge.

[13] Beneath that church there is a cemetery, now blocked up, which is called that of St. Agatha, formerly perhaps that of St. Lucina, and a cemetery, where Sts. Processus and Martinianus were formerly buried, or of Sts. Processus and Martinianus; because the bodies of the latter were buried there by St. Lucina. So their Acts record on July 2: "The Emperor Nero gave orders, saying: 'Let them not be delayed, but let them be dispatched more quickly.' Pompinius, however, the son of Paulinus the Master of Offices, began to press the Prefect of the City, Caesarius, vigorously. Then the Prefect, having passed sentence upon them, by his order they are cast out of custody and led outside the walls of the city of Rome, on the road which is called the Via Aurelia, where they were beheaded with the sword. The most blessed Lucina, when she saw this, followed them with her household until they came near the aqueduct; where they were also beheaded, and their bodies were left truncated, to be devoured by dogs. Then the most holy woman Lucina collected their bodies and prepared them with precious spices, and buried them on her own estate, in a sand-pit, near the place where they were beheaded, on the 6th of the Nones of July, on the Via Aurelia." A church was erected to them here, famous for the miracles which God performed through their merits, as St. Gregory testifies in homily 32, which was delivered in that same church.

[14] St. Gregory III, who held the See from February 16, 731, until November 29, 741, rebuilt the roof of the basilica of Sts. Processus and Martinianus from new, placing a pillar with very strong masonry behind the venerable bodies of those same Saints, for the strengthening of the walls of the holy basilica. So Anastasius; who also records that those most sacred bodies were translated to the City by Paschal I, and honorably deposited in an oratory within the church of St. Peter. later translated to the City. Peter Mallius, in book 2 of Subterranean Rome, chapter 12, records that the said bodies were brought from the cemetery of St. Agatha to the church of the Blessed Peter. The cemetery received its name from the church of St. Agatha, which was near the church of Sts. Processus and Martinianus, if not the same. It was, moreover, called the Cemetery of the Blessed Agatha at Girulus; whether by that word a certain stream is meant, or an aqueduct, or perhaps a mill. But the entrance to that cemetery, as we have said, is now blocked.

[15] The following also pertains to the honor of St. Agatha: the Guild of Weavers in the same nourishing City St. Agatha, patroness of the Weavers at Rome: venerates her as Patroness and Protectress: although the ancient church of St. Mark which they hold, and which they rebuilt from the foundations and enlarged, situated in the second region of the Monti on the Via Alexandrina, they have named St. Mary of the Angels. The confratres of that confraternity wear a white garment of cloth: and upon it an image of the Virgin Mother of God surrounded by Angels. So Pancirolus, church 26, region 2. They were induced to adopt St. Agatha as their patroness perhaps by the popular belief which asserts that she both learned the art of weaving in her girlhood and, by weaving and unweaving a veil, eluded the importunity of her mother who was forcing her to marry.

[16] Concerning that veil we shall treat below, when we come to speak of the Etnean fires repressed by it. various churches adorned with her relics: Pancirolus, cited above, writes that a part of it is preserved at Rome in the church of St. Praxedes, a part in that of St. Dominic, and together with them also a particle of her breast; a part of her shoulder in the church of St. Mary of Consolation; and garments of the same saint in the church of St. Adrian.

Section III. Relics of St. Agatha elsewhere in Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Germany.

[17] In other places in Italy too, relics of St. Agatha are reverently preserved. For at Volterra in Etruria (concerning the steadfast and magnificent devotion of which city we spoke on February 3 when we treated of St. Candidus the Martyr), at Volterra, I say, in the church of the Conventual Friars Minor, there exists a part of the skull of St. Agatha, virgin and martyr, together with many other relics of the saints: part of her skull at Volterra, all of which Pope Alexander II is said to have given to the Church of Pescia. He had been, they say, first the parish priest of the town of Pescia, then Bishop of Lucca, and finally created Roman Pontiff near the end of the year 1061; he died on April 22, 1073, Indiction XI. He therefore donated the relics of various saints to the principal church of that town, which he had consecrated: a part of which relics Julian of Anthony, parish priest of Pescia, with the assent of the Bishop of Lucca, later gave to the Volterran nobles surnamed de Guidis. In the year 1513 the Guidi deposited them in the church of St. Francis, where they had erected a magnificent chapel and an honorable sarcophagus for themselves, enclosed in a gilded casket secured with two locks, the keys of which are kept by the senior member of the Guidi family.

[18] The city of Siponto in Apulia also once possessed some remains of St. Agatha, as one may read on February 7 in the Life of St. Lawrence, Bishop of Siponto. Relics formerly at Siponto, For before he set sail from Constantinople to govern that Church, he is said to have obtained from the Emperor Zeno an arm of St. Stephen and a breast of St. Agatha. But when, having arrived at Siponto, he wished to convey these honorably to the Cathedral Church of the Virgin Mother of God, they could by no effort be moved from that place: brought there by St. Lawrence the Bishop until he vowed to build in that very spot a church in honor of those same saints. Then indeed their relics were carried with solemn pomp to the episcopal basilica: where their powers abound to the present day, famous for miracles. as is recorded in the very ancient first Life, chapter 2, number 7. Mention of them is also made in chapter 1, number 6 of the other Life, and also in the metrical one. As for the breast, or part of a breast, given by the Emperor to that holy Bishop before the year 500, we are forced to suspect that the two breasts which were cut from the virginal bosom by the executioners How can breasts, or parts of them, be in multiple places? were later brought to Constantinople, perhaps to St. Pulcheria or some other Empress. The breasts which are reported to have been brought from Constantinople to Taranto and thence to Catania in the year 1126 with the rest of the body are perhaps those which the Apostle Peter restored to her -- not by applying to her bosom the severed ones through the invisible ministry of Angels, but by creating new ones through divine power, and as it were forming them from her most pure blood. For since that healing can be understood to have been accomplished in either way, this interpretation seems better suited to maintaining the credibility of these narratives.

[19] Around the year 520, some relics of St. Agatha were brought from Constantinople to Capua. So states the anonymous Salernitan writer published by Camillo Pellegrino in his History of the Lombard Princes, previously published under the name of Erchempert by Antonio Caracciolo: "The church of the blessed Protomartyr Stephen, which is situated in the very ancient city of Capua, was built by the Emperor Constantine, the son of Helena, and he decreed that it be dedicated in honor of the Apostles, relics at Capua, although later, by the most blessed Germanus, Bishop of that same city, on account of the relics of the blessed Protomartyr Stephen and also of the blessed virgin Agatha, bestowed by the Emperor, he ordered that it be called in honor of the Protomartyr Stephen." We shall give the Life of St. Germanus, Bishop of Capua, on October 30, in which we shall relate how he was sent as legate by Pope St. Hormisdas to the Emperor Justin, and what business he conducted at Constantinople. Michael the Monk in the Sanctuary of Capua records that from that time Sts. Stephen and Agatha were regarded as the patrons of the Cathedral basilica; the name of the Apostles, to whom it had been dedicated in the time of Constantine, having fallen into disuse among the people: for it is in fact the Constantinian basilica which is now called St. Stephen's, and which is and always has been the Cathedral, not the one called St. Peter's ad Corpus, situated in the center of the city.

[20] As for the relics of St. Agatha which the cited author writes St. Germanus received from the Emperor Justin, the same Monk asserts that it was a nipple of that holy virgin; and that it was long preserved in the bell tower, according to an old custom, and that the memory of it was lost with the passage of time; found again; until the top of the bell tower was knocked to the ground by a bolt of lightning, and that sacred pledge was found and recognized, and deposited in the Treasury of the Church. So it is reported, he says, by certain tradition. The same Monk writes that the hill of St. Nicholas, near Capua, was anciently called the Hill of St. Agatha, because a church was dedicated to her upon it: although by whom or when it was built is not established. "Even today," he says, "an old church is visible near the church of St. Nicholas, a hill there named after her: and in it paintings of the virgin and martyr, though on account of their antiquity hardly one or another of them can be discerned: the one that is best discerned is that which represents the virgin naked in breast and back, scourged with bull-hide thongs." Finally he also lists other churches dedicated to St. Agatha in the diocese of Capua.

[21] Other relics of St. Agatha were brought to the same shores of Campania in the same century. This is evident from letter 52 of book 1 of St. Gregory, written in Indiction IX, the first year of his ordination, the year of Christ 591, where he writes the following to John, Bishop of Sorrento: "Since Sabinus, Abbot of the monastery of St. Stephen on the island of Capri, relics on the island of Capri, has informed us that he has long since had relics of the Martyr St. Agatha granted to him, and he wishes those holy objects to be installed in his monastery; therefore we command you to go to the aforesaid monastery, and if no body is found to be buried there, you shall solemnly install the aforesaid holy objects, so that his devotion may attain its desired effect." John Gillotius in his edition of the works of St. Gregory prepared in the year 1571 has it that Sabinus was head of a monastery on the island of Cabis: other editions have Capri, and more correctly. For it is an island called Capreae, still called Capri by the Italians, three miles from the promontory of Minerva and eight from Sorrento, made famous by the retreat of Tiberius.

[22] At Bologna in Emilia there is a church formerly called St. Agatha's, now called St. Mary of Castiglione, built, as tradition reports, by St. Petronius, and restored, when it threatened to collapse, at Bologna, by Bishop Gerard around the year 1196. So record Celsus Faleonius and Antonio di Paolo Masini in his survey of Bologna, who also writes that her relics exist in the churches of St. Stephen, St. Peter, and St. Julian. Besides these, there are towns, fortresses, and villages in the same Italy, and in our Belgium, that have received names from the name of St. Agatha, though the occasion of the appellation is not known to me: as also temples dedicated to her, such as the one we mentioned on January 7 in the Life of St. Crispin, number 1, section 5, and the one we shall mention below, built at Pavia on the authority of Bernard Sacco: and the one mentioned on February 3 in the second Life of St. Anatolius, number 3, dedicated at Salins in Burgundy in honor of Sts. Symphorian, Anatolius, and Agatha, and adorned with a college of Canons.

[23] John Tamayo de Salazar, in his book on St. Epitacius, chapter 6, records that some relics of St. Agatha exist at Plasencia in Spain. And in chapter 5 he says that this prayer is recited on her feast in the Divine Office: "Grant us, we beseech you, at Plasencia in Spain, almighty and merciful God, to receive, along with Blessed Agatha, a holy mind and to render you spontaneous honor; and that by the prayers of her who also obtained the liberation of her homeland, we may freely enter the homeland of eternal blessedness. Through our Lord," etc. Aegidius Gonzalez Davila, Historiographer of the Catholic King, in the Ecclesiastical Theater of the Church of Oviedo relates that at Oviedo, in the Era 1101, that is, the year of Christ 1063, an altar was consecrated in the monastery of St. Vincent in that same city in honor of St. Marina, in which were deposited the relics of St. Mary Magdalene, St. Agatha, St. Agnes, St. Eulalia, etc.

[24] Many places in our Belgium glory in relics of St. Agatha: foremost among them Arrouaise, as we related on January 13 in the Life of Blessed Heldemar, chapter 10. at various places in Belgium, In the collegiate church of St. Amatus at Douai, Arnold Raisse in the Belgian Sacred Treasury testifies that a part of the arm of that same Saint is preserved: in the monastery of Beaupre of the Cistercian nuns in the same city, a large bone of the same holy virgin and martyr: at Cambrai, in the church of St. Aubert, some of her bones: a head in the Cistercian monastery of Cambron among the Hainaulters: a part of a rib in the Benedictine convent of Forest near Brussels. Finally, among the relics of the Professed House of the Society of Jesus at Antwerp there are certain fragments of the relics of St. Agatha, virgin and martyr, once brought here from the city of Wesel, at Prague, when it was occupied by the Marquis Spinola.

[25] Prague, the capital of Bohemia, also possessed some part of this sacred treasure: for in the Prague manuscript Martyrology, after the eulogy from Ado cited above, the following is added: "Of whose relics the most pious Prince Charles IV, Roman Emperor ever Augustus and King of Bohemia, having obtained them from the Church of Pisa in Tuscany, gave them to the Church of Prague."

[26] In various churches at Cologne relics of St. Agatha are displayed, some of our saint, more perhaps of some of the companions of St. Ursula, at Cologne in many churches, but some perhaps of another Agatha. for some of those are recorded as having been called Agatha. For the head which Aegidius Gelenius testifies is preserved in the illustrious church of St. Gereon, enclosed in a silver and gilded reliquary bust, under the name of St. Agatha, virgin and martyr, he himself believes to be that of one from the company of St. Ursula. And rightly so, since our Crombach reports that an iron spike was attached to that head, which Gelenius, or his copyist, described as an iron plate much eaten away by rust. In the same church, in reliquaries XV and XXIV in the same Gelenius, other particles of the relics of St. Agatha are mentioned. In the abbey of St. Pantaleon, according to the same witness, in reliquary XX, there is a jawbone of St. Agatha with a tooth, and in reliquary XIX a finger of the same: one bone in the church of the Canonesses of the Capitol: two small hand bones in the Charterhouse: a skull and a finger from the hand, within a silver reliquary bust, in the convent of St. Agatha of the Benedictine virgins: some relics in the Metropolitan church, and in the collegiate church of St. Cunibert, in the parish church of St. Paul, among the Augustinian and Crosier Fathers, and in the church of St. Maximin of regular virgins living under the Rule of St. Augustine. Finally, Gelenius adds that there is dedicated to the honor of the same virgin a hill called St. Agatha above the crossing of the river Viper in the Duchy of Berg.

Section IV. The Tablet placed on the Sepulcher of St. Agatha, brought to Cremona.

[27] Besides those relics of St. Agatha which are reckoned parts of her most sacred body, such as particles of bones and fragments of other members, there exist two pledges of her, and as it were monuments of singular honor: the Veil, which they call the Grympa, and the marble tablet placed by an Angel upon the body within the tomb. Of the tablet we shall treat here, and of the veil below. Concerning the tablet, William Durandus, Bishop of Mende (or Javols) in Gaul, relates in general terms in his Rationale of the Divine Offices, book 7, chapter 6: "The Blessed Agatha died in prison after many torments: How the image of St. Agatha is carried in processions: at whose head in the tomb a tablet was visibly placed through the ministry of an Angel, on which was written: A holy mind, spontaneous, an honor to God, and the liberation of the fatherland. And therefore the custom has developed of making a procession with a tablet containing her image." So he writes, speaking of the rite of those places which honor St. Agatha in general, even though they possess none of her remains.

[28] At Cremona among the Insubrians, this very tablet is carried in solemn procession around the city on the feast of St. Agatha each year, The tablet placed on her sepulcher is preserved with veneration at Cremona, followed by a large throng of citizens, especially women, whose devotion toward the holy Martyr is extraordinary. For the eight days preceding that celebration, and for as many following, the same tablet is publicly displayed for veneration, with numerous lights burning before it.

[29] At what time and in what manner this tablet, as well as a shoulder-bone of the same saint and a part of the veil (for these too are preserved there, as Peregrinus Merula attests in his Sanctuary of Cremona) -- when, I say, and by whom these were brought to Cremona, is not sufficiently established. Some believe this happened at about the same period in which we said that some relics had reached the island of Capri. For Ludovico Cavitelli in his Annals of Cremona, after mentioning the irruption of the Lombards into Italy, which occurred in the year 568, adds: brought there in the 6th century "From the city of Catania in Sicily, the tablet of St. Agatha, together with her shoulder-bone, was carried to Cremona by a Cremonese presbyter, and deposited in a church then erected in her honor near the Pertusio gate." Merula confirms this with the testimony of Sicard, Bishop of Cremona, who is reported to have died in the year 1215, from the account of another author: deposited in the suburb, and that from that little chapel which had been dedicated to her in the suburb outside the Pertusian gate, it was later transferred to the basilica in which it is now preserved, at an uncertain date.

[30] The same Merula writes that this basilica was offered to God and St. Peter by the devout men and women who had built it, around the year 1078, then carried into the city to a more magnificent church dedicated to her: with Blessed Pope Gregory VII accepting the donation, and this is evident from his Apostolic Brief: and that the Emperor Henry IV attested in a certain Privilege that it had been built by the Cremonese in expiation of their offenses, and offered to the Prince of the Apostles, for the honor of God, for the safety of the Roman Empire, and for the reverence of the Apostolic See. Merula adds that it was first administered by secular clergy, then around the year of Christ 1090 committed by Urban II to the Lateran Canons, and finally to secular Provosts: meanwhile it was repeatedly restored and adorned, and newly consecrated by Bishop Cesare Speciano on the third of the Kalends of September, in the year 1601. He adds that it is one of the seven churches which, as in the city of Rome, Pope Gregory XV decreed should be visited, with the spiritual gain of Indulgences, at the petition of Cardinal Campori, Bishop of Cremona, in the year 1622.

[31] Dominico Bordigallo in his manuscript Chronicle, cited by the same Merula, testifies that this sacred tablet was brought directly to this church from Catania, though without indicating the time or manner in which it was done. The words of Bordigallo are: "In this temple of St. Agatha there is also a tablet with the story of St. Agatha, which a certain Provost of the said church formerly brought from the city of Catania in Sicily to this city and temple. It has the property, by God's permission and the merits of St. Agatha, it extinguishes fires: of extinguishing fire from burning buildings, if it is placed opposite them. I bear witness concerning these things, taught by experience and sight."

[32] Our Father Julius Mazarini, in his 45th sermon on Psalm 50, writes that this tablet is of the whitest marble, and that on it the outstanding virtues and praises of St. Agatha were inscribed in brief summary. what is written on it? Augustinus Inveges, at the year of Christ 254, number 15, says that the letters inscribed on this tablet are M. S. S. H. D. E. P. L., which the Acts cited above and other writers explain as: A holy mind, spontaneous honor to God, and the liberation of the fatherland.

[33] He then reports from Pietro Carrera that when St. Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, visited the Church of Cremona (though he incorrectly writes Verona instead of Cremona) and had inspected all the relics of the saints uncovered, honored by St. Charles Borromeo when this angelic tablet was brought forth, he did not wish it to be uncovered, but placing his knees on the ground, reverently venerated it. Following his example, the same was done by Nicolo Sfondrati, then Bishop of Cremona, and by Nicolo Sfondrati, later Pope: who later became Pope Gregory XIV. That visitation of the Church of Cremona by St. Charles took place in the year 1575, as Charles, Bishop of Novara, and Giovanni Pietro Giussano, book 3 of his Life, and Giuseppe Ripamonti in his history of the Church of Milan, part 3, book 3, record. it is used against lightning. Inveges adds from an anonymous author that if there is lightning or thunder, that heavenly marble is brought forth, and by it lightnings and thunderbolts are dispersed and repelled.

[34] Antonius Philotheus disagrees with the things narrated in this section, writing thus about this tablet in his Topography of Etna: "This stone (as the report passed down by men's hands relates) is most reverently preserved at Catania to the present day." Is it at Catania? But I believe he is mistaken.

Section V. The Relics of St. Agatha at Palermo and Catania, carried from there to Constantinople around the year 1040 by George Maniaces.

[35] Let us return to Sicily, which was adorned by the outstanding virtues of St. Agatha, ennobled by her most courageous martyrdom, and afterward made illustrious by the greatest miracles. For it both displays very many churches dedicated to her throughout the island, and notable relics of her body in a virtually complete state. It is not our intention to enumerate all the churches: the principal ones are in the two cities which, as we have already related, claim for themselves the honor of her birth, Churches of St. Agatha at Palermo, I mean Palermo and Catania. At Palermo indeed there are two within the walls, both of which, as the citizens claim to have received from their ancestors, according to Inveges, were once palaces or spacious residences of the holy virgin. There is also another in the outskirts not far from the gate, and this one preserves the rock upon which the virgin placed her foot when about to fasten the strap of her sandal, and deeply impressed upon it a lasting footprint.

[36] Furthermore, a part of the relics is in the cathedral basilica, and part in the palatine church of St. Peter. Relics; Concerning both, Inveges writes in the Index. Concerning the latter, Rocco Pirro, volume 2, Notification 1, Church of Catania: "Whose arm I saw in the treasury of the relics of the saints at the royal church of St. Peter of the Palace at Palermo, and I venerated it, and, as the Treasurer, I enclosed it, preserved in silver cases."

[37] At Catania, as Peter Galesin writes in his Notes to the Martyrology on the Nones of February, temple at Catania "the city is illustrious for monuments of other things, but by far most renowned for the martyrdom, sepulcher, and most devout temple of the Blessed Virgin Agatha," which, under Pope Urban II, Bishop Angerius constructed. built around the year 1100: Angerius, or Ansgerius, was, after Catania was recovered from the Saracens, the first Bishop of that city, consecrated by Urban himself around the year of Christ 1091, a pious man. Mauritius succeeded him in the year 1124, in the third year of whose episcopate the body of St. Agatha was brought back from Constantinople to Catania.

[38] How it had previously been carried off to Constantinople, Mauritius himself relates below in these words: "The Emperor of Constantinople, hearing of the slaughter of the faithful Sicilians, dispatched to Sicily the Exarch whom he had found most experienced in military affairs, named Maniaces, with an armed force; the body had previously been carried off to Constantinople by George Maniaces, who in a short time, traversing the entire island, subdued it by fire and sword and received it under his dominion. This Maniaces sent the body of the God-beloved virgin Agatha, together with the bodies of many other saints, to Constantinople, which had formerly been called Byzantium; believing that the Empire of the East, on the point of falling, could by their prayers and merits be restored to its former strength. Thus, therefore, the body of the most blessed virgin and martyr Agatha was transferred from the city of Catania to Byzantium, and there it was reverently deposited by certain inhabitants of the place, and most devoutly venerated." So he writes. But the time of the Translation must be investigated.

[39] George Maniaces, protospatharius, the son of Gudelius Maniaces, a vigorous general, having conducted the war against the Arabs successfully, in the year of Christ 1030, Indiction XIII, was created Duke of Lower Media by the Emperor Romanus Argyrus. The same, in Indiction I, the year 1033, while commanding the cities situated on the Euphrates and dwelling at Samosata, recovered Edessa from the Arabs through the treachery of Salaman the Turk, and sent to the Emperor at Byzantium a letter found there, written by the hand of Christ the Lord to Abgar. eager for sacred relics, who was sent to Sicily in 1037, He then also sent fifty pounds to the same Emperor, the annual tribute from Edessa. The following year he was appointed by the Emperor Michael the Paphlagonian as governor of Aspracania, or Upper Media. In the year 1037, Indiction VI, now a Patrician, he was sent with an army to Sicily, to protect Apolaphares, the Emir of the Saracens on that island, against his brother Apochapsus. But these brothers, having made peace, attempted to expel him from the island, with the help of auxiliary forces summoned from Africa: he expelled the Saracens. of which such great slaughter was inflicted by Maniaces that the land was flooded with flowing blood. He then captured fourteen cities of Sicily, and gradually advancing, subdued the whole island.

[40] In the year 1040, Indiction VIII, when the Carthaginians returned with greater forces, he again routed them in a memorable battle. repeatedly defeated; But when he had harshly rebuked Stephen, the Emperor's brother-in-law and commander of the fleet, both with words and even blows, because he had allowed the leader of the Barbarians to escape in a small boat through the negligence of the guards, he was accused of treason and captured. he was accused by Stephen of plotting revolution against the Emperor, and was carried captive to Constantinople and thrown into prison. The command of the island was entrusted to Stephen, who soon lost the entire island through his carelessness and sloth, except for Messina, which was preserved for the Empire for the time being. The Emperor then died on December 10, Indiction X, in the year of Christ 1041. the island lost through others, His successor was Michael Calaphates, the son of the already-mentioned Stephen: who, after he had reigned four months and five days, was ordered by the Empress Zoe on April 21, Indiction X, in the year 1042, to have his eyes gouged out and to be confined in a monastery. The same Empress honored the Patrician George Maniaces, whom Michael had already previously released from custody, he is sent again to Italy with authority; with the rank of Magister, and sent him to Italy with the fullest authority: where he, although not equipped with sufficiently large forces, nevertheless by his generalship, as best he could, restored the situation.

[41] But when Romanus Sclerus, with whom there were old enmities, having been elevated by the Emperor Constantine Monomachus to the highest dignities, but deposed through rivals, he rebels, inflicted much damage on the possessions of Maniaces in the East and violated his marriage-bed, and brought it about that his authority was revoked; Maniaces, driven by fury, having corrupted the Italian soldiers, killed the protospatharius Pardus, to whom he was ordered to hand over the province, and himself, having assumed the diadem and the other insignia of Empire, was saluted as Emperor by the army: but when he had routed the forces sent against him by the Emperor, and dies victorious in 1042, amid the festive acclamations of all, he suddenly fell from his horse and expired, the author of the wound not being known, which he had received as a lethal blow in the chest. His head, severed from his neck, was carried to Constantinople, in Indiction XI, near the end of the year 1042 or the beginning of the next.

Section VI. The narrative of certain Sicilians, concerning the time when the body of St. Agatha was carried away and brought back, is refuted.

[42] These matters had to be drawn out at length from Cedrenus and other writers, so that the time when Maniaces lived and translated the body of the holy virgin might be established. For the Sicilians refer it to the times of Michael Balbus, who seized the Empire on December 25 of the year 820 and held it for eight years and nine months. So concerning Maniaces, Rocco Pirro, volume 2, Notification 1, Church of Catania: "George Maniaces," he says, "was acting as the representative of the Emperor Michael: and he, to win the Emperor's favor, transferred from Catania the body of St. Agatha and from Syracuse that of St. Lucy, virgins and martyrs, to Byzantium, and lavished them as a gift upon the Emperor, he did not carry off the body of St. Agatha in 822, in the year of salvation 822, according to most of our countrymen." A delightful gift indeed George would have brought to an Iconoclast and Hagiomach Emperor -- the remains of holy virgins whom he abhorred!

[43] Thomas Fazellus thus describes what additional things the Sicilians narrate about Maniaces that are plainly contrary to the truth, in decade 2, book 6, chapter 1: "A plainly fabulous and ridiculous opinion, maintained for many centuries, has held the Sicilians: that George Maniaces, the Prefect of the Emperor of Constantinople in Sicily, having been drawn away from his allegiance by treachery, seized the island for himself, and was the very first to create Barons and Counts in it: nor was he the author of surrendering Sicily to the Saracens, and that the Emperor, to avenge his treachery, pretended to be dead, and contrived that his wife should invite Maniaces to a new marriage. Whence Maniaces, allured by the desire for Empire rather than for the wife, went to Constantinople, meanwhile leaving his son as Governor in Sicily, instructed with the precaution that, if there were fraud involved, he should immediately surrender the island to the Saracens who are in Africa. And that thus Maniaces, captured at Constantinople, paid the penalties for his treason: and his son, as he had been commanded, immediately, having summoned a great number of Saracens from Africa, handed over to them the rule of Sicily. This opinion, so widely circulated among the Sicilians, has struck such deep roots in the minds of all, that if anyone attempts to uproot it, he will sooner whiten an Ethiopian than lead them from their opinion: especially because they hold it confirmed by the most ancient records of the annals and by the authority of the Chapters of the Kingdom." So Fazellus, who also brings forward much to refute this fable.

[44] It is certain from Cedrenus and other writers that a certain Euphemius, who had extracted from a monastery a virgin dedicated to God from a tender age and had carried her off unwilling to himself, but Euphemius under Michael Balbus in order to avert the punishment decreed against him by the Emperor Balbus, made a conspiracy with other commanders of divisions, and resisted with armed force the Prefect of Sicily who was coming to investigate the case: then, having sent ambassadors to the Emir of Africa, he promised that, provided the Emir declared him Emperor, he would subject all of Sicily to him. The Emir came with strong forces, with which he equipped Euphemius and honored him with the title of Roman Emperor, and by his aid he invaded all of Sicily. And Euphemius indeed soon paid the penalty for his lust and treason; but Sicily fell into the power of the barbarians in 828. in the year of Christ 828, the penultimate year of Balbus, for nearly three centuries.

[45] The fable of the Sicilian populace which Fazellus refutes -- as it pertains to the rebellion of Maniaces and the exportation of the sacred relics, with no mention indeed of Saracens, but nevertheless padded with many absurdities -- is recounted by Peter de Natalibus, book 2, chapter 99. Since many follow him rashly, it is worthwhile to listen and briefly refute. So he writes: Maniaces is also wrongly depicted as sent to Sicily in 1010, "The translation of the body of St. Lucy to the city of Venice was made around the year of our Lord 1040. For while Rogerius, Emperor of Constantinople, around the year of our Lord 1010, was ruling in Romania and Sicily, he sent Maniaces, a prince dear to him and prudent, as his Vicar to Sicily: who, cunningly rebelling against the Emperor, seized Sicily by tyranny. When the Emperor heard this he was grieved, and by the counsel of the Queen he pretended to be sick and then dead: he also had a poor dead man enclosed in a casket and royally buried in his stead: he himself lay hidden for two years, so that he was truly believed by all to be dead. After two years the Queen, through solemn envoys, sought Maniaces for her marriage: who, giving his assent and having arranged the wedding, came solemnly to Constantinople with gifts, and carried with him the bodies of Sts. Agatha and Lucy from Sicily. When he had come to Constantinople, he was killed by the Emperor emerging from hiding, and the kingdom of Sicily was recovered, and the bodies of the virgins were honorably deposited at Constantinople. After this, in the year of our Lord 1040, [and that the body of St. Agatha was recovered when Constantinople was captured by the Latins] when the Venetians together with the Sicilians had taken Constantinople, carrying off the bodies of the two virgins, they agreed among themselves that the Sicilians should have back the body of St. Agatha, and the Venetians should take with them the body of St. Lucy: and this was done."

[46] So Peter. Maurolycus follows him in his Martyrology on January 18: "Likewise the translation of the body of the Blessed Virgin Lucy from Constantinople to the city of Venice, in the year of salvation 1040. in the year 1040, For when Constantinople had been taken, the Sicilians had agreed with the Venetians that, of the relics of the two virgins, which the Emperor Michael had previously carried from Sicily to Byzantium after killing Maniaces, having obtained the body of Agatha, they would yield the other." The same year 1040 is given by Galesin, Ferrari, Canisius, and Felicius as the date the body of St. Lucy was translated from Constantinople to Venice. But the body of St. Agatha, and perhaps some relics of St. Lucy, were carried to Constantinople not before that very year, or at least the preceding one.

[47] But let us examine the narrative of Peter. First, there was no Emperor named Rogerius, either in the West or the East; he was sent after Orestes in the year 1025 unless one counts the fact that Frederick II is called Rogerius by some: but he lived two hundred years later. In the year 1010, Basil, son of Romanus the Younger, grandson of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, was ruling at Constantinople, already in his thirty-fifth year: who then in the year 1025, as Cedrenus writes, planning an expedition to Sicily, sent ahead a certain Orestes, one of his most trusted eunuchs, with large forces: he himself, overtaken by fate, was unable to follow. For in the month of December, Indiction IX... suddenly seized by illness, he died. But in Sicily the protospatharius Orestes, as the same Cedrenus later records, being unskilled in military affairs, when he had undertaken the business incompetently, the Saracens, seizing the opportunity, suddenly attacked the Romans, most of whom had contracted dysentery from luxury, and inflicted no small defeat upon them. and another general, To repair this, the Emperor sent a choice army collected from Greece and Macedonia to Italy: which nevertheless could accomplish nothing distinguished, both defeated, he came there. on account of the incompetence and malice of the general. Maniaces was then sent, as we said above.

[48] But if this man was to be captured by Greek guile, how little politic is the plan devised -- that the Emperor openly pretend to be dead, and indeed for a full two years, and thereby give to the generals in the other provinces of the Empire, who are most inclined to revolution, a handle for seizing power! Finally, it is alleged that when Constantinople was captured by the Latins, the sacred pledge was brought back to its homeland, [and that Constantinople was captured in 1204, the relics having been brought back 78 years earlier. The history of the return, its anniversary commemoration.] and this in the year 1040 -- whereas the Latins did not take possession of that city until 164 years later, in the year of Christ 1204. But at approximately the midpoint of that interval, namely in the year 1126, while John Comnenus, also called Caloioannes, was governing the Greek Empire, the body of St. Agatha was secretly taken from Constantinople and brought back to Catania.

[49] The history of the Translation and the miracles performed in that year were written by Mauritius, whom we mentioned above, the second Bishop of Catania after the expulsion of the Saracens. We received it from Sicily, as published by Pietro Carrera, a part of which Rocco Pirro had previously published in volume 2, Notification 1, of the Church of Catania. The commemoration of that Translation is inscribed in the Martyrologies under the 17th day of August by Francesco Maurolico, Ottavio Gaetano, and Ferrari. The additional miracles which occurred in subsequent years, Miracles that happened later. described by the monk Blandinus, an eyewitness to most of them, and recently published, we shall append.

[50] Many mortals thereafter flocked to Catania to venerate the relics of St. Agatha. Among others, St. Silvester of Troina, whose Life on January 2, number 2, reads thus: "Eager for pilgrimage, with the permission of his Abbot, the Relics visited by St. Silvester the hermit: on the 5th of the Ides of February (perhaps it should read the Nones of February) he came to Catania to venerate the body of the Blessed Virgin and Martyr Agatha. Wherein the following is remarkable: that although Catania is forty thousand paces from Troina, a distance which one could barely cover on horseback in a summer day, Silvester nonetheless, traveling on foot in winter, having gone to Catania and completed his prayers at the virgin's tomb, returned home on the same day." We have little doubt that he is the same person who below, in the narrative of Bishop Mauritius, chapter 5, number 26, is called an Abbot: he certainly came, like the other, from Troina, and with equal speed.

[51] The body of St. Agatha, as the reliable author Sanctorius writes, enclosed in a silver casket, is exposed to view each year amid the great celebration of the feast, how is the head now preserved? what are the hands like? with a very large gathering of the devout flocking there, to draw out tears (...) and piety. The hands are also displayed, still with radiant flesh, long and beautiful, not unbecoming the rest of the body's appearance: likewise also the breasts.

[52] What the appearance of the sacred body and head was about 151 years ago, when James Ramirez, Bishop of Catania, examined it, is recorded in Rocco Pirro's Notification of the Church of Catania by John de Falco of Noto, of the Order of Preachers, in these words: what the head looked like in 1501, when it was visited by the Bishop, "On the 18th day of April, Indiction IV, 1501, a Monday, at the second hour of the night, the Most Reverend James Ramirez de Guzman, Bishop of Catania, together with the Magnificent Alvaro de Paternione, as Patrician... was at the repository of the most blessed virgin and martyr Agatha: and the said our Bishop, wishing to see the head of the said virgin, had opened a certain shutter at the head of the said virgin, and thus they extracted the head placed there;

and they found the head pure and unblemished. Some hairs were of the color of hazelnut, her eyes were closed, her ears dried, her mouth slightly open, her teeth most white, the skin of the face shriveled or dried, the nose was intact and most beautiful: and the head was covered with a certain silken veil, most white, whole and new. O wondrous thing! For it is now many years -- beyond the memory of men -- since such a head was opened, not since the time of the Most Reverend John Pixitelli, Bishop of Catania; which is now sixty years ago or thereabouts. and the rest of the body. And so afterward they looked inside at her body, and the viscera and internal organs, dry and as it were shriveled, giving off every wondrous fragrance and exhaling a divine odor. Thus all who were standing there kissed the head and replaced it in its place: and all departed in wonder, devoutly, and with eyes full of tears," etc. Mention of John Pixitelli will be made below, when we treat of the Etnean fires. The chronological indicators expressed here correspond well to one another: in the year 1501, the Dominical letter being C, Indiction IV, Easter fell on April 11: and so this visitation of the relics was made the day after Low Sunday.

[53] Inveges, part 2, page 228, writes that the hand and foot of St. Agatha are displayed uncovered for the veneration of the people. The hand and foot are displayed separately. Perhaps for this reason, in the verses of Bartholomew Petracci cited above, there is a particular epigram on the Hand of St. Agatha, and another on her Foot.

HISTORY OF THE TRANSLATION OF THE BODY OF ST. AGATHA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR,

from Constantinople to Catania, by Mauritius, Bishop of Catania.

Agatha, Virgin Martyr, at Catania in Sicily (St.)

BHL Number: 0139

By Mauritius, Bishop.

The Absolution of the Lord Mauritius, Bishop of the Catanians.

Mauritius, by name, not by merit, Bishop of the Catanians, together with all his monks, to all Bishops, Abbots, monks, clerics, soldiers, men and women living piously in Christ, greetings.

Mauritius the Bishop invites all to come see the body of St. Agatha, Not wishing to conceal from you the joy that has come to us in the present time, we make it known by this letter, so that your hearts may rejoice together with us. Therefore let your Affection know, dearest Brothers, that the body of the most blessed virgin and martyr Agatha has been brought to its own children, wherefore, on behalf of Almighty God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in the place of the Blessed Apostle Peter, to whom the power of binding and loosing was granted by the Lord, with indulgences granted, of all the sins which they have confessed, to those coming with a right heart to adore her most sacred body, we remit a third part. And if perchance anyone, having set out on the journey, should die by the intervention of death, and shall have confessed his sins, we remit all to him, through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honor and glory forever and ever, Amen.

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

Here begins the Letter of Mauritius, Bishop of Catania, concerning the Translation of St. Agatha the Virgin.

[1] Mauritius, in name but not in merit, Bishop of Catania, to all the children committed to his care, and to all the Brothers throughout Sicily living under the profession of the Christian law, greetings.

We have learned from the proclaimed decree of the divine Scriptures that "it is good to conceal the secret of a king, but honorable to reveal the works of God." Tob. 12:7 And therefore, Most Beloved, by reason of the slothfulness of the human mind, that which the almighty Lord by the gratuitous love of himself, for the common salvation of all, wills to be made manifest, ought by no means to remain hidden: for he himself, remaining immutable in his nature, takes care to heal the mutabilities of the human race, which by diabolical deception is always wounded by the varied and manifold darts of vices, and to make it firm in good. And now by admonishing with the sweet words of holy Scripture, now by deterring with the harshness of his threats, now by soothing with the examples and miracles of his saints, and thus instructing those predestined to eternal life, he makes the evil good, and renders them more ready to praise and glorify him for the benefits bestowed upon them. Thanks must be given for the recovery of the body of St. Agatha. Therefore we too, for the inestimable benefit recently conferred upon us, not through our merits but by his goodness, render devout acts of thanksgiving to him, and in order that you, rejoicing together with us, may do the same, we knock upon your ears with this present letter of our insignificance. For he has restored to us the most holy body of the most blessed virgin and martyr Agatha, the pledge and beloved patronage of all Sicily. In what order, by what agents it was accomplished, and by how many indications of miracles it was manifested, we declare in the page of this writing to all who wish to know, striving for brevity and utterly avoiding circumlocutions. Apology for the simple style: Wherefore we gently admonish all studious readers who have not disdained to read this composition, whatever its quality, not to seek in us elegance of language or adornment of words, but to receive with a simple and truthful mind what has been set forth simply and truthfully, knowing without doubt that God is always to be sought not in philosophical eloquence, but in simplicity and truth.

CHAPTER I

The body of St. Agatha carried away to Constantinople, thence brought back to Italy not without miracles.

[2] As is found in the authentic books of the ancients, when Decius was bringing persecution upon the followers of Christ, the most blessed virgin and martyr Agatha was crowned with martyrdom in the province of Sicily, at the city of Catania, under the Proconsul Quintianus, and buried there she rested for a ^blong time, the Lord working remarkable miracles through her. But after many courses of years, the Christian people, their sins deserving it, Sicily occupied by the Saracens as divine justice chastised them, were handed over in vengeance to the hands of the Barbarians. Who, destroying churches and cities, subjected the entire province all around to their dominion in servile fashion. The ^cEmperor of Constantinople, hearing of this slaughter of the faithful, dispatched to Sicily the Exarch whom he had found most experienced in military affairs, named Maniaces, with an armed force; [Maniaces recovers the island and transfers the relics of St. Agatha to Constantinople.] who, traversing the whole island in a short time, subdued it by fire and sword and received it under his dominion. This Maniaces sent the body of the God-beloved virgin Agatha, together with the bodies of many other saints, to Constantinople, which had formerly been called Byzantium, believing that the Eastern Empire, on the point of falling, could by their prayers and merits be restored to its former strength. Thus, therefore, the body of the most blessed virgin and martyr Agatha was transferred from the city of Catania to Byzantium, and there it was reverently deposited by certain inhabitants of the place, and most devoutly venerated.

[3] But at the will of the Lord, by whose rule all things are governed, it was brought back in the following manner. In the year of his Incarnation one thousand one hundred and twenty-six, Indiction four, with ^dHonorius presiding over the Apostolic See after Calixtus, two Latins were dwelling in the city of Constantinople, she herself appearing to Gislebert in the year 1126, of whom one was called Gislebert, and the other ^eGoselinus; the former was a Frank by birth, the latter a Calabrian. To this Gislebert, who held a military office in the court of the King, as he himself asserted in our presence, the most blessed virgin and martyr Agatha presented herself once, twice, and a third time through a nocturnal vision, and commanded she commands that she be carried back to Catania: that he should secretly take her from the church in which she lay, and carry her back to Catania, where she had been crowned with martyrdom for Christ. Since this vision seems incredible to some, it ought not to be examined by us with the scale of human reason, but reserved for the judgment of God who knows all things. This, however, we can truly affirm: that unless God had willed it, the most blessed virgin would not have returned to us. For the rest, following the law of history, let us pursue the remaining events in order.

[4] Gislebert, therefore, fearing to undertake so great an enterprise alone, he with Goselinus takes the relics summoning his companion Goselinus, bound to him by a pledge of faith, at the quiet hour of the night, together with him placed a ladder and entered the church in which the body of the virgin lay, and finding it, they seized it by a laudable ^ftheft, and reverently placed it in a basket filled on all sides with fragrant roses. Then immediately returning with hasty step to the house of Goselinus, with the treasure divinely assigned to them, and carefully conceals them, they deposited the venerable head of the virgin in two bowls, with as much honor as they could. The remaining limbs, lest they be detected by any indication, they brought in two quivers, which are commonly called ^gTurcasiae.

[5] Meanwhile, as the report of so great a matter immediately spread all around, it flew on the wings of popular excitement to the very ears of the ^hEmperor, and passing through the guards of the Emperor saying that a sad omen had befallen him and his empire, namely that the body of Agatha had been lost. Without delay, dispatching runners everywhere, throughout the entire city and along the shores of the neighboring sea, royal edicts are proclaimed, forbidding anyone to depart from the city without being questioned. But what avails human vigilance against the design of Divine providence? "There is no wisdom, no counsel against the Lord," Prov. 21:30 says the most wise Solomon. For the aforesaid men, with no one troubling them or questioning them about this deed, departed from the royal city under the Lord's protection, he sails to Smyrna: went to the seaport, and there, having boarded a ship with a favorable wind, they arrived by swift ⁱrowing all the way to Smyrna.

[6] Remaining in this place for four days, and there he reassures his companion, troubled by the earthquake, while they were arranging to pack the quivers more carefully, where they had concealed the holy relics, they were suddenly terrified by a severe earthquake and shaken by the unexpected terror. Gislebert, however, being wiser and more confident than Goselinus, comforting his companion with manifold consolation lest he tremble, said that the divine presence was with them, and that they should not be terrified by any occurrence whatsoever, or desist from their undertaking, since the Lady of such and so great power was strengthening them with the protection of her company. Immediately, [k]matching deeds to words, and sails to Corinth: they boarded a ship, having made an agreement to sail to Corinth, and plowing the peaceful seas as they wished, they arrived, with the Lord prospering them, at the desired port of the aforesaid city. Thus the prohibition of an earthly king availed nothing, against whom the power of the heavenly Emperor stood; no powerful aid was lacking.

Who, O Christ God, can worthily recount your wonders, Which with gracious divine will you bestow on undeserving servants? What tongue, or genius, what perception at last Can render you fitting thanks even for an hour? The tongue is silent, genius trembles, every sense is stunned, When they wish to speak your marvels and confess your gifts.

[7] Having arrived at Corinth, therefore, as we said, they stayed there for four days, more from necessity than from choice, hoping to find a ship by which they could reach Sicily. But when their desire lacked fulfillment, after the fatigues of the daytime, while they were sunk in nocturnal sleep, as he later related, warned by the saint in a dream, to the above-named Gislebert there appeared the image of the most blessed virgin of wondrous beauty, with loosened hair, and complaining at great length about his delay, she admonished him to set sail with his companion accompanying him: and at the same time she showed him in the vision a ship which, already raising anchor, was hastening to direct its course. He, immediately waking up and thence hastening, having scorned his harmful slowness, according to the saying:

"Away with delay; procrastination has always harmed the prepared;" he sets sail at night

he came to the port, where in all respects having obtained his desire and long-standing wish, having paid the customary fare, he boarded the ship, and with no danger hindering either himself or the sailors, through the intercession of the virgin, and comes to Methone: together with Goselinus, his companion in labor and counsel, he landed at the shore of ^lMethone.

[8] From there, having joined company with certain merchants, happily crossing the Adriatic Sea, by the will of the Most High, they arrived safe at the shore of Taranto: thence to Taranto; landing there, they approached the city of Taranto, and there, having celebrated Mass over the relics of the glorious virgin, where they accidentally leave behind the breast of the saint: and having taken food, they returned to the shore, where, having secretly removed the limbs from the quivers for the purpose of better repositioning, it happened by a divine miracle that, while replacing the glorious relics of the glorious virgin, believing they had already replaced it, they left outside the glorious breast, near a certain spring. To which a certain widow, of praiseworthy reputation and adorned with honest character, came with a small daughter whom she was still nursing with milk, for the purpose of washing cloths: and when she had washed the cloths, overcome by sleep, she fell deeply asleep. The little girl, however, from it the infant suckles milk: seeking by natural instinct to be nourished, was looking for her mother's breasts to suckle milk, as was her custom, and crawling on hands and feet here and there, she came by divine miracle to the glorious breast, and placing it in her mouth she began to suckle it, from which milk of wondrous sweetness was flowing.

[9] While the girl was suckling with such great delight, the glorious virgin appeared to the mother, saying: "Rise and go, for your daughter holds my breast in her mouth." whose mother, warned by the saint, reveals the matter to the Bishop: She, arising, came to her daughter, and saw her holding that breast in her mouth, just as she had seen in her dream. Leaving it there, she ran in haste to the Bishop of the city and explained everything in order. When this was learned by the Bishop, he convoked all the clergy of the city and gathered the people together, and they came in procession to the place where the girl had been left. All came together, wishing to extract the aforesaid breast from the girl's mouth, but they were able to extract it neither by coaxing nor by force. Then the Bishop ordered the little girl does not allow the breast to be taken from her. that all the priests should make their confession with devotion and reverence, and each one individually should approach the girl, in case there might be among them someone of praiseworthy reputation and life, to whom the aforesaid breast would be divinely granted. When this too had been done, they still could by no means obtain the aforesaid breast.

[10] Then a certain priest of good life and composed in honest character said to the Bishop: "Let a procession be made to the church of St. Cataldus." Then at the Bishop's command the said procession was made. While they were singing the Litanies afterward in the procession she willingly hands it to a priest, and came to the Blessed Virgin Agatha, singing "ST. AGATHA, PRAY FOR US," the girl, whom the priest was carrying in his arms, cast the breast from her mouth into the priest's lap, and the priest, holding it, reverently consigned it to the Bishop, and thus they perceived that it was the breast of the glorious virgin Agatha.

Then that priest, with the Bishop's permission, had his own house converted into a church in honor of the virgin Agatha, he consecrates his house to the saint. and there, serving under the monastic habit, he most holily ended his life.

f. The same: "deed."

CHAPTER II

The body of St. Agatha brought to Catania. Miracles performed on that day.

[11] We have now narrated these things so that the immense miracles with which the supreme Clemency honored his virgin might be clear. Let us therefore return to the sequence of the narrative. After the limbs of the glorious virgin had been replaced in the quivers, the said Gislebert and Goselinus, departing thence by ship, shortly arrived in Sicily. ^aBut before we pursue the rest, Gislebert brings the remaining relics to Messina; let us say something about the location of the place from what our elders have related. Sicily, named after Siculus the son of Hercules, is described as being one of the provinces of Italy, from which it is separated by a very narrow strait, but one of dangerous discord, and extends to the right and left with three promontories: Pelorus, Pachynus, and Lilybaeum. That strait by which, as we said, it is separated from Italy has Charybdis and Scylla, which is fabulously said to be girded with dogs and to bark at the shipwrecks of navigators. Adjacent to it is Messina, a city distinguished in its buildings, most opulent in resources, which by the dignity of its location rightly stands as the capital of the whole province. To this city the aforesaid men, bearers of the relics of the most blessed virgin Agatha, came at the completion of their voyage, and remaining there now in safety, they rested for three days.

[12] Gislebert, however, desiring to fulfill what he had conceived in his mind, having received wholesome counsel, left his companion at Messina, having no distrust of his loyalty, with the body of the God-dedicated virgin in a certain house, and commends them to his companion. and hastened to Catania. But I, Mauritius, who unworthily hold the episcopal office of that same city, was at that time residing in a certain castle of our Church, which is called ^bAci; he hurries to the Bishop of Catania: when the same man arrived there, he declared that he wished to speak to me in secret: and after a preliminary greeting, with all others withdrawn, he spoke alone with me alone, and after he perceived that I desired with my whole effort and my whole heart's affection the relics of the most blessed body, and that, following the example of that Gospel merchant who, finding a precious pearl, sold all things and purchased it; I was most ready to give all things committed to me, as place and time allowed, for so great a treasure -- he revealed Matt. 13:46 the events to me in ^csequence. And he devoutly requested that I should arrange to send with him two of our Brothers for the conveyance of the holy relics.

[13] Judging it not inappropriate, therefore, what he had said, I dispatched with him to Messina as quickly as possible two most reverend monks, Holdomanus and Lucas, whom I deemed fit for the faithful execution of so great a commission, who bring them to Aci through two monks so that they might convey with due honor so great a treasure, given to us by divine generosity. They, fulfilling their orders without sloth, brought the most holy body with all speed: which I, joyful at the sight beyond all who were with me, prostrate on the ground, humbly adored God. he venerates them: Then I reverently extracted the relics from the quivers, and immediately a wondrous sweetness of fragrance emanated, so that, according to [d]that Gospel saying, the whole house was filled with a most delightful nectar. After these had been deposited with diligent care in a new casket, worthy of so great a thing, in that same castle, I joyfully hastened to Catania, and with all the ^eBrothers gathered together, I communicated what had been done. They, praising God, the author of all goodness, decreed together with me by common resolution to go humbly and joyfully to meet our same Lady, and to carry her back with hymns and praises to the city where, having overcome the enemy, she had won the palm of both martyrdom and virginity.

[14] On the appointed day, therefore, namely the sixteenth of the Kalends of September, certain of our Brothers carried her honorably from the castle which we mentioned. then translated to Catania on August 17. We indeed went out to meet her, wholesomely mixing a token of humility with solemn joy, proceeding with bare feet and in white garments. For this unusual and altogether remarkable spectacle, there was a great gathering of people of both sexes, of diverse condition, age, and faith, so that they impeded us in going and returning, and greatly hemmed themselves in by their own crowding: where a certain thing happened altogether most worthy of telling, and to be proclaimed in praise of the most blessed virgin. From the aforesaid castle all the way to Catania, over a distance of thirty-eight stadia of rocky road, [f]two little boys carried lighted candles before the relics of the holy body, the candles which the little boys carried for 38 stadia were not extinguished. which lost their light neither by the blast of the winds nor by the levity characteristic of ^gboys, but always maintained the most brilliant flame. With such dignity, therefore, and such triumph, she wished to return to the basilica of her city, which almighty God had bestowed upon her by perpetual right of privilege, where, placed in the fitting location, she demonstrates on all sides by mighty miracles how great her power and glory are before Christ.

[15] ^hOn that same day, as evening was already approaching, a certain young woman, said to have been blind from birth, at the holy relics a blind and disabled woman is healed, disabled in both hand and foot, came before the holy body to seek healing, and faithfully worshipped, and, with us and many others watching, she received her sight, and by the intercession of the virgin she obtained the soundness of both members.

[16] Another woman also, a native of Cosenza, had been tormented by a cruel demon for a very long time, and coming before the blessed body, a woman possessed by a demon, she testified by hissing and howling how monstrous a guest held her dwelling. The most beloved virgin was present for her too, and both drove out the demon and restored her to her former health: and while the bystanders noticed her to be well and imprinting upon herself the sign of the life-giving Cross, and were also sounding forth songs of praise to God, the Brothers who had been resting in their beds, immediately roused by the sonority of voices, arose, and joining the people, began to sing the TE DEUM LAUDAMUS, with bells ringing.

[17] While the jubilation of this miracle was still resounding on the lips of those singing, a certain woman, poor in possessions but richest in faith, presented her son, mute from birth, to the most blessed virgin Agatha with tears and prayers. a mute boy, The blessed virgin conferred upon him a new faculty of speech, hitherto unused, and gladdening the mother with her son's health, she calmed her from her prolonged grief. At the sight of these things the cry of the people was raised more and more, praising God and blessing his name.

[18] Yet the most sacred virgin did not cease from the compassion she had begun: for a certain girl, deprived of her sight for five years, began to cry out: "I give thanks to God, since I was deprived of my eyes, and now I see most clearly." After the remarkable proclamation of so many and such great miracles had been accomplished, the Brothers celebrated the vigils of Matins in the customary manner, and thus with immense joy they returned to their beds.

b. Pirro: Iatium.

CHAPTER III

The gathering at the body of St. Agatha. Certain persons protected and healed on the journey.

[19] As we wish to narrate in order the other miracles that have been performed through her, lest anyone doubt, we set forth the Lord, the lover of truth, as our witness and judge, The Author attests that he reports these things faithfully. by whose attestation let it be believed that we say nothing alien to the path of truth in the manner of flatterers, but rather that we pass over very many things lest prolixity breed disgust. For what seems more unjust in this matter than to paint over the praise of those who always pleased truth by faith and works, with any cosmetics of falsehood? For if they had wished, while they lived, to be covered over with lies, they would by no means have arrived after death at the fellowship of truth. But far be it from the minds of the faithful, who believe they will render an account even of idle words on the day of the future examination, to proclaim anything fabricated by foolish rashness, as if for the commendation of the saints. Therefore, having necessarily touched on these preliminary matters, let us invoke the same Lord to be present as the guide of our intention, and being content with the sole reward of future recompense, and making light of verbal elegance, let us set forth in common speech the remaining things that are left.

[20] A certain matron, joined in marriage to the Steward of the Bishop of Syracuse, long possessed by a fierce demon, came to the Friend of God, a woman possessed by a demon is freed. that she might deserve to be freed from the infestation of her enemy by her prayers: nor was she disappointed in her petition; for she was freed from the demon's invasion, and having received communion of the Lord's Body, she openly showed to us and to all who were present the signs of her salvation. Her husband, congratulating her on her health, not forgetful of the favor granted through the virgin of goodness, came with his wife to render thanks to her, offered a gift, and returned to his home, blessing God.

[21] The fame of this goodness, Soon flying through the cities And resounding, summons Both distant and nearby; Admonishing all that they ought To visit God's saint, And to seek from her Whatever they might need: Plainly persuading the sick To seek their health, And the healthy To beg pardon for their sins. These, ignorant of sluggish delay a great gathering comes to the sacred relics: In this cause, And conscious that the weight Of sin pressed heavily upon them, Frequented the hall of the holy virgin With equal devotion, And begged that the guilt Of their crime be forgiven them. To whom the most sacred virgin Inclined her ears, And helped them with Most merciful aid, Healing some of every Bodily sickness, Loosing others from the knotted Bonds of Satan.

[22] Not long after, the same virgin, our Lady, solicitous for our peace, visited in a dream at night a certain one of the Magnates of this land, distinguished for his riches and highest nobility, named Henry, a certain man, twice warned by the saint, comes there, addressing him with a sweet voice to hasten as quickly as possible to visit her. He, immediately awakened, while he sat hesitating in his bed, did not wish to indicate to his inquiring wife what this was, but weighed down by the heaviness of sleep, he gave his limbs once more to rest. The holy virgin appeared to him again, urging the same things. Then that man, being of keen understanding, recognizing the will of God, revealed to his wife what he had seen, and came to the church of the virgin. and is reconciled with the clergy of Catania: He, paying the debts of his vows, became a friend to the Brothers of Catania, whom he had long held in hatred for certain reasons: and thus, with a great gain of spiritual profits, he returned to his own house. Would that it might so happen to those who harass that house, and perhaps it will; for as the poet says:

"A welcome hour shall come, which was not hoped for."

[23] But to tame the madness of those who shamelessly open their mouths against the saints, we wish to recount things worthy of remembrance, so that whoever hears them may tremble, and may show fitting honor to the saints whom almighty God honors. A certain woman was dwelling in the city of Messina, in whose house the bearers of the most blessed virgin Agatha, whom we mentioned above, had received a certain lodging. When her neighbors said to her in a friendly manner: "Come, do not be slow to hasten to the house of the most blessed virgin and martyr Agatha, a blasphemer is made deaf, so that, just as she deigned to enter your house, she may deign to implore divine mercy on your behalf"; the woman, puffed up with pride, said she would not go. But a severe punishment immediately followed her rash words: for her ear, which had despised to obey the most salutary admonitions, tortured with great pain, was most justly punished with deafness. And since "it is hard to kick against the goad," compelled by necessity, she came to Catania, and before the most merciful virgin began to confess her fault with tears, she is healed at Catania: and the most merciful virgin assented to her prayers, and having healed her pain, restored to her the former sense of hearing.

Then the woman, crying out, said: "I will always render thanks to you, O blessed virgin, for, struck with a salutary blow, I perceived your swift healing through compassion. Let all who see your wonders proclaim with me: In you let God be praised, in you let him be glorified."

Afterward, thus chastened, she returned to her home, recounting to all the mighty works of God, who strikes and heals.

[24] In the following time, another miracle was wrought through the most blessed virgin, with the Lord's cooperation. A certain carpenter named Michael had been paralyzed for two years, to such an extent that he could not raise himself without the help of another. a paralytic is healed on the very journey; He, hearing the fame of the miracles wrought through the relics of the holy virgin, came seated on a donkey to the above-named city, seeking aid. Approaching that river which is two miles distant from the city, he asked the passersby to take him down from the animal on which he was being carried. When they had set him down, with the firmness of his swollen and paralyzed limbs restored (wondrous to tell), with no one assisting him, he crossed the river and arrived at Catania walking on his own feet. Presenting himself to all and giving thanks to God and his handmaid, he faithfully related the course of his healing, and it was made clear by many witnesses that he had suffered from ill health for so long a period of time, and had merited the fullest restoration of health through St. Agatha, in the manner that has been described. On this account once again, amid the rejoicing of the clergy and the jubilation of the people, the bells ring out.

And all pour forth songs of praise to the Lord, Though if there were a hundred tongues and a hundred mouths, And a single voice could then produce a hundred sounds at once, It could not tell the wonders of her signs.

For who could enumerate the multitude of the disabled suffering from various infirmities, and many other sick persons: of whom very many are healed by the Lord's granting; while others, by his hidden but always just judgment, are left in their ailments? For it is not for humans to inquire why health is given to these and incurable illness to those: but blessed is he who is corrected by the Lord.

[25] We know from sacred Scripture that those who act wickedly are most justly scourged by the Lord in two ways: that is, either so that they themselves may cease from sinning, crushed by the fear of punishments, or so that others may fear to perpetrate similar deeds, admonished by their example. For which reason, we ought not to pass over in silence the wickedness of a certain pimp and the very swift vengeance by which he was punished, so that his like may hear and may tremble with fear of becoming his imitators: for as Solomon says: "He who walks with integrity walks securely; but he who perverts his ways goes openly astray." Prov. 10:9 A man attempting violence against a woman on her way there is made mute. Among the innumerable multitude of people who were flocking from all sides to the body of the most blessed virgin, it happened that a certain little woman was coming for the purpose of prayer, and while she stepped aside from the road briefly for the necessities of nature, and her companions went on a little ahead, a certain pimp came along and was trying with lustful words to persuade her to join him in sin. But the woman, trembling and stubbornly fearing so wicked a deed, said: "Far be it, brother, far be it; I will not defile myself with such a crime; for I wish to hasten to the house of the holy virgin Agatha, our Lady, and therefore I cannot so wickedly offend her. And do you too cast from yourself this plague of diabolical persuasion, lest you incur the wrath of the most holy virgin, and immediately perish by a bad death." But the pimp, utterly deaf to these words, was trying to force the woman: and to her, as she resisted and contradicted with all her strength, she came to her aid whose hall she was approaching, who freed her little servant by wondrous power, and terribly restraining him, deprived him of the faculty of speech. And lest this seem incredible to anyone, there are very many most faithful witnesses who truthfully declare that they saw these things with their own eyes. But we, recording this fearful prodigy for the restraining of the lustful and wanton, let us return to the things we began to relate.

CHAPTER IV

The sick and those possessed by demons healed by St. Agatha.

[26] Sometimes almighty God, whose judgments are a great abyss, permits certain of his servants to be afflicted with illness for a time by his wondrous dispensation, so that if there be anything superfluous in them, it may be cut away by the constraint of pain, and they may serve him more devoutly, the more cleanly they approach him, chastised by paternal blows. For as the vessel of election, the blessed Apostle, says: "Whom the Lord loves, he corrects and chastises; and he scourges every son whom he receives." Heb. 12:6 Therefore the just man ought to rejoice in punishments, and the impious to tremble in his prosperity. In this life God very often spares the impious and does not spare the elect. In the future life, however, he spares the just perpetually and will never spare the wicked. It is therefore very necessary that the just man be chastised with the Lord's blows in this world, lest he be vainly puffed up by his good deeds and lose the fruit of the eternal reward. This we shall show better if we relate, for her glory, the sudden affliction of a certain Brother and his very swift healing through the glorious virgin and martyr Agatha. A certain Greek Abbot, a very venerable man, having learned of the return of the most blessed virgin, and having also heard of the wonders which the Lord was performing through her, was coming from the city of Troina in Sicily to Catania with seven monks: some of whom rode, some walked on their own feet. Among them was a certain novice, named Abbas, who was hastening quickly by running to the house of the holy virgin, but he was struck by a sudden swelling and an extreme pain in his right leg, and could not move from his place. He did not know what to do or where to turn. The Abbot, however, sympathizing with the Brother's pain, ordered him to hasten, as best he could, to a cell a monk stricken with illness on the journey, which was not far off, and there to await his coming and return, so that they might go back together to their dwelling. When the Abbot had departed with the monks, that sick monk, lying on the ground, fell asleep in the middle of the road. he is healed by St. Agatha appearing to him. The most blessed virgin appearing to him in a vision said: "What ails you, Brother?" And he: "I wished, my Lady, to come eagerly to the presence of the most blessed virgin Agatha, but intercepted by my sins I was struck with the languor of a sudden illness; and therefore I remained here on the road, deprived of all comfort." Then she said: "Rise, Brother, and follow me, for I am Agatha, with desire for whom you are wearying yourself, that you may come to the sight of her body." The monk, aroused by so great and such a honey-sweet vision, found himself indeed healed, but could not see with his bodily eyes the virgin with whom he had spoken. And while he thought he was heading for the cell in which he had been ordered to stay, in a manner astonishing enough and worthy of admiration, and outruns his companions: he unwittingly outran the Abbot and monks who had already gone ahead, and, as if he were flying through that whole stretch of road, he found himself not far from the walls of the above-mentioned city. The Abbot, recognizing him and seeing that he had preceded them with such great speed, being ignorant of the matter, inquired more carefully how and from where he had come. And he, by no means ungrateful for his recovery, narrated in order all that the holy virgin had done and said for him. Then the Abbot and the monks, with equal will and joy, praising God with great voices, entered the city, and venerating the most holy body with the offering of their praise, they obtained their desire, as they had wished. This accomplished, they returned rejoicing to their monastery. This is indeed what we said above: that those who are scourged in the present while serving the Lord are so scourged for their own benefit or that of others, and by that salutary scourging they are advanced from good to better. Let no one, when he sees persons possessed, tormented by unclean spirits, shrink from them as though abandoned by the Lord, but he should sympathize with human misery, which very often complies with the Divine commands not voluntarily but under compulsion, so that by this, according to the Apostle's saying, a man may sometimes be "delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord." 1 Cor. 5:5 Therefore whenever we see any given over to the devil in their body, let us believe that this is done by God the just judge for one of two reasons: namely, either for temporal bodily chastisement, or for perpetual damnation; but whatever loss this may be to them, let it be a lesson to us in the fear of the Lord.

[27] Having prefaced those things for the sake of admonition, let us now set forth in the following style the healing of a certain demoniac. A certain man of Greek birth, named Spichius, was dwelling in the castle called Geraci, under the monastic profession in the oratory of St. Stephen the Protomartyr. He had been tormented by a most wicked demon for the course of ten years, and when it seized him, it held him for the space of seven hours; his mother, named Anna, learning from rumors echoing here and there, that almighty God had already freed many who labored under the infestations of malignant spirits through the merit of the most holy virgin, accompanied her son to the house of that same most sacred virgin, that she might graciously bestow health upon him, and she prayed to her with groans, tears, [many demoniacs are freed: a certain man brought by his mother, who vows to become a nun if he is healed, after many visions in sleep,] and words. She also vowed to the Lord that if she healed her son, she would leave the world and serve him perpetually under the monastic habit. The holy virgin, mercifully taking pity on the wretched wretchedness, embraced the faith of the mother pleading on behalf of her son, and bestowed the help which had been asked; for when both had given their limbs, wearied by long labor, to sleep, the possessed man seemed to see a most brilliant star come forth from the bowls where the holy head was kept, and gently settle upon his own head. He, arising immediately, let out a most horrifying cry, so that all who were present were terrified. Subsequently, the most blessed virgin and martyr appeared to the same man, and asked whether he wished to be healed. When he immediately replied: "I do, my Lady, and for that reason I have fled with devotion to you," she, striking the demoniac with a slap, most powerfully commanded the demon to go out from him. and freed by a slap received from the saint: Which, departing from him, thenceforth left him entirely unharmed, and rising up healed he told the bystanders that he had seen a serpent of wondrous size, dead, fall from his own mouth. His mother rendered what she had vowed, and when three days were finished she returned with her son, rejoicing and blessing the Most High, to her own home.

CHAPTER V

Other miracles of St. Agatha. Epilogue of the History.

[28] Not only did the most celebrated virgin confer benefits upon those present, but very often also upon those absent, after various anxieties had been dispelled, even those absent are healed: so that it might be shown that the angelic inscription is altogether most true: A holy mind, spontaneous, an honor to God, and the liberation of the fatherland. Therefore, not much time after the events we have written about, a certain Christian and God-fearing woman of Messina joined company with some sailors who were sailing to Catania for the purpose of prayer. Although she was pregnant, and yet lacked the sight of one eye a woman blind in one eye, deaf in one ear, and pregnant and the hearing of one ear, she undertook this laborious journey so that she might deserve to be restored to her former health through the God-dedicated virgin and martyr Agatha. But wearied by the tossing of the sea and the stench of the bilge, from which very many are accustomed to be nauseated, the frail woman, with her bowels nearly burst by most frequent retching, began to vomit blood, and was so distressed that her companions thought she had utterly breathed out the breath of life. a woman on a voyage seeming to expire, And when she was shaken by them repeatedly and seemed to show more signs of death than of life, they decided to turn aside to shore, so that the dead body might be given burial, as humanity requires. But not finding a suitable place for the better fulfillment of such an office, they wished to cast the body into the sea. For this is the burial that the utmost necessity of death in such circumstances compels one to give. A certain soldier, however, was being carried in the same boat, who forbade this from being done with quite reasonable and modest speech, saying that it seemed to him that she, whether dead or alive, ought most justly to be conveyed by them to that place where she had vowed to hasten. And at the same time, covering her with the others, he awaited the outcome of the matter. After an interval of four hours, that woman, who had been lying thus lifeless, yawned, opened her eyes, and to the astonishment and joy of all, showed that she was truly alive, and addressing the sailors, she began solicitously to inquire but caught up in ecstasy, who had placed her in that vessel. When they, on the contrary, said: "You yourself, not by the feet of others but by your own, entered here," the woman, coming to herself, said thus: "I know for certain that I was caught up out of my body, and was outside the walls of a certain city in a certain basilica, where there was a multitude of those in white garments, who were singing a song of the sweetest melody to a certain virgin of extraordinary beauty, and they called her by her own name, St. Agatha; she sees St. Agatha and other heavenly beings, and when she asked me what I was seeking, I replied that I had come to her aid, so that through her I might deserve to obtain the long-desired health. And she, blessing me with the sign of the Cross with her right hand, said: 'Go in peace, for what you faithfully asked, you have obtained; but hasten to my house, for there I will fulfill what I have promised you.'" The sailors, encouraged by these words, with the swiftest course together with the woman arrived at Catania: she is healed at Catania: and while she rested, having been restored to health before the most merciful virgin, at the sounding of the beginning of the nocturnal office, by her intercession she obtained at the same time both her sight and her hearing, and moved all who were seeing these things

"To extol with immense praises the deeds of the Thunderer."

[29] On the same day on which these things had been done at Catania, a certain old man named John, who had been blind for two years, was coming from Messina to the above-mentioned city. When he had reached the place a blind man on the road receives the sight of one eye, which is called by the name of the Three Monasteries, with only one small dog accompanying him, not by chance but by divine decree, as we believe, the dog, contrary to its usual manner, running away, abandoned the old man, who was ignorant of the road and deprived of all comfort. The old man, however, moistening his face abundantly with tears, besought help from God. Through the prayer of the virgin St. Agatha, he restored the sight of one eye to him, and she herself, with a voice descended from on high, admonished him to pursue his begun journey to visit her relics. He obeyed, and when he came to the refuge of the most holy virgin, he prayed, at Catania the other, and received the perfect clarity of both eyes, as had been promised to him from heaven. Then, admonished in a nocturnal vision by the same saint, and sees the saint in a dream. he became a preacher of his own healing, making known to all by voice and mouth alike that he had obtained divine mercy through St. Agatha.

[30] Let this suffice for now concerning the miracles of the most holy virgin Agatha. Epilogue. For the rest, we exhort our readers that if they find anything unseemly or superfluous in this discourse, they attribute it to our weakness; but if anything suitable and useful, they commit it to God, the giver of all good things. Having thus unfolded these miracles, let us make an end, and recite these verses also in praise of the most blessed virgin.

Let us rejoice, Brothers, and glorify Christ, By whose gift we have the gift of such great things. Who restored to us the venerable body of St. Agatha, Nay, gave it, to be loved more than the things of the world. To which nothing earthly can rightly be compared, Whom God willed to be blessed without end in heaven. Seated upon that throne, joined to the King of the heavens, She knocks and prays to him, raising up the falls of her own. Once she left us and sought the kingdoms of the East, But, taking pity on her own, she has now returned to her own dwelling. You did not guard well so great a treasure, O Greece, Which had heaped up strength and the imperial throne. It was not of your right, but finally of ours, Taken by theft -- a theft without guilt in the thief. What lofty seat she holds before Christ, The ever-mighty and most celebrated blessed virgin, The wonders that are wrought through her everywhere show, Through which very many are saved from the wrath of Satan. She restores sight to the blind and grants speech to the mute, And procures whatever healing for the sick. If you who doubt will believe, you shall see these signs, And having seen them, you too will not be able to keep silent. O happy city of Catania, rejoice and be glad, Neither dire famine nor the fierce sword shall overwhelm you. You, monastic Order, mindful of your own Order, rejoice, Driving away sorrows, applaud for so great a virgin. And you, O Cleric, sing a joyful song to the Redeemer, Calling all with you to divine undertakings. And you, O people, reborn from the sacred font of Baptism, Leave behind your old ways and be renewed. The new King carries to the heights those who are duly renewed, And thrusts into Hell those who grow old in filth. The white garment welcomes his guests, A witness of the King's friendship and of faith in all things. He who lacks that garment, bound hand and foot, Cast into darkness, shall pay the penalties of wickedness. Praise be... perpetual through all ages to the Almighty, Who by the prayers of the virgin brings so many favorable gifts. To whom alike we shall dedicate our minds and bodies, Whose dear gift we have by his generosity. May the virgin ever commend us to the same, Who does not change, but remains one and the same.

MIRACLES OF ST. AGATHA

described by the monk Blandinus.

Agatha, Virgin Martyr, at Catania in Sicily (St.)

BHL Number: 0140

By the monk Blandinus, Author.

CHAPTER I

Catania preserved by the aid of St. Agatha. Sick persons healed, especially those possessed by demons.

[1] As the fame of the most excellent virgin and martyr Agatha was traveling through very many regions of the world, people hastened eagerly from all sides to the place where her venerable shrine is kept, for various reasons; Great gatherings come to the body of St. Agatha. for some sought healing of body, others protection for themselves and their own, still others the pardon of their misdeeds: but though the last may seem to have been least heard, we believe they were no less heard, if they asked faithfully -- indeed more so, because the more worthily they ask, the more quickly they obtain. For the former ask for a health that will again falter; the latter ask for what has no end. For it is a greater thing to fit by the prayers of the elect what is worthy to a worthy life, than to recall a dying person from death to the present life. We have no doubt that this holy martyr has done both.

[2] When the year had turned, a few days before the reception of the glorious virgin, pirates arriving from Spain occupied the island of Sicily. Having committed very many evils, Catania preserved through her in the year 1127, they cheerfully approached Catania, intending to seize it from the Christians by fraud: but the fraud, through the merits of the most holy one, did not remain unknown to the followers of Christ. And although they could by no means resist so great a multitude, they nevertheless showed themselves ready and agile for battle: seeing which, the people hateful to God, terrified by divine fear, withdrew to a distance. On the same day, they entered battle with the Syracusans, after Syracuse had been plundered. captured the city, butchered some, slew others, and led others away with them, leaving nothing behind except the walls, which they could not carry with them. That they thus passed by Catania is ascribed to the glory of her who is the liberation of her homeland.

[3] When the day of the holy solemnity had drawn near, an innumerable people came from all sides: among whom a certain matron, known to nearly all of us, so to speak, who had completely lost the function of both ears, was present. a deaf woman healed at Catania: Devoting herself to prayer at night, she began to doze a little: the Intercessor appeared, in female attire quite beautifully adorned, surrounded by light-bearing companies, putting earrings into the unfortunate ears, and immediately vanished. She, however, rising up, marveled at the voices of men. After she fully recognized that she had been healed, she cried out and moved all who were present to praise almighty God. another blind woman. Another woman, therefore, deprived of sight, was on the same night, with the darkness dispelled, wholly restored to light.

[4] In the course of the fifth year since the body of the most sacred virgin and martyr Agatha was brought back from Constantinople to Catania, a demoniac brought to Catania in the year 1132, it happened that a certain Syracusan woman named Bonamfilia, possessed by a cruel demon for nine years, was freed by God's design in the following manner. When very many crowds of Christians were flocking together for the feast of the Translation of the sacred virgin, the aforesaid woman, bereft of mind and health, arrived among the rest, led by her husband named Peter, a Pisan by birth. When she had drawn near to the sacred basilica, the wicked possessor began to torment her more violently than usual and to afflict her with more atrocious punishments. When she entered the basilica and approached the sacred relics, the same cruel agitator, loosening the reins of his malice, she is dreadfully tormented by the demon, began to rage against her with all his strength, and, as if rending the possession of another's right which he already sensed was about to be snatched from him, nearly tearing her apart with the loosened joints of all her limbs: and while she thundered with the grinding of teeth and the most piercing cries to such a degree that she surpassed the sounds of the organs, which were then resounding for the sake of the solemnity, and the voices of those singing psalms in the choir, like thunder preceded by the greatest flash of lightning, she so disturbed the whole church that no one could rest or pray, except that her most vehement outcry was providing material for prayer to all those who were piously seeking God. What more? That entire night and no small part of the following day having been spent in such calamities, the hour arrived at which it was fitting to celebrate the sacred solemnities of the Mass. When the procession had been arranged, and the priests who were carrying the sacred bier on their shoulders had come before the demoniac, the unclean demon was so disturbed by the presence of the holy relics that you would have seen the sick woman writhing in the manner of a serpent, especially near the bier of the saint, and tormented much more than usual, and by the pitiful movement of her members truly confessing that there is no fellowship of Christ with Belial, nor any part for the faithful with the faithless. When the holy Gospel had been read through, after an exorcism address had been given to the people, as ecclesiastical custom requires, all were admonished to pray to God for the most Christian Emperor, for Kings, and for those who are placed in high position, and especially for that wretched and pitiable creature of God who was being cruelly tormented in the present case, that God, who can do all things, by the prayers and merits of the holy virgin and martyr Agatha, might work salvation for her. Then all, but when all pray for her, who had previously been silent, moved by fraternal piety, from many hearts made one commonwealth, and as if in communication against the unclean inhabitant, raising tearful sobs and heartfelt prayers to the throne of the Judge. Presently prayer is made in common, heaven is struck with prayers, the name of the sacred virgin Agatha is repeated by all. What more?

While the flame of charity thus burns, Forming pious prayers of unity, It strikes the ears... of the Deity, Soon bringing back the gifts of piety.

For while the venerable Bishop Mauritius, who at that time adorned the episcopate with an innocent life, was solemnly intoning the Preface of the Mass, by the sudden will of God, she is freed, nearly lifeless. the inhabitant having been put to flight and the creature of God cleansed, she lay there, having been rendered nearly lifeless, so that you would have thought of that boy in the Gospel, who was more tormented when the demon departed than when he had first been possessed by it. Mark 9 Seeing this, some of the faint-hearted began to tremble and, though in vain, to fear greatly lest perhaps with the unclean spirit her own breath might be exhaled. But when, having recovered her breathing, she showed signs of her salvation, by giving thanks to God and the holy virgin, and by pursuing the beginning of the confession of her sins, all were certain, and rejoicing together at their sister's salvation, they turned the tears of sorrow into joy and burst forth in praises of the giver of all good things.

[5] another demoniac freed in the year 1132, In the following year, likewise the sixth anniversary of the Translation, another poor woman, it is reported, was freed from a demon. While amid the sacred proclamations of dazzling miracles, the fame of the most blessed virgin Agatha was being raised to the most celebrated heights, and she was being venerated not only by the peoples of Sicily but also by the inhabitants of foreign provinces, with quite fitting devotion, in the church in the city of the Catanians, which was built to the honor of God and the same virgin, many benefits were bestowed there upon those who asked, by divine generosity and mercy: for to the lame, the restoration of walking; to demoniacs, to the disabled, and to those laboring under various illnesses, health was repaid by the Lord through her pious prayers. many other miracles performed. The author narrates what he has seen. But since prolixity of discourse generates ugliness and distaste in listeners, we have therefore striven for brevity and simplicity of words. And we have provided to posterity a clarification not merely of things heard, as some are accustomed to do, but rather of those things which we saw with approval, and having seen, we approved. And lest our discourse be drawn out any longer by lingering through the fields of writings, and seem, as if providing material for disputation rather than narration of what has been done, as many are accustomed to in their treatises, we desire, by the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord going before in all things, and by the generosity of her whose miracles are wrought through his handmaid Agatha at his giving, to distinguish in a brief but truthful manner... ^athe glorious deeds.

CHAPTER II

A paralytic healed by St. Agatha.

[6] When, therefore, the land of the Sicanians was laboring most severely under the oppressive affliction of a pestilent famine, struck by the Lord as their failings deserved, In time of famine, a certain rich man reduced to poverty, a certain man in the city of Messina, named John, previously honored among his peers, began to waste away from want and destitution. And when he saw that nothing remained to him except two donkeys, nor any remnant of his wealth, urged on by his wife, he went about the region on all sides, hiring out those donkeys for a price, so that they might at least thereby defend their impoverished life. While he was engaged in such work daily, he was struck with a severe illness, and afflicted with paralysis, and barely able to crawl, having lost the health of all his limbs, he was borne only on his knees and hands. Thus bound by sudden affliction, with his wife's anger raging against him, he was tormented by a twofold anguish, having received an unexpected reward from his beloved spouse. What more? What was he to do? Where was he to turn? With help failing on every side, and the illness growing worse on every side, he did not resort to the assistance of physicians, as human calamity is accustomed to do, but clinging with his whole mind to heaven, he constantly implores divine aid, falling constantly at the thresholds of almighty God and the saints, he besought mercy. When he had done this for a long time, one night, after he had been carried back from the church of the Blessed Nicholas, where he had long been lying, which is situated a short distance from the city, on the island commonly called the Lingua, this vision was divinely shown to him as he passed the night in the church of the Blessed Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary. For around the hour of midnight a virgin appeared to him, adorned with indescribable beauty, warned in a dream by St. Agatha clad in a white garment, and touching his side, she called him by his own name, saying: "Why is there such great sluggishness in you, John, that you do not even arrange to come to my house?" Astonished, therefore, at the grandeur of so great a vision, he began, in the very sleep in which he was, to inquire of her eagerly who she was, and of what sort, and where her house was, so that he might thus be instructed what he ought to do. She immediately declared to him that she was Agatha, who was martyred for the name of Christ in the city of the Catanians, and that the church of that same city was her house, adding that he should hasten to that church to receive his health. Made joyful, therefore, waking from sleep after a little while, at the break of day he immediately had himself carried to the seaport, having received the promise of health, he sails to Catania, so that, having found a vessel, he might fulfill the virgin's vision in deed as well. In the middle of the day, with the sun now running with loosened reins, it happened, by the decision of the divine will, as it seems to me, that a ship from the city of Catania should put in at the port of Messina: for when the sailors came ashore according to custom, seeing him lying on the shore where, as has been said, he had had himself carried, they inquired of him carefully as to the reasons, and he explained to them in order both the virgin's vision and the trouble of his illness and the command of the same virgin. When these things had been thus recounted, they immediately and gladly received him into their ship, and spreading their sails to the winds, they arrived at Catania prosperously after three days. Meanwhile, after they had arrived at Catania, he was set down from the ship on land, and supporting the invalid lump of his body with a staff, his hands, and his knees, he barely reached the house of a certain acquaintance of his, which was near the shore: and when he had entered it, exchanging the wax which he had brought with him from Messina for candles, and crawling with his whole body, he performed his duty, providing a spectacle to all who beheld him, and was begging for the church of the holy and most glorious virgin and martyr of God, Agatha, and crawls to the temple of the saint in a wondrous manner, desiring to appease the true light with prayers by candlelight. A wondrous thing: for he proceeded filled with such ardor of mind and fervor of charity that, contrary to human custom, what his hands, serving in place of feet, could not accomplish, he was not ashamed to accomplish with his teeth, carrying the candles in his mouth. Indeed, when we were coming according to custom from the singing of Compline, suddenly appearing in the church he presented himself as a horrifying spectacle to all, and raising his voice, he begged most vehemently that it be opened to him. Then one of the Brothers, to whom the custody of the church had been entrusted, opening the door and going out to him, imposed silence, and when the office was completed and the Brothers had gone to bed, promised that he would open it to him again. and there he is healed When this had been done, and he had poured forth his prayer to the Lord according to his own will, held fast in the darkness of the night, lying before the doors of the monastery through the whole night, when day came, with the health of his sinews recovered and the soundness of his whole body, he entered the church in good health. When the Brothers entered the church according to custom, they magnified God with hymn-singing voices, and by the extraordinary ringing of bells on the other side, all the people of the entire city were roused to hasten to the church. There was therefore no small crowd of Christian people at the church, blessing the Lord with a tearful but piety-filled voice, who through the intercession of his most glorious virgin and martyr Agatha deigns to descend as Creator to his creatures. July 4, 1141. This miracle was performed in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and forty-one, in the sixteenth year of the Translation of the same most glorious virgin and martyr Agatha from the city of Constantinople to the province of the Sicilians in the city of Catania, Indiction four, on the fourth of the Nones of July, in the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, through all ages of ages. Amen.

The least of all the Brothers, or rather their servant, Blandinus, composing by dictation, produced this writing, That the record of the outstanding Martyr might be remembered.

CHAPTER III

Women possessed by demons wondrously healed at the body of St. Agatha.

[7] At the time when the elected Yvenus was presiding over the monastery of Catania, a certain woman named Bona, by some just judgment of almighty God unknown to us, had been given over to the devil for tormenting, at the castle called Palazzolo: whom her relatives loved with the greatest affection, and were incredibly afflicted with continual grief over her illness. They, frequently hearing from many people of the benefits of miracles which almighty God, through the intercession of the most blessed virgin and martyr Agatha, continually performed with his accustomed piety for those who came most devoutly to the repository of her relics, led the aforesaid demoniac, bound hand and foot, to the church of the God-dedicated Martyr with all speed. It happened, however, a demoniac is brought to Catania: that they found the aforesaid Yvenus sitting before the doors of the monastery, and they earnestly begged him with many prayers that he would allow the most wretched woman, so cruelly tormented, to enter the church by the mercy of almighty God, and to pass the night under the casket of the Blessed Agatha. Since night was approaching, and the ornaments of the monastery were still on the altar because of the solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord, they could barely obtain from him permission for the aforesaid demoniac to enter the church. At length, as we said above, with permission barely obtained from the oft-mentioned Yvenus, she entered together with her companions the oratory of God and Blessed Agatha. [demons appear in the shape of dogs, and are put to flight by the sign of the Cross:] While they were standing before the chapel of the Blessed Peter and Paul and praying most devoutly, behold, two most hideous dogs, as large as donkeys, suddenly appeared before them: at which, being stupefied and trembling at the diabolical vision, each person immediately impressed upon his forehead the standard of the holy Cross, and instantly the foul demons appeared nowhere. Then, the guardians of the demoniac spending the whole night sleepless on account of such terror, when morning came, a certain devout monk, at that time the most reverend custodian of the holy relics, led by piety as was his custom, had great compassion on the most wretched woman, and most kindly admitted her, as her parents had requested, beneath the casket of the most blessed Martyr, reverently extracting the most glorious head of the virgin from the repository, and held it over the oft-mentioned sick woman for a very long time, humbly praying almighty God that by the merits and prayers of his Martyr he would deign to free her from the demon with his accustomed piety. [the demon in the possessed woman is tormented when the relics of St. Agatha are applied:] While the aforesaid venerable man was most earnestly pressing his prayer, the fugitive spirit, who had invaded and most savagely tormented the creature of almighty God, immediately howling with a great shriek, clearly dared to utter: "Take away, take away that dog Agatha; for I remember that before the deposition of her little body I most insistently tempted her, and therefore she does not cease to expel me violently from the many whom it is permitted to torment because of their sins, when they come running here to her aid. But I know most firmly that I shall be expelled from this body more violently by her prayers."

[8] While the unclean spirit was crying out these things, it happened that the one who is striving to write down this miracle for the memory of posterity entered the oratory of the Blessed Agatha most devoutly for the purpose of prayer, and he said all these things under the testimony of God, because he spoke the truth, that he heard them in order with his own ears, and most clearly. Then he, understanding immediately that the stammering words were not those of the woman but of the most savage demon, vigorously exorcized him through the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that he should declare his name with all speed. he is interrogated about certain things by Blandinus the writer: Then he, hearing so great a name, because he dared not keep silent, plainly answered that he was called the Ethiopian. But because, as we said before, he had heard from the oft-mentioned guardians that on the preceding night two most hideous dogs had suddenly appeared before them, he more attentively consulted the demon to say immediately, although he was a liar and the father of lies, whether the evening dogs who had appeared were malignant spirits. Then that shape-shifter clearly confessed that they were his companions, and added that one of them was called Satan, and the other the Persecutor. Again inquiring of him more earnestly what power he and his associates had, he immediately replied that they had no other power except to sow weeds and discord among the Brothers. "But my aforesaid associates are far fiercer and more powerful; for they tore out the soul of a certain Burgher of Palazzolo, who was surnamed Michaetus, by a most savage death." And immediately the oft-mentioned guardians of the demoniac, recognizing what was reported by the devil, professed that it was utterly most certain.

[9] Then the oft-mentioned Yvenus, together with the holy Brothers who dwell at Catania, marveling beyond measure, ordered the most sacred relics of the Princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, and of the most sacred Sylvester, to be brought with great reverence by certain religious Brothers over the demoniac, and when they had been brought over her, immediately the fugitive spirit, keeping complete silence about the most blessed Apostle Peter, began to cry out: "Take away, take far away Paul and Sylvester, for they burn me most fiercely." And immediately all the Brothers and clergy and people who were standing around, stupefied with great terror at the devil's words, were astonished beyond what can be said. And when we were insistently pressing him to declare whose relics they were, he clearly replied that he dared not speak even a little about the aforesaid relics of Blessed Peter; he refuses to name St. Peter: because if he should happen to presume to do so, his prince would most atrociously beat him for it. "And therefore I beg all of you with many prayers that you never again trouble me further about this, but rather allow me to torment this wretched woman most cruelly." But some of the bystanders, not acquiescing to the prayers of the malign spirit, but rather conjuring him more and more insistently to reveal forthwith where, after leaving this exhausted vessel, he would go; he immediately replied in a clear voice that he would fly to a certain girl who was called Marocta, dwelling at the aforementioned Palazzolo, and would afflict her most atrociously with all speed. And when they inquired of him more insistently, he answered clearly: "Without any doubt she will come here, he is expelled from the possessed woman: to be freed forthwith by the merits and prayers of this virgin." A wondrous and unheard-of thing: the above-mentioned demoniac, by the will of almighty God, and by the aid of the most blessed virgin and martyr, was freed from the demon before the eyes of all who were present.

[10] After the turn of a year indeed, just as the fugitive spirit had predicted, the aforementioned girl, named Marocta, full of a malign spirit, after a year, from another. hastened together with her parents to the oratory of Blessed Agatha, and by the mercy of God, at the hour when the most devout Brothers humbly celebrate the solemn rites of the Mass, she was immediately freed from the demon. Then the most pious Catanian Brothers, exulting greatly at the liberation of the wretched girl, rendered immense thanks most devoutly to almighty God, from whom all good things proceed, and likewise to Blessed Agatha, and the bells rang out with great jubilation, to the praise and honor of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and jubilation, rejoicing and exultation, now and always and through the immortal ages of ages. Amen.

MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTION OF MIRACLES OF ST. AGATHA.

Agatha, Virgin Martyr, at Catania in Sicily (St.)

By the Author J.B.

CHAPTER I

Spiritual benefits of St. Agatha: martyrdom foretold, a blessed death, etc.

[1] Besides those things just mentioned, there exist very many other benefits of St. Agatha, both toward cities and entire peoples, and toward individual mortals. It is pleasing to sample a few: Spiritual benefits of St. Agatha. and first those which pertain especially to the salvation of souls and the perseverance of virtue, either divinely instilled or obtained by prayer. We shall bring forward some examples of this kind.

The first was displayed to the virgin St. Lucy and to her mother Eutychia, which is narrated thus in her Acts. When the fame of the most blessed Agatha was spreading widely, and the Syracusan people were going in their thousands, thirsty, to the city of the Catanians She appears to St. Lucy, to venerate the sepulcher of the virgin St. Agatha, it happened that the venerable virgin Lucy, the most noble of the Syracusans, went at the same time, invited by the solemnity of the feast, with her mother Eutychia, who had suffered from an issue of blood for four years and could not be freed by any physician's remedy. Therefore, while the mysteries of the procession were being performed, this reading from the Gospel was recited, in which one reads that a woman was healed from an issue of blood by the touch of the hem of Christ's garment. Matt. 9 And while this reading was being recited, St. Lucy said to her mother: "If you believe, mother, the things that are read, believe that Agatha, who suffered for the name of Christ, has merited this: that she always has in her presence the One for whose name she suffered. Touch, therefore, her sepulcher, and you will be freed."

[3] When, therefore, all the rites having been completed, the people had departed, the mother and daughter prostrated themselves before her sepulcher, and began to beg her aid with tears. after prayer at her sepulcher to the one sleeping, Meanwhile, as the prolonged prayer continued, the virgin Lucy was seized by sleep, and in her sleep she saw the Blessed Agatha standing in the midst of Angels, adorned with gems, and saying: "My sister Lucy, virgin devoted to God, why do you ask from me what you yourself can provide at once? and she declares the health of the mother, For your faith has also come to the aid of your mother, and behold, she is saved. And just as through me the city of the Catanians is exalted by Christ, so through you the city of Syracuse is adorned by the Lord: because you have prepared a pleasant dwelling-place for Christ in your virginity." and the things that will come to her, Hearing these things, she awoke, rising trembling, and said to her mother: "My mother, behold, you have been made well. By her I beseech you, who has saved you by her prayers, do not ever name a bridegroom on earth for me, and she is kindled with love of virginity nor wish to seek the fruit of mortality from any offspring of my body; but all things which you were going to give me going to a mortal man, the author of my corruption, give to me going to the Lord Jesus Christ, the author of my integrity."

[4] We shall give the complete Acts of St. Lucy on December 13, along with those which Sigebert of Gembloux published in Alcaic meter, though not very polished, cited above. St. Althelm narrates the same apparition of St. Agatha and the healing of Eutychia in his book On the Praise of Virgins, chapter 33, and On the Praises of Virginity, chapter 23. Maurolycus also mentions it in his Martyrology in these words: "Her sepulcher is venerated by a great concourse of Sicilians: to which Lucy, a Syracusan virgin, coming, obtained the health of her mother Eutychia by her prayers." Canisius and others have the same. Paul Aemilius Sanctorius amplifies the event in his usual manner, and adds these things among others: that Lucy, having entered the church of Agatha, and of martyrdom: was seized by a great ardor, with a desire for martyrdom, at the recollection of her courage and deeds: then, beholding the virgin's body, the raw breasts, and the resplendent hand, she wept most copiously.

[5] St. Agatha called or animated another woman to merit the laurel of martyrdom: Digna, a virgin of Cordoba, in the year of Christ 853. Her contest was written by St. Eulogius in book 3 of the Memorial of the Saints, chapter 8. Here we should sample what pertains to St. Agatha: "When that day," he says, "completing the greatest turning-point of its course, was already almost diverging into the ninth hour, a certain young virgin, worthy both in merit and by name Digna, from the community of the venerable Elisabeth, whose account the second book sets forth, by God's revelation and strengthening, advanced to the palm." she appears to St. Digna "For a little before her martyrdom, she saw in a dream a girl of angelic dress and appearance standing by her, bearing roses and lilies in her hand. When she asked her name and the reason for her coming, she said: 'I am Agatha, once worn down by cruel torments for Christ's sake; and now I have come to bestow upon you a share of this purple gift. and foretells her martyrdom: Accept this present gladly, and act manfully in the Lord: for the rest of the roses and lilies which I hold in my hands, I shall give after you to those who will depart from this place.' The most sacred virgin, thus illumined by such a vision and gift, while she received a rose from the right hand of the one speaking, a breeze mixed with heavenly fragrance was lifted from before the eyes of the beholder." The rest we shall give on June 14, on which St. Digna is honored. She was a nun, as is indicated here, in the monastery founded by Elisabeth and her husband Jeremiah; and indeed a double one, one for men, the other for women, as the same Eulogius writes in book 2, chapter 2, at the hamlet of Tabanos, in the northern regions amid the steep mountains and dense forests, seven miles distant from the city (of Cordoba): of which Ambrose of Morales testifies that no trace now survives.

[6] A prolonged illness has usually less horror, but often more trouble, than martyrdom. She who here animated Digna to nobly seize martyrdom, the same St. Agatha encouraged the monk Christian of Heisterbach, of the Cistercian Order, to bear constantly the afflictions of illness, and foretold, though obscurely, the day of his departure. This Caesarius, himself also a monk of Heisterbach, wrote in the year 1222, in book 4, chapter 30: "One night," he says, "the Martyr and Virgin St. Agatha, appearing to him in his sleep, said: 'Among these consolations, she consoles the monk Christian, Christian, let not this illness be burdensome to you, because these sixty days will be reckoned for you as sixty years.' Waking, because he could not understand the vision, he revealed it to some people. Some interpreted it thus: that the severity of that illness would purge him from sins as much as sixty years in Purgatory. To others it seemed -- and this was truer -- that the illness of those sixty days would be, on account of his patience, and foretells his death; equivalent in merit to sixty years: for on the night of St. Agatha he gave up his spirit, which was the sixtieth day from the night on which he had heard these things. Having been perfected in a short time, he fulfilled many ages." Others simply call him St. Christian, others Blessed, as we said on February 4 in the catalogue of those passed over.

[7] John Marietta, book 12 on the Saints of Spain, chapter 61, records another event: that in the Dominican convent of Scalabis, or Santarem, when a certain Brother Dominic, a religious man, was lying ill with dropsy, a woman entered the infirmary and sat down on the edge of his bed, clothed in white garments, of a bearing and countenance surpassing human beauty, and having kindly consoled him, she departed. At which sight he was troubled, and as also to Dominic of Santarem, since he did not know she had not been a mortal, he then complained to one of the household who approached him, that a woman had been allowed access to those innermost rooms of the house. But the latter, having searched everything carefully, found that no one external, let alone a woman, had been seen by anyone, nor had the doors been open. On the following day, which was the vigil of St. Agatha, as is piously believed. the sick man began to cry out that he wished to depart this life as soon as possible, and saying this, he expired. From this the pious and serious men who lived in that community conjectured that it was St. Agatha who had earlier sat by the bed of the sick man, and had paid such honor to his virginity, with which he had been endowed inviolate, as the holy man Aegidius, who committed these things to writing and was accustomed to hear his confessions, testified. These events took place in the year of Christ 1271. So Marietta. Leander Albertus mentions this Dominic and calls him Blessed in his work on illustrious men of the Dominican Order, book 6, folio 261. George Cardosus reports the same in the Portuguese Hagiologium on February 4, and declares he was greatly devoted to the cult of Blessed Agatha, but states that he died in the year 1262.

[8] It is pleasant to add another thing, which does not indeed have the force and weight of a miracle or revelation, but nevertheless shows how kindly we ought to judge concerning the deeds of the Saints, and can arouse piety toward St. Agatha in the minds of readers. Michael the Monk had written this in his own hand, to be added to the Sanctuary of Capua if it should ever be reprinted: and it was sent to us from Capua by Silvester Aiossa, a man as learned as he was courteous, the son of that same Monk's sister. He had written thus: "One day the nuns of the monastery of St. John at Capua (he directed their consciences) were conversing about the deeds of holy virgins, by whose names they themselves were called. When one of them, named Victoria, considering her Acts of little importance said to Agatha Guastaferro (who later became Abbess), not indeed in a rude spirit, but inconsiderately nevertheless: 'Nothing especially remarkable is read in the deeds of St. Agatha. For what? She endured bitter torments, indeed, and answered the tyrant wisely. But most of the other virgins and martyrs did the same.' It happened not long after that, at about the time when the signal for Matins is usually given by the striking of the bronze bell, while she was still in her bed, neither fully awake nor deeply sunk in sleep, she seemed to hear the voice of someone addressing her thus: 'Victoria, Victoria, you say there is nothing great and remarkable in my contest: she is warned in a dream. do you not remember that I was detained for thirty days with Aphrodisia and her daughters? Does that not seem remarkable to you?' Fully awakened by these words, she arose and asked for pardon, and afterward related the whole matter to me. Whether the voice was sent from the Saint herself, or the dream was implanted by her, or whether it arose from the imagination of that pious nun, it certainly had the effect of pricking her soul and softening it with tender piety. Nor can anyone who considers the constancy of St. Agatha among those she-wolves fail to exclaim with admiration: 'As a lily among thorns, so is your beloved among the daughters of men, O holy Jesus.'" So that pious and learned man.

CHAPTER II

The fires of Etna in the year of Christ 252 repressed by the Veil of St. Agatha. What sort of veil it is.

[9] The most celebrated of all were the miracles of St. Agatha that shone forth in breaking and repelling the fires of Etna: since it was not some one person from among the people, but the whole city and many surrounding towns that were saved. The Etnean fires often repressed by her aid, Etna is a mountain of Sicily, looming over Catania, more famous for its magnitude and especially for the fires with which it continually blazes, and by which, when sometimes spread more widely, it produces terrible destruction, than can be described by us here or be attempted without falling far short of the subject; it has been mentioned by all poets, orators, philosophers, and historians of every age; at greatest length by Philip Cluverius in his Ancient Sicily, book 1, chapter 8, Thomas Fazellus on Sicilian affairs, decade 1, book 2, chapter 4, Cl. Mario Arezio in the Chorography of Sicily, and Antonius Philotheus de Homodeis. The inhabitants now call it Mount Gibello, or in the vernacular, Mongibello.

[10] The Catanians, therefore, drove back the fatal fires that erupted from this mountain on many occasions by the patronage of St. Agatha, especially by opposing her veil to the flames rushing down like torrents. So the Latin Acts above, question 3, number 15: "After the turn of a year, around the day of her birth, as in the year 252, by setting the Veil against them, Mount Etna belched forth a conflagration, and like a rushing torrent, a violent fire, liquefying both stones and earth, was coming toward the city of the Catanians. Then a multitude of pagans, fleeing, came down from the mountain: and they came to her sepulcher and, taking away the veil with which her sepulcher was covered, they set it against the fire that was coming toward them; and at that very hour the fire stood divided." Methodius describes this more fully in chapter 5, and indeed indicates, in number 32, that the veil was within the sepulcher and covered the virginal body: "Hastening running to the sepulcher of the holy Martyr, they pour forth prayers and tears; they draw out the veil which covered the virginal body, raise it aloft on a stick: and thus armed and confident, they advance to meet the raging fires." Metaphrastes comes closer to the Latin Acts: kai aphelomenoi to perikelimenon peribolaion tē larnaki, katestēsan katenanti tou pyros -- which can be rendered word for word thus: "and removing the covering placed around the urn, they set it opposite the fire." The Messanensian manuscript has tapho (sepulcher) instead of larnaki.

[11] A certain writer is said to state (for we have not ourselves read him) that the whole body of the virgin was set against the fires, not the whole body, although the most ancient Acts and the other writers mention only the veil. The opinion of St. Althelm, however, in his book On the Praise of Virgins, chapter 32, is ambiguous, writing thus:

"Then the Sicilian farmer, seeing the thunderbolts of flames, Set against the fires the holy tomb with the body, And quicker than words can tell, quenched the damage of the blazes." or the tomb.

I conjectured that in the first verse one should read flumina (rivers) instead of fulmina (thunderbolts), and in the second perhaps grympam (veil) instead of "with the body": but both the printed edition and the very ancient manuscript in our possession stand against this. With a different word but the same meaning, the same Althelm writes in his book On the Praises of Virginity, where he says this about St. Agatha: "Nay rather, like an adamantine rock, she stood harder than iron against the inflicted torments of the executioners. To these facts the Sicilian native and the citizen of the town of Catania concordantly testify: who, when the fires of Mount Etna were boiling with ashes widely scattering sparks, and the seething rivers of torrents rushing headlong were crackling with sulfurous globes of flame, set the sacred vessel of the sarcophagus, in which the virginal little body was enclosed, like the obstacle of a tower and the defense of a wall, against the rain of fires about to fall: and immediately they quenched the horrible heat of the blazes, about to burn everything in their path and devour the melted masses of rock, quicker than words can tell, with the virgin's aid."

[12] But here too perhaps Althelm wrote grympa; The veil is called the Grympa; from what origin? certainly some hold that it ought to have been written so. Indeed, the Catanians call it a Grympa, or Grympia, a foreign word, as they acknowledge. Certain learned men hold it to be derived from the Greek grympanein, which Hesychius in his Lexicon interprets as grypousthai, synkaptein -- to curve, to roll up: because it is shown and carried around rolled up in a fourfold fold and hung upon a silver lance. They say that a related word Grimpa is used by the Portuguese, which signifies a vane made of light iron, placed upon the highest rooftops, by whose movement the differences of the winds are discerned. But that meaning does not apply to the sacred veil, nor is there reason why we should suppose the Sicilians borrowed the word from Portugal.

[13] The veil is moreover (as is noted in the manuscript observations of Michael the Monk, which we received from Silvester Aiossa, and as transmitted by Augustinus Inveges from Pietro Carrera) woven of fine linen, what is its quality and size? which a border of golden thread terminates and adorns on each side. Its color is a slightly dark reddish hue, which is approximately that of a dried rose: its width is two palms, its length about sixteen palms. It is believed that St. Agatha used it for the adornment of the head and the covering of the neck, after the manner of Greek women. It has always been preserved at Catania, at first indeed within the sepulcher, then enclosed in a crystal vial, now how is it preserved? covered with a finer silken cloth, inserted into a pouch supported with Damascene fabric, deposited within a silver casket.

[14] Why the inhabitants of Mount Etna judged that protection against fires should be sought from this veil rather than from the marble tablet, by which that protection was promised, or from any other keepsake of the holy virgin, why was it used? the Catanians declare the reason to be, and so it was handed down by their forefathers: that when the virgin was being rolled upon live coals, the veil had been observed to remain unharmed by them. But I do not know whether it is credible that she was dragged into this torment clothed in the veil or covered with any other garment, by the most impure executioners.

[15] The same Catanians relate that the veil had been most white, but that in the torment we mentioned it acquired that somewhat dusky reddish hue from the fire: whether it was formerly white? for they say that paintings can be seen in the old church of St. Agatha which show her lying on coals and covered with a white veil: but also others in the Cathedral basilica, in which a white veil is also set against the Etnean fires. It had not, therefore, yet changed its color on the coals. But neither are these paintings ancient, and their authors had, as all common painters have, the license to venture anything.

CHAPTER III

The fires of Etna repressed through St. Agatha, in the 12th, 14th, and 15th centuries.

[16] In every age thereafter, hope of protection against those fatal fires of Etna was placed by the Catanians in this veil. What prodigies of the mountain or miracles of the saint occurred, however, under the rule of the Romans and Greeks, or under the domination of the Saracens and afterward, were either not recorded in written memorials, or subsequently perished, and have certainly not yet come to our knowledge. Nevertheless, St. Methodius in general terms proclaims in chapter 1, number 2, that she continually held in her hand the power and efficacy of miracles, Very many miracles are wrought through St. Agatha, that is, for about six centuries after her martyrdom, the period when we previously said Methodius lived. The Menaion too celebrates both the repulsion of the Etnean fire and very many healings flowing like a river from her sepulcher, in these words: hormēma akathekton pyros enthaiou (I would prefer to read Aitnaiou) anesteilas sais euchais agathōnyme, kai polin diesōsas to septon sou, Martys, leipsanon timōsan, ex hou tryga tous potamous tōn iamatōn en theiō pneumati: at Catania especially; en tautē gar athlēsasa, ton dysmenē etapeinōsas, kai tēs nikēs ton stephanon ekomisō, paneyphēme. "The irresistible rush of the Etnean fire you repressed by your prayers, O you who are distinguished by a good name, and you saved the city that honors your holy relics, O Martyr, from which it gathers the rivers of healings in the Divine Spirit: for having undertaken your contest in that city, you laid low the enemy, and received the crown of victory, O you who are everywhere most celebrated!"

[17] Fazellus, Philotheus, Pirro, and the Monk in his manuscript Observations, enumerate several eruptions of Etna which were either driven back by the Veil of St. Agatha so that they would not harm the city of Catania, or which, having burst forth unexpectedly, were restrained so as not to consume everything. For even in that terrible catastrophe which overthrew the city by earthquake in 1169, which occurred in the year 1169 (not 1179, as Philotheus writes, or 1173 as others have it, or 1165 as Cl. Mario Arezio says), that veil was the salvation of some. Fazellus briefly narrates the catastrophe itself thus: "In the year of salvation 1169, on the day before the Nones of February, in the reign of William II, Etna raged more than usual. For, after immense rocks and the Catanian countryside had been burned, with its earthquake it so shattered the territories of the Catanians and indeed the city itself that the basilica, collapsing, crushed the Bishop together with the clergy and people." The Bishop of Catania at that time was John de Agello. Hugh Falcandus, who was then living in Sicily, writes that about fifteen thousand men and women were crushed. Antonius Philotheus adds: many preserved through St. Agatha, uncertain whether also from the fire. "And unless those who survived had protected themselves with the veil of the virgin Agatha, it would have been all over for them, with flames raging and roaring on all sides." But Falcandus, and the ancient poem about that disaster which Pirro cites, make no mention of Etnean fire having then reached Catania, but only of the earthquake, as does also Marius Arezio.

[18] "Then in the year of salvation," says the same Fazellus, "1329, on the 4th of the Kalends of July, June 28, 1329, a great eruption of Etna, with Frederick the Second of that name, King of Sicily, in power, after the mountain had been without fire and smoke for several years, at the twenty-third hour of the day it suddenly trembled and began to thunder. Soon, from the side of the mountain which faces the East, on the cliff which was then called Musarra, covered at that time with snow, a new opening was broken and fire erupted: which, as evening advanced, was followed by glowing globes and masses torn from the mountain's bowels, and liquefied orbs of rock, which, like a torrent, spreading over the slopes and lower places, consumed everything in their path... On the Ides of the same July, around sunset, and another still more horrible on July 15, near the cliff of Musarra and the church of St. John surnamed Paparumetta, from a lower part of the mountain, a second opening was unexpectedly broken, and shortly after two others in the same field, with such force and violence that from four craters, separated by a small distance from one another, masses of enormous stones ejected together raised deep valleys and forest glens into steep mountains. For from that fourfold chasm flowed a fiery stream like metals melting in a furnace, not merely burning but consuming the earth in its path and huge rocks and whatever trees it met: and the very ground, which had been trodden upon shortly before, became red-hot, and, like the foam of waters dashed against rocks by the waves, was widely inundated and scattered by the fiery flow, swelling like a rising river. After the fiery torrent had wandered long and extensively through many stretches of the mountain, it finally divided itself into three channels: two of which ran for several days toward the East, to the places of Aci near the shore; diverted from Catania by the Veil of St. Agatha: the third directed itself against the territory of the Catanians. This, before it had invaded the territory itself, the Veil of the blessed Agatha, held out from the walls of the city by the priests, extinguished." Cluverius records the same from Fazellus, and Pirro more briefly in the deeds of Bishop Leonard de Flisco, concluding thus: "And almost the whole of Catania would have been consumed by flames or shaken and collapsed by the earthquake, had not the patronage of the blessed Agatha been present." Philotheus is the authority that the Catanian fields were so devastated at that time by the immense mass of tufa and rocks, that to the present day (and he wrote about a hundred years ago) almost all the fields appear filled with gravel, which the natives commonly call Sciara, and with scorched stones.

[19] Another conflagration raged from Etna eighty years later, but it too was repressed by the aid of St. Agatha. and again on November 9, 1408. This is recorded in volume 3 of the Illustrious Spain, in the Indices of Deeds Performed by the Kings of Aragon, book 3, at the year of Christ 1408, in these words: "In the year of the Lord, on the 5th of the Ides of November, at the second hour of the night, Etna was shaken by the greatest earthquakes; and blazed with so great a conflagration, belching forth immense globes of flame, that at Catania it seemed that day had dawned, and that clouds and burning torches were flying through the sky. Two thousand paces above the church of St. Nicholas, which the inhabitants call 'della Regina,' five fiery craters blazed with a continuous fire for twelve days, casting forth sulfurous flames. The ashes that were ejected, mixed with frost, had nearly overwhelmed Messina and several towns of the Bruttians: when Queen Blanca, an outstanding woman, had not departed from Catania. the body carried around the walls, But when the walls were surveyed with the sacred body of St. Agatha, by divine aid the city was seen not to have been consumed by so great a conflagration." So the text. Blanca was the daughter of the King of Navarre, the second wife of Martin, King of Sicily, in whose name, and afterward in that of her father-in-law Martin II, she administered the kingdom for some time.

[20] We received this miracle of the repulsion and extinction of the fire, as recorded in writing by Matthew Silvagio; for we have not seen his commentaries themselves: "Likewise it is found," he says, "in the Chronicles of Santa Maria di Licodia" -- which is a Catanian monastery situated at the foot of Etna. "In the name of the Lord and of the undivided Holy Trinity. Know that in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 1408, in the reign in Sicily of King Martin and Blanca, it happened that on Friday, November 9... and on account of this fire they did not cease day and night to make processions with the relics of St. Agatha. And then the Bishop of Catania, who was then present in the city, with a very great multitude of people on foot and barefoot, shedding tears, approached with the veil and breast outside the city: and carried all the way to the place of the fire the Veil and breast of the Blessed Virgin Agatha; which place was distant from the aforesaid city by a distance of twelve miles. And from that day onward the aforesaid fire did not dare to come against the city."

[21] "In the year of salvation 1444," says Fazellus, by the veil again in 1444 "when Etna had again set out toward Catania with a terrible ejection of fires, Peter Jeremias of Palermo, of the Order of Preachers, a man of great piety, with a procession of clergy and people, carried the Veil of the Blessed Agatha to meet the fires: which, as if reverencing it, turned their course elsewhere, and were extinguished after twenty days. At that time also the mountain itself trembled, and by that trembling certain vast cliffs, loosened from the highest peak, collapsed with a vast crash into the very chasm. From this, that perpetual opening was made much wider." Philotheus touched on the matter briefly thus: "What of that conflagration of the greatest terror and devastation, which we learn from the histories occurred around the year 1444, in which the highest summit of Etna subsided, and the fires were met by the Veil of the Blessed Agatha, as is most clearly established by the records of our ancestors?" (at which time the temple was also restored and the relics visited) Pirro records the same and adds: "The Viceroy wrote to Brother Peter Jeremias, to have the Cathedral church, which seemed about to collapse, repaired at royal expense." On the occasion of either repairing the temple or averting the fire, John Piscis, or Pixitellus, or de Piscibus, Bishop of Catania, inspected the sacred head of the saint, as was said above before the history of the Translation, section 6, number 52.

[22] and on September 21, 1447. In the year 1447, on September 21, Etna belched forth fires, so that torrents of flame were already flowing down: but St. Agatha halted their course. Scorched rocks remained as a monument of the danger and the benefit. So the Monk and others.

CHAPTER IV

The fires of Etna more often restrained through St. Agatha in the 16th century.

[23] Let us now come to those things which happened in the last century and in our own. Concerning the former, Fazellus writes thus: "Thus far, then, what we have received from others: now let us relate what we ourselves have witnessed with our own eyes. When Etna, with the sulfurous and bituminous material failing, or with the passages blocked, had emitted neither fire nor smoke for several years, the inhabitants ascending to its summit penetrated the very crater itself unharmed. But this tameness was inconstant: a new flow from Etna on March 24, 1536 for in the year of salvation 1536, on the 9th of the Kalends of April, with the south wind blowing and the sun inclining toward its setting, a dark cloud covered the summit of the mountain, and through it a red glow flashed. Then suddenly from the very crater a vast force of fiery torrent erupted; and gradually flowing down like a river, with a great rumbling of the mountain and an earthquake, it descended toward the East and, falling into the lake (which we mentioned above in the description), it melted the great mass of stones found there: which, running above the town of Randazzo in a headlong but curving course, immediately engulfed flocks of sheep and most of the animals that came in its way. From the same highest crater of the mountain a wondrous and horrible fiery torrent also began at the same time to flow toward the West, and this manifold, above the towns of Bronte and Adrano. For the liquefying sulfurous and bituminous stones, driven by the force of the winds, ran down in a slow and intermittent flow, like red-hot iron: and those which flowed first, gradually losing their heat, hardened into their former nature and dark material. and repeated in the same places, Then another fiery stream descending did not flow over the first, but mingling itself between its sandy crust and the first fire already extinguished, made its way through the middle by its own force; so that both the upper crust and the surface of the first were equally hard. But the fire that was fresh flowed underneath like a tortoise, which lives under its hard shell, yet moves slowly. Thus the flows which had first hardened gave way to the new ones, by which they were broken apart. how high and wide? With the newest always prevailing, the conflagration multiplied to the width of one stadium and the depth of about twelve cubits. And when the whole flow had settled, it left a permanently dark-colored mass of millstone-like rocks, newly ejected, from the mouth of the crater to the end of the flow. Thus the stones themselves remain the same color in which they flowed; but the more recent they are, the blacker and firmer: for with the passage of time they both grow pale and dissolve into sand. The material of the flow, moreover, was sulfurous and mixed with bitumen." He then narrates how the church of St. Leo was overthrown by earthquake and buried in flames, and adds: "Around those same places also, on the sides of the mountain, with the earth gaping, many openings were burst open. From which both fiery streams and innumerable burning stones, as if shot from a cannon, preceded first by a roaring, were sent into the sky," etc.

[24] Here indeed Fazellus does not mention the protection afforded by St. Agatha to her Catanians; diverted from Catania by the aid of St. Agatha: yet Pirro shows that they were preserved immune chiefly by that means, writing thus: "In the year 1536, during the Lenten season, Brother Bernardinus of Reggio, surnamed George, one of the first to join the new Capuchin congregation, a man illustrious for holiness and zeal for the salvation of souls, while preaching at Catania to the people, foretold by the Capuchin Bernardinus of Reggio like a second Jonah, inveighed most fiercely against the vices of that city. Soon seized by the Divine Spirit, he uttered these words: 'Hear, O Catania, you who are entangled in so many and so great vices, hear, wretched city, and awake. Behold, evil shall come upon you, and you shall not know its source: calamity shall rush upon you, which you will not be able to expiate: misery shall come upon you, of which you know not. But do you not know what it is? Behold, from this mountain' (he was pointing to Etna with outstretched finger, at whose foot the city is situated) 'flames shall burst forth unexpectedly, as about to be sent in vengeance for crimes: avengers of your crimes, which shall come up to your gates, and shall burn you to your foundations, devour you, and bring upon you utter desolation; unless you extinguish the flames of Divine fury with tears of penitence, and with the invoked aid of Blessed Agatha.'" So Pirro from the Annals of the Capuchins, which he refers to the fires of this year; the writer of the annals refers them to the following year.

[25] Antonius Philotheus (during whose time, as he himself writes, studying the liberal arts at Catania, that most famous city of Sicily, that Etnean conflagration occurred) acknowledges indeed that in the year 1536 the crater of the mountain, long since blocked, suddenly gaped open with a horrible earthquake; it happened on the Wednesday of Holy Week; but he says it occurred on the day before the Lord's Supper, a chronological note which does not fit that year; yet it is of such a kind that, to one writing after an interval of some years, it could have adhered more to his memory than the number of the Christian Era could, and usually does among the common people: for we often remember, for example, that the earth trembled on the Wednesday of the holier week, or that the winds produced immense devastation throughout Belgium on Easter Monday, and it does not immediately occur to us that this happened in the year of Christ 1606 or that in the year 1540, unless we either consult the Easter tables or revolve other markers of time in our mind. There is, however, either an error or a confusion in his designation of the day: for he writes that the summit of Etna, depressed for about two thousand paces, collapsed on the tenth of the Kalends of March; and shortly after says that day was the eighth before the dawn of the Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ, namely the Thursday before the most sacred Easter feast of the Resurrection. or was it not therefore 1535? In the year 1536 Easter fell on April 16, and in the year 1537 on April 1; in neither year, therefore, could the preceding Wednesday have fallen on the 8th or 10th of the Kalends. I suspect he wrote in both places the 9th of the Kalends, as Fazellus also has, though differing in the year. Moreover, in the year 1535, Easter fell on March 28, that is, the 5th of the Kalends of April, and the preceding Wednesday on the 9th of the Kalends of April, or March 24. But this much concerning the date.

[26] Philotheus describes the conflagration, and the damage it caused, in pathetic terms, but records things largely agreeing with what has been related from Fazellus. Concerning the remedy sought from St. Agatha, he writes the following: "In the present calamities, therefore, (on the night between March 24 and 25) no one was found from so great a throng of the city, male or female, great then was the consternation of all at Catania, old or young or adolescent, free or slave, not even children, and nuns veiled to God and shut up in their cloisters, who did not that night, virtually under the flames, running through the crossroads of the city, betake themselves in crowds to the church of the Blessed Agatha (this was the principal church of the city) to seek salvation: and thence in a long procession of fathers and all other ranks, with their bodies bared even to the waist, or at least their feet, ardor of penitence, (of whom I myself was one) did they not proceed with the greatest veneration and reverence to the monastery of the Carmelites, famous for miracles, of the Virgin Mary Mother of God, consecrated to the Annunciation, outside the walls of the city, beyond the gate of Stesichorus (now called the Aci gate), confessing their sins as they could, and commending their souls to God most great and good. And this the more because that day was the eighth before the dawn of the Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ, namely the Thursday before the most sacred Easter feast day of the Resurrection. From which it came about that reconciliation of the quarrelling, a multitude of enemies among themselves, with private hatreds cast aside and ancient enmities set aside, came together in true and unanimous concord and right peace: preachers urging it: especially at the urging of Stephen Bolano, a Dominican of the Order of Preachers, a Theologian by no means to be despised, a man of the highest religion in both example and word; and Nicholas of Nicosia, a Franciscan of the Minor Order, whose office it then was to preach the Gospel word to the Catanian people, and by whose persuasion also very many pious works achieved an excellent result for the glory of Christ."

[27] Then, after much intervening matter, the same writer adds: "The Catanians and the other people of Etna, gathering in troops, proceed with excessive terror in a devout march against the fiery torrent; the Canons (whose standard-bearer was Bartholomew Monsonus, a man indeed of approved life) carrying the Veil of the Blessed Martyr Agatha, which they themselves call the Grympa of the Blessed Agatha; which indeed was found in her sepulcher. the fire suddenly extinguished by the Veil of St. Agatha, And indeed, at the very place where they arrived thus devoutly (a wondrous thing, and by the will of God Almighty alone, with the virgin Agatha interceding for her homeland), that entire mass of fire, which would have devastated all the fields and would not have spared even the city within its walls had it not subsided, at the sign of the most holy Cross made with that veil, stopped, and cooled so much that one could even walk over it with bare feet unharmed (as we ourselves saw). Who could describe the voices of those standing there? Who, their tears or wails of joy? Who could report the shouts raised to the heavens by those who witnessed this miracle? I testify and call God to witness: I myself, with my spirits oppressed by trembling, was collapsing to the ground as if about to die, had not a certain friend, Lawrence de Deo, a Catanian, my fellow student, raised me in his arms, and sprinkled me with the coldest water, and made me breathe and draw in the vital spirit, to the amazement of others."

[28] And after a few more words: "These fires continued, with intermittent periods, throughout the whole year 1537, repeatedly renewed, with smoke, earthquakes, and roaring." Hence it has perhaps come about that not everyone refers these fires, and the miracles that occurred in quelling them, to the same year. Concerning the following year, Fazellus writes thus: "For in the year of salvation 1537, on the Kalends of May, all Sicily began to thunder for almost twelve days: and frequent and enormous sounds, like those which are usually produced by the blows of military cannons, and even louder ones, were heard not only at Catania and in the neighboring fields, but also at Palermo... and in nearly the whole island. From which, when a small earthquake had occurred, the roofs and walls of houses were shaken and tottered together... When these sounds and rumblings were increasing, on the 3rd of the Ides of May, on Etna, under the hill which the inhabitants call Sparverius, certain unusual openings were broken open: as on May 13, 1537 from which so great a mass of the same fiery material was ejected, that in four days, covering a distance of fifteen thousand paces and leveling everything in its path, it burned and flowed all the way to the monastery of St. Nicholas de Arenis: where, massing together, it attacked the villages of Nicolosi and Mompileri, leaving the monastery untouched, and burned and buried many of their houses. By the frequent earthquakes also, Catania and the neighboring cities were so shaken that the citizens, abandoning the cities, sought their safety in the open fields. But the clergy and people of Catania, when they saw the fires, about twelve thousand paces away, approaching and about to be carried to them more swiftly, fleeing to the altars of St. Agatha, but repressed by the same veil, brought forth the veil: which, when held out from a distance, the fire stopped, and was soon calmed, and Etna ceased to thunder."

[29] The writer of the Capuchin annals amplifies these events as follows: "The fire, having devastated with conflagration the houses, fields, and everything that lay between the mountain and the city, had already reached the gate of the city: when, with the veil of Blessed Agatha set against it and the entire people converted to penitence and resounding with pious cries to God and Blessed Agatha, the fire stopped, at God's command, and not leaping further, there broke its fiery waves and utterly extinguished them." The testimony of Fazellus, Philotheus, and Pirro is more authoritative, since they were Sicilians: and the first two were indeed living at that time. Pirro adds the following: "The Catanians proceed with the Veil of St. Agatha to where the fiery river was raging most intensely. as soon as it came into sight: Wondrous to tell: scarcely had it come into the sight of the fire, when the fire suddenly stopped, although it was rising higher, swelling with the inflowing fiery matter: but soon Etna ceased to thunder and to vomit flames: and what had been ejected hardened into rust-colored flint."

[30] In the same year 1537 (although some refer it to the preceding year) the fire was repressed at Mompileri by the setting forth of the sacred veil, as has been written to us from Catania from the annals of that same place. Mompileri (according to Philotheus a rather pleasant village, which others call Montpellier) is ten thousand paces distant from Catania, and preserves an eternal monument of the victorious Agatha. The torrent of Etnean fire had already reached it, and indeed had burned some small houses, and had approached the main church, consecrated to the Annunciate Virgin, and had liquefied the wall to which the altar was attached, as also in the temple of Mompileri and was proceeding further, about to consume the entire building. But behold, the Veil of the Blessed Agatha was brought to Mompileri with great speed and a large gathering: and as soon as it reached the door of the church facing the fire (wondrous to behold), the fiery torrent, reverencing the divine power of Agatha, immediately stopped and hardened into rock; which afterward, lest it be an impediment to the altar, had partly to be cut away, so that the fires, preserved within themselves and not in other material, might keep this great miracle inscribed for posterity forever.

[31] These things from there, and the following about the same miracle from Matthew Silvagio, who was then at Catania, but whose writings we have not yet seen: "Then the fire," he says, "had reached their mother church, and the entrance-piece had already fallen from the force of the fire. O miracle astonishing to all nations! When the Veil had entered the nave of that mother church, which had already begun to be consumed, by the merits of Blessed Agatha, the mass of burning globes and rocks did not pass through to the nave of the aforesaid church; but the mass of stones rose up, diverting its course elsewhere. Behold indeed the miracle of the Ark of the Testament renewed, with only this difference intervening: that there the water of the Jordan flowing, here the fire of Etna, not even sparing a sacred temple, was halted." So he writes.

[32] Michael Monachus in his manuscript Observations, perhaps from Carrera, narrates certain things omitted by the others, in this manner: With the consent of the Bishop's Vicar, the holy Veil was brought forth at the hour of Matins, accompanied by the Clergy and all the congregations of Religious, whither they went in devout procession; followed by an innumerable multitude of citizens, very many of whom carried torches, many were clad in sackcloth, and not a few walked with bare feet. Thus they arrived at Mompileri, where there was immense lamentation among people of every sort, bewailing that their houses, vineyards, and other possessions had been consumed by fire; that nothing remained except what each had been able to carry away on his shoulders: mothers clasping their little children in their arms had not even a place where they might set them down for a moment, since the fire was pervading everything, for it had already reached the mother church and had undermined part of it. But what a wondrous prodigy! When the Veil was brought into the nave of that same church, no more fiery globes were hurled into that nave; but the mass first began to pile up into mounds, then to divert its course elsewhere, and to flow more thinly, and finally even from those new craters of Etna which we mentioned, fiery globes ceased to be projected as before. The people therefore returned to Catania, singing praises to Blessed Agatha their liberatress. These things were done in the year 1537.

[33] The illustrious Marius Aretius in his Chorography of Sicily thus briefly describes this conflagration of Etna and the damage inflicted on Mompileri: "And finally in the preceding year, and in this one too in which I myself write, the year one thousand five hundred and thirty-seven, in the month of May, a fiery mass of incredible magnitude, formed of burning sulphur, poured forth from newly formed craters of Etna itself: which, its surface somewhat condensed by the air, fell not indeed swiftly, the damage then inflicted by the fire: but on every side, and we saw it burn hills, groves, rocks and crags, and also two villages (for the mountain contains many villages), one called Monpiler, and the other Licolosi," etc.

[34] Rocco Pirro records another conflagration of Etna in these words: "In the year 1578, a conflagration erupted from Mount Etna, again in 1578 or 1579 a similar conflagration was restrained by the sacred veil. and a fiery river, extending for a thousand paces, was widely devastating the fields: but it was restrained by the sacred Veil of Blessed Agatha." Natalis Comes in his history, book 30, refers it to the following year, and states that the fire spread much further: "Etna, the mountain of Sicily, blazed with the greatest and most terrifying fires, with great rumblings and earthquakes. For five openings were rent asunder, whence a most powerful force of flames erupted, which flowed for nearly ten thousand paces in the manner of a river,

with the greatest devastation of fruit-bearing trees and cultivated places. Indeed, ignited rocks were belched forth so high that they surpassed the keenness of any eyesight, nor could they be discerned by onlookers beyond a certain distance: and these soon fell back to earth with the greatest crash and peril to those dwelling nearby." So writes Natalis, who also records in book 17 that another conflagration erupted in the year 1566, and that the entire territory of the town of Linguaglossa was overwhelmed and ruined by it,

the vineyards of Triocla were burned, the fires flowed all the way to Catania, and the whole island was thrown into alarm.

CHAPTER V

The Etnean fires of the year 1635, extinguished by the Veil of St. Agatha.

[35] In our own age as well (for what kind of calamity has existed in all past centuries that has not also now been inflicted by heaven upon wretched mortals in vengeance for their sins?) In the year 1635, a new outpouring from Etna in the year 1635, therefore, a new opening was laid bare on Etna, which hurled forth rocks in a monstrous ignited mass, and at the same time poured out a fiery torrent, which, divided thereafter into seven streams, wrought immense devastation far and wide. For the two middle streams ravaged the plain called Roselli, which is the most fertile of nearly all those that slope from Etna toward Catania: the one on the right, having consumed crops, vineyards, and trees, threatened destruction to the towns of Pedara and Trecastagne, being five thousand paces from the one and four from the other: sevenfold, of the three that flowed on the left, the one that was largest and advanced the farthest seized and laid waste the territory of the town of Aci.

[36] A great dread of so near a danger had also seized the Catanians. This aroused in their hearts both penitence for their sins and devotion toward their Patroness, as well as confidence in obtaining protection from her. Nor did the outcome disappoint them. For the ruin was repelled by the Veil of the Saint, as had so often happened before. How this came about, by the Veil of St. Agatha on January 19 our Eucharius Sartorius reported to me here from Syracuse on January 25, concerning what had been done seven days earlier, and had been written thence from Catania from certain and authentic Acts, to the following effect:

[37] Having proclaimed a supplication to oppose the sacred Veil against the raging flames, we set forth, most of us with bare feet, on January 19. Mass said in view of the fire, When we had come to the fire, the Sacrifice of the Mass was offered upon an altar hastily erected for that purpose, yet with rich appointments: then benedictions were pronounced. It was marvelous with what fury the fire, throughout the entire time of the Mass, dissolved in the manner of molten metal or water, roared beyond its wont and hurled itself toward the altar. But when the benedictions had been completed, suddenly extinguished, suddenly, in the sight of all, it cooled and hardened into stone, and did not creep forward even so much as a single foot further. This, moreover, was the fire that had approached nearest to Pedara and Trecastagne. Against the middle stream as well, after benedictions had been pronounced in the solemn words, in several places: the Veil was set in opposition: and this one too, although it rolled against the Veil with incredible roaring, at the very place where the Veil had come to rest, immediately hardened. The same result occurred elsewhere. Thereupon the procession was led back to Catania: thanksgivings were offered on the following days, with very many Sacrifices of the Mass offered to God: and now sumptuous preparations are being made to celebrate the annual solemnity of the Saint on the Nones of February. So far from Catania. Eucharius adds that the fiery torrents, which had been visible from Syracuse at so great a distance, were then seen to have ceased, and only the ordinary crater of Etna, from which fire is perpetually emitted, was visible.

[38] Somewhat more fully and distinctly does Carrera describe the events in book 3, chapter 4, as Monachus rendered them in Italian: "On Friday," he says, "the 19th of January, men were sent at earliest dawn by the Senate to erect an altar for celebrating Mass at the place to which it had been decreed that the holy Veil should be conveyed. after the Divine Office had been performed in the morning, Meanwhile the Divine Office was performed in the Cathedral, and many Sacrifices of the Mass were offered at various altars. And because the air was serene and calm, the procession was led the procession was organized, to the edge of the plain called Paraini, which is six thousand paces distant from Trecastagne: for thence one of those fiery torrents was rushing forth, about to bring destruction upon that village and Viagrande. When we had arrived there, we beheld a voracious river, by whose fury several oaks in that place had already been consumed. Scarcely fifteen paces from it, a most magnificent altar had been erected, adorned with costly cloths and much silver. The place itself presented the appearance of a spacious and elegant amphitheatre. a splendid altar erected near the fire, You would have said it had been artfully fashioned by nature, so that some illustrious and grand military spectacle might be displayed in it. Nor did the feeling that dwelt in each breast differ from this, as they awaited the victory, in no way doubtful, from the mysterious and invisible conflict that was about to be joined between the unconquered Veil of the Virgin and the rapid conflagration of Etna.

[39] When the casket in which the Veil was enclosed had been placed upon the altar, the Litanies of the Saints began to be chanted. the Litanies were recited, When the invocation of our great Patroness Agatha was reached, then the Veil was drawn forth from the casket and hung upon a staff. An immense outcry and weeping arose from the multitude gathered round about and prostrate in prayer. the sacred rite was celebrated, When the Litany was finished, Mass was celebrated, and the Eucharist was distributed to many. Then a Priest of the Capuchin Order addressed words to that most crowded assembly, a sermon was delivered, and kindled a great feeling of piety in the hearts of all. While these things were being done, over the space of nearly two hours, the fiery channel gradually, in the sight of all who watched, began to contract its course and to flow backward: and the thing excited the greater wonder because it was happening on a sloping, indeed even a precipitous, place. the fire was repressed and extinguished, The torrent, therefore, was transforming its fiery vortices before it into rocks, and filling up both banks with the stony matter that it cast out, and seemed to be constructing a kind of wall by which to shut itself off from the sight of the sacred Veil, being contracted into a narrow path. There were no fewer than five thousand persons present.

[40] Then, when the Veil had been raised on high, a blessing was imparted to all, and it was replaced in its casket: then the procession was directed against the other head of the fiery river, which was threatening the possessions of the people of Pedara. As we descended from the plain of Paraini, some trees half-burned: along the bank of the torrent now stilled, we beheld an oak whose trunk, when we first arrived, the fire of the same torrent had seized and was consuming; but now, with the fire completely extinguished there, it was still standing, though half its bulk was burned away. We had scarcely advanced a thousand paces from that point when thick snow fell upon us from the sky, though not for long, for we quickened our pace. When therefore we had come to the plain the same was done elsewhere, after briefer prayers. called Hedera, the Veil was again brought forth and fastened upon a staff and raised on high. But because the sky was again pouring down snow, only the antiphon whose opening words are PAGANORVM MVLTITVDO, with the versicle and Prayer, was recited: yet with the same success; for the smoking vortex was driven back. Nor shall I pass over in silence that Father Friar Stephen de Salicibus, of the congregation of the Minor Observants, a man of singular integrity of life, wept for joy at the sight of this miracle. A certain bush was burning at our arrival, which we soon saw half-consumed but already entirely free of fire.

CHAPTER VI

Various things, salutary both publicly and privately through the touch of the Relics of St. Agatha.

[41] The prodigies of deadly flames commemorated thus far were mostly repelled by the interposition of the sacred Veil, which they call the Grympa; some were averted by bringing to the rescue the breast of the same great Martyr; others by her remaining relics carried devoutly about the city of Catania; for the tablet placed by the Angel upon her tomb, and afterward conveyed to Cremona, and the protection it affords, we have already discussed above, when treating of the relics. There are also certain other objects, various things salutary through the touch of the relics of St. Agatha: which, consecrated by contact with the relics of St. Agatha, possess a wondrous power for healing diseases and repelling public and private calamities: cotton, rings, silken veils, small cakes baked from flour, of much the same kind as those which, fashioned from virgin wax and consecrated by the solemn prayer of the Supreme Pontiff, we commonly call Agnus Dei,

because the figure of a Lamb is impressed upon most of them.

[42] The cotton, as we have said, having been brought into contact with the relics of the Saint, is customarily distributed among all the people, as a salutary charm against every kind of misfortune. Cotton, And they record that even the flames of Etna have revered it, even some centuries ago, and a perpetual monument of the miracle survives. Fiery torrents had burst forth from the mountain, and were already rushing with great force toward a particularly fruitful vineyard belonging to a certain Catanian farmer. What he should do, or what hope of help he could entertain, he could not discover. Should he flee? But the desire to save his estate held him back. Should he stay? But he saw present destruction threatening both it and himself. At last this plan was divinely suggested to him. He happened to have some of the sacred cotton of this kind. Therefore, before he departed thence which, hung upon the hedges of the estate, and consulted for his life, he went around the entire estate with the cotton extended, and even hung a piece of it at intervals upon the thorny hedges. A wondrous sight! But who saw it, since, having already sent away all his household before, even that one man, who had lingered so long in anxiety, was at last driven away by the fire now immediately upon him? Assuredly the most certain traces of the fire bear witness to the fact. For when the fire approached the estate, revering that sacred charm, it was separated by the present defense of the cotton. it preserves it, And not long after, having gone around the estate and left it unharmed, those two diverging branches of the fiery rivers, the fiery river being divided and flowing around; which had parted on either side, flowed together again into a single channel in like manner. But when the fire, having spread far and wide, subsided, congealed into blackest rocks and continuous crags, the neighboring inhabitants and citizens vied with one another in flocking to behold the prodigy, and extolled to the heavens the power of the holy Martyr against these hellish fires. Nor has the long passage of time effaced the memory of so stupendous an event: the overhanging crags still stand around that estate, an everlasting memorial for posterity and to the glory of the Martyr. Concerning this miracle the previously cited Petraccius sang:

How often by the gift of cotton white, Which touched the radiant limbs, adorned with gold, Of that chaste maiden, did the vines escape The threatened ruin from the roaring flames!

[43] Of the same kind is a most recent benefit which was divinely conferred in the year 1651 upon the inhabitants of the town of Bronte (situated at the foot of Mount Etna, and having received its name from the Cyclops Brontes). The town of Bronte too is protected in the year 1651, Deadly fires had erupted not far from there. The citizens sent envoys to the Bishop of Catania, to beg that some pledge of Agatha, the Expeller of all evils, be granted them against the impending destruction. He sent them some quantity of the sacred cotton; nor was the confidence vain: for (as he himself related to those who wrote these things to me) they came afterward to give thanks, and recounted the miracles wrought by that cotton. and it heals headaches: The same cotton cures headaches and every other kind of affliction.

[44] Rings too, applied to the hands, feet, or breasts of St. Agatha, or to the miraculous Veil of which we have spoken at length, either to all of these or individually to any one of them, as also rings, which also cure ailments of the breasts and stop fires: possess a hidden power for curing headaches, extinguishing fires when human forces cannot do so, and healing diseases of the breasts. Indeed (as is recorded in the annals of this House) in the year 1638, a ring of this kind, which we had received from Catania, was sent from here to a certain other city of Brabant, to a woman whose one breast was being eaten away by a deadly cancer, and it brought her a timely remedy, the disease gradually vanishing. About two hundred years ago, Leonard of Udine, cited above, wrote that a remedy had been brought by St. Agatha to very many persons against afflictions of this kind. His words are: "She has cured innumerable women from the infecting disease of the breasts."

[45] Certain fine linen veils are also sent, which have drawn their virtue from contact with the sacred limbs or with the Grympa, veils too, and small loaves, or (of which kind we devoutly preserve one here) in which the sacred relics were at some time wrapped. Finally, small loaves of fine flour, salutary as remedies for every kind of illness, are customarily sent even to remote regions. Indeed, we have also related above, in Annotation d to question 3 in the Latin Acts, that dust is also taken from the place where the Saint was rolled upon potsherds and coals, and dust as a remedy for diseases.

CHAPTER VII

The city of Catania freed from plague and famine through St. Agatha.

[46] From her own city, I say from Catania entrusted to her, what kind of calamity has Agatha not repelled at various times? From Henry Spondanus, Natalis Comes, and other writers it is well established how dreadfully the plague raged throughout all of Italy in the years 1575 and the two following, and afflicted Sicily as well. Nor was Catania itself immune, until it took refuge in the patronage of Agatha its Helper. It was thought that the origin of the evil had come from the Selinuntine Baths, which are now called the city of Sciacca, or Sacca, situated toward the south. For a ship laden with Moorish spoils, having put in there, was thought to have imported the plague: which, when it had begun to spread, so seized upon Catania itself, while the plague raged at Catania, that the entire city seemed about to pass into desolation. What better could the citizens do in the present conflagration than to have recourse to the inexhaustible fountain of benefits? The most sacred body of the Virgin was brought forth from its chapel. Was it accompanied, perchance, by that throng of all ranks the body of St. Agatha was brought forth, which in other processions of this kind was accustomed to be present in almost infinite numbers? By no means. But on account of the fear of contagion, while the religious orders and the body of Clergy led the way, the magistrates and others whose presence was necessary for such a ceremony attended: the rest were forbidden to be present the people being forbidden to accompany it, by public edict. But what voice of a herald could have restrained the piety of the citizens from supplicating their most holy Patroness on behalf of their fatherland? They were not present, therefore, in the solemn procession; yet watching from the walls and hills, but before the supplication was organized, they had already either filled the walls of the city or occupied the hills outside the city.

[47] As soon as the bier on which the Relics were carried proceeded from the gate that leads to Aci, and, as it were, the salutary countenance of Agatha herself shone forth, all fell prostrate on the ground, and with great lamentation, groaning, tears, and wailing implored the Divine mercy. The procession was led to two hospitals, of which one was at the church of St. Anthony, the other at that of the Holy Spirit, the hospitals were visited, both packed with persons afflicted by the plague. But (who would have dared to hope for so much?) that entire multitude of the sick already given up for dead recovered, not without a miracle, the sick were healed, as though the holy Martyr had dispersed the plague by breathing forth a most wholesome breeze. These things were written to us from Catania by our Francis Blanditius, singularly devoted to promoting the honor of St. Agatha, who testifies that he had heard some of them from eyewitnesses, and had read others in the poem of Bartholomew de Paternione, a Benedictine monk who had himself been present, and in the public acts preserved in the archive of the Senate of Catania.

[48] It was decreed by the Bishop, the College of Canons, and the Senate that a public supplication should be held annually as a perpetual thanksgiving. Therefore on June 16, at the onset of darkness, brilliant bonfires are built in all the streets of the city, annual fires decreed for June 16. and at the thresholds of all private houses lighted torches shine forth. On the following day, with a very great gathering of religious and of the people, a supplication is organized to the prison of St. Agatha, and thereafter the arm of the Saint, enclosed in a golden reliquary, is carried through the city with distinguished solemnity. The memory of this annual celebration was recorded by our Octavius Caietanus in the Idea operis de Sanctis Siciliae at June 17 in these words: and on the following day a supplication: "At Catania, supplications in memory of the city freed from the plague, by the merits of St. Agatha, Virgin and Martyr."

[49] No less destruction, though less terrifying in kind, was wrought at Catania in the year 1591 by the inclemency of the air, and from the consequent scarcity of provisions lasting nearly three years, [diseases and inclement weather repelled in the same manner in 1591, sorceries dispersed.] together with a widespread contagion of diseases. The same remedy was applied to the afflicted city as had been used against the plague fifteen years earlier. The body of St. Agatha was brought forth, and at once the inclemency of the malignant air vanished. To this pertains what we have related above, in Annotation c to chapter 2 of the Acts through Metaphrastes, that enchantments and sorceries are dispersed by the patronage of St. Agatha.

[50] And since mention has been made of the high price of grain, this must by no means be passed over in silence: how great a source of protection the Catanians have in the patronage of St. Agatha for obtaining timely rains and abundance of crops. Catania has very extensive plains,

and by nature most fertile, but because the ground extends to a great depth over a wide area, rains often obtained. it is by no means content with a light sprinkling of rain, but requires a full inundation of storms. It happens, however, sometimes that storms of this kind or more copious showers are not at all produced, whether on account of the vapors of Etna, or because the barrier of distant mountains, by which they say clouds are chiefly nourished, lies far off. In such cases the citizens have an unfailing refuge in St. Agatha. For it has been frequently observed that scarcely have her Relics been carried forth from their shrine, when the sky, which had previously been clear, immediately begins to fill with clouds and to pour down opportune rain, and it has happened that an unexpected cheapness of provisions has followed upon the utmost scarcity.

CHAPTER VIII

Catania defended against enemies through St. Agatha.

[51] More savagely and intolerably than plague or famine does war rage, which not only exhausts the fortunes of men, as these do, and kills the body, as the former does, but compels the innocent to suffer every kind of cruelty and outrage, especially in captured cities. From this scourge too Catania boasts that she has been freed by the aid of St. Agatha, by the help of St. Agatha, preserved, I say, from falling into the hands of enemies, or, when she had fallen, opportunely rescued, or, defended from suffering the worst. She was certainly the first of Sicilian cities to be freed from the Gothic yoke in the year of Christ 535. So Procopius in book 1 of the Gothic War: Belisarios de katapleusos eis Sikelian, Kateinen elaben. Christophorus Persona translates: the Goths expelled from Catania by Belisarius, "Belisarius, sailing to Sicily, captured Catania." Procopius then narrates how with no great effort he recovered the entire island by the end of that same year: for, having been sent on that expedition in the ninth year of Justinian, which had begun on the first of August, on the last day of his consulship, which he held that year, he was received at Syracuse with the triumphal applause of the Sicilians. This liberation of their city before all the rest the Catanians ascribe to the merits of St. Agatha.

[52] In the year 1127, at the beginning of August, or, as Blandinus the monk writes above in chapter 1, number 2, of the miracles of St. Agatha, the Spanish Saracens repelled, "a few days before the anniversary of the reception of the glorious Virgin, pirates coming from Spain... by the merits of the Most Holy One... stricken with Divine terror, withdrew far from Catania, which they had been threatening."

[53] By a more illustrious miracle, as they themselves record, the Catanians were divinely defended against Sinan the Turk. Jacobus Augustus Thuanus briefly narrates that expedition of Sinan in book 7 of his history: and Sinan the Turk, "Sinan, who was seeking an occasion for war, ... immediately descended upon Sicily, and having shown himself at Messina, turned aside to Catania, as if about to attack it, and soon made for Augusta, which is a town situated on a peninsula above Syracuse, founded in the year 1229 by Frederick II, and having first captured the citadel, he took the town, plundered it, and set it on fire. This was done on the 16th before the Kalends of Sextilis." Concerning the destruction of Augusta, Fazellus writes in decade 1, book 3, chapter 4: "In my own time, in the year of salvation 1551, on the Kalends of August, by Sinan, commander of a fleet of about one hundred triremes belonging to Suleiman, King of the Turks, the citadel having first been captured, the entire town was consumed by fire."

[54] The Catanians relate the matter thus. Sinan Pasha was coasting along the shore of Sicily with a fleet of more than one hundred triremes, sent by Suleiman to strike terror into the Christians, lest they should obstinately wish to retain the city of Aphrodisium, which is commonly called Africa, recently captured under the auspices of the Emperor Charles V by Vega, Viceroy of Sicily, or should fortify it with garrisons and provisions. A desire and a fury therefore seized the commander to attack Catania. intending to plunder it, And indeed he stood in sight of the city, on a calm sea, for fully ten hours, urging on the spirits of his soldiers through their officers to leap eagerly ashore, slaughter all they encountered, and throw everything into confusion with fire and sword. But a strange thing presented itself to the eyes of the Pasha and his soldiers, and checked their assault. For the entire shore of Catania, together with the fortresses and walls, appeared to be filled with armed soldiers; whether Divine Providence mocked the eyes of the impious men with an empty apparition, or it was in truth a heavenly host, such as was once seen by Gehazi, sent to protect Elisha. Rumor also held [but terrified by the sight of a multitude of armed men, and of St. Agatha herself, as was reported;] that a Maiden was seen by the Moorish commander, of a form and appearance far more ample and majestic than human, resplendent in arms, seated upon a caparisoned horse, riding along the stations of armed men: and that, terrified by these visions, (as the Turks are wont to do in doubtful circumstances) he consulted the lots as to whether he should put his soldiers ashore or turn his course and his fury toward other coasts of the Christians. The lot passed over Catania. He therefore refrained from landing, struck with celestial terror, and went on to Augusta, not far distant from Catania, and having captured it, consumed all things sacred and profane by fire. Thus from the same monk Bartholomew and from public report, writes the above-mentioned Blanditius.

[55] With good reason, therefore, does Paul Aemilius Sanctorius proclaim: "Often has salvation been obtained for the city by the prayers and merits of Agatha: how the Vandals were repelled is uncertain. and frequent victories, not only over the Gothic, Vandal, Moorish, and Saracen enemies, but over the very Etnean conflagration itself." That the Vandals made frequent raids into Sicily and partly plundered and partly razed many cities, Procopius attests in book 1 of the Vandal War. What the fortune of Catania was in those times, I have not yet read.

CHAPTER IX

The Catanians snatched from destruction through St. Agatha.

[56] Another benefit bestowed by St. Agatha upon their ancestors the Catanians celebrate: namely, that they had risen in some insurrection against Frederick II, Emperor and King of Sicily, when he, with equal perfidy and impiety, was rebelling against the Supreme Pontiff, Frederick II, Emperor, enraged against the Catanians, orders all to be killed: and was cruelly tormenting those who obeyed the Pope; but that they were soon crushed by his arms and punished by a savage sentence, that the city should be utterly destroyed and all its inhabitants put to death. But when no one dared to intercede against so cruel an edict, or to mitigate his unspeakable fury with words; behold, on the appointed day of slaughter, while he opened his prayer book to recite the canonical hours to the Virgin Mother of God, these words, written in golden characters, met his eyes: "Do not harm the homeland of Agatha, divinely terrified, for she is an avenger of wrongs." Astonished at this sight, he closed the book, and opened it again at another place; and again the same inscription was presented to him. A third time the book was opened elsewhere, and again thrust upon him the same threatening words. The Emperor, terrified, abstained from the planned slaughter, and ordered the city to be rebuilt. And lest he should appear to have changed his decree rashly, he proclaimed [he only orders them to pass through swords, harmlessly; a monument of which event is still to be seen:] that the citizens should pass through the midst of drawn swords, yet unharmed.

[57] That tradition is current at Catania, and they say that the place in which the swords were bared and hung for this ceremony became a small chapel, whose pavement, extending across the road, formed a gate, from which the neighboring street was thereafter called Mezza-porta. The chapel itself was consecrated to the Most Blessed Virgin of Graces, and on its right side an image of St. Agatha was to be seen: a memorial, evidently, of the grace which the citizens had obtained from the parent of graces and from St. Agatha.

[58] This they say occurred about the year 1232 or the following. For at that same time Centuripe was destroyed by the fury of the same Emperor, once a great and famous city; from whose remains, as Fazellus writes in decade 1, book 10, chapter 2, the city of Augusta rose into existence, or at least, having already been founded, was made more populous by the transfer of the Centuripians thither. Centuripe now lies in ruins and is inhabited by few settlers, as the same Fazellus says: yet mighty ruins of buildings, of the citadel, and of the walls are still to be seen. The name of the place is Centorbi, and it is in the diocese of Catania. Concerning Catania, Pirro makes mention after the destruction of Centuripe thus: "The same King had resolved to raze Catania to the ground because it had revolted from him, but while reciting sacred prayers from a book, they say that three times he was only able to read these words: he places a citadel there. 'Do not harm the homeland of Agatha, for she is an avenger of wrongs': and for this reason, having changed his plan, he merely placed a citadel in that city to keep the rebels in check,

and undertook nothing further."

[59] Some question whether this calamity was not rather inflicted upon Catania by Henry VI, the father of the aforementioned Frederick. Baronius certainly records in volume 12, year 1194, that the Sicilians were stripped of garrisons and fortifications by him, some think this was done by Henry, his father, deprived of their goods, and harassed with various tortures; and Odoricus Raynaldus records the same from a certain letter of Innocent III, at the year 1198, number 64. He raged especially at Palermo against the supporters of Tancred and William III, which in the Aquicinctine supplement to the Chronicle of Sigebert, year 1194, is thus exaggerated: "He destroyed nearly the entire city of Palermo, after expelling the inhabitants." But Huldricus Mutius in the Chronicle of Germany, book 19, writes that Catania was taken by force by Henry, and that in the first fury all persons of both sexes were slain in the city, without any regard even for age. Then he adds: "Having captured the chief men of the city and the Bishop, who had committed many offenses against the Emperor, he set fire to the city, and did not allow the fire to be extinguished until everything was burnt and reduced to ashes." Whence Mutius drew these accounts I do not know, nor do they seem very credible. not very probably: For the Aquicinctine writer, who was living at that time, testifies that Henry had victoriously subjected the Apulians, Sicilians, and Calabrians "without the shedding of blood"; whereas Mutius relates that certain battles were fought around Catania before it was captured. Henry himself, moreover, in a diploma given on April 24 of the year 1195, which is preserved in Pirro, speaks thus: "We therefore, out of reverence for the Blessed Virgin and Martyr Agatha, whose relics are contained in the Church of Catania, and rest there to the honor of the Lord, and also considering the fidelity and welcome services which Roger, the Bishop-elect of that Church, our faithful subject, zealously endeavors to render to Our Serenity with devoted diligence," etc.

[60] Concerning Frederick, the son of Henry, we would more readily believe that something of this kind occurred, both because of his character, first formed in youth toward virtue, such that he could have been accustomed to prayers of this sort, but Frederick was cruel, and because of his subsequent headlong and unrestrained savagery. He certainly did utterly destroy many cities captured in war, as may be seen in Raynaldus: but he especially harassed the Sicilian churches with dire tyranny; concerning which Fazellus writes in decade 2, book 8: "Finally Frederick transferred all the wrath with which he pursued Pope Gregory IX against the Prelates, many of whom, both Archbishops and Bishops, he partly killed, committed more to prison, and punished some with exile, among whom were Halduin II of Cefalu and the Bishop of Catania, especially against the Sicilians. whose former pupil he had been." Even graver charges are brought against him in Raynaldus by various Pontiffs, and Innocent IV in particular calls him a second Nero, and thus addresses the Bishops and Nobility of Sicily: "The sound of your tribulation has gone forth into all the earth, and the groans most worthy of compassion have proceeded to the ends of the world."

[61] Therefore the destruction of a most noble city and the ordered slaughter of the entire people would be consonant with the character of Frederick, if they could be proven by some document of that age. The Catanians allege a most constant tradition, the Catanians prove the event by public monuments, and several ancient inscriptions. For in the public prytaneum of the Senate of Catania those words are read, engraved in very large gilded characters, as they say, since the year 1300, at which time there were perhaps still living some who had witnessed the entire affair, if it truly occurred, and more who had received the account from their parents. The same words are to be seen inscribed on the highest ceiling of the church of St. Agatha, built many years ago. The same words, engraved on golden plates, adorn the top of that most noble bier on which the golden statue and the Relics of the Saint are carried on the day before the Nones of February, the illustrious bier of St. Agatha there. that is, on the very vigil of her feast, around the walls, by a great throng of people, who, clad in the most honorable attire and walking with bare feet, take their turn in bearing the sacred burden. These monuments, placed in so conspicuous a location by the public authority of the Senate and the Bishop, ought to be esteemed of greater weight, the Catanians contend, than if they were attested by the writing of some private individual, perhaps lurking in a cell and rashly giving credence to uncertain rumors brought to him, as the Palermitans demand.

CHAPTER X

A male heir obtained, danger of death averted, enemies divinely routed, on the vigil of St. Agatha; through her patronage.

[62] The benefits of St. Agatha commemorated thus far were for the most part conferred upon the people of Catania, or upon their neighbors. What follows pertained to the entire island of Sicily, had its fruit been more lasting. St. Agatha, patroness of women in childbirth and of nursing mothers, Because the breasts of St. Agatha were cut off, she is invoked not only to heal diseases of the breasts, but also to assist nursing women, and indeed women in childbirth; nay, even to obtain a male heir. Peter II, King of Sicily, declares that he received a son from the hand of God through her intercession. For he speaks thus in a diploma, a lawful transcript of which from the Register of Privileges of the Most Illustrious City of Catania is in our possession, and which had previously been published by Rocco Pirro in his Notitia of the Church of Catania: "Peter II, by the grace of God, King of Sicily. If Kings and Princes, celebrating the birthdays of their children, adorn the cities and towns of their dominion with immunities, and bestow honors upon the peoples who deserve them; We, who by the will of God preside upon the royal throne, when the Most High has granted us the desired offspring, ought to bestow honors, to pour forth ample immunities and favors without stint. By the tenor of the present privilege, therefore, we wish it to be known to all, both present and future, that, considering the signal benefit which, on the day before the Nones, in the city of Catania (through the intercession of the glorious Virgin Agatha, who is the Guardian of our kingdom, she obtains a son for King Peter II, by whose title that same city is distinguished), we have received from the hand of our God; since the illustrious Queen Elizabeth, our beloved consort, has borne us a son, whom we and our faithful Sicilians, on account of the lack of a male heir, had long desired: wishing also," etc.

[63] That privilege was given at Catania, through the venerable Damian de Palicio of Messina, Professor of Civil Law, Logothete and Chancellor of the kingdom of Sicily, Master Chaplain of the Royal Chapel, in the year of the Lord 1337, in the month of February, on the 12th of the same, in the year 1338 the 6th Indiction. From this Indiction, begun in September of the year 1337, or according to the ecclesiastical usage on the Kalends of January 1338, it is evident that the years were then reckoned according to the French style, with the beginning taken from Easter.

[64] The son then born to King Peter after seven daughters is recorded to have been Louis, who died in the year 1355, in the seventeenth year of his age. We possess a diploma of his, Louis, afterward King, given at Catania on March 14, in the 7th Indiction, in the year 1353, or rather 1354, as is evident from the number of the Indiction. In it he speaks thus: "The divine author of our birth, as we believe, was Blessed Agatha of Catania, because she willed us to be born in her homeland," etc. He was born, as is said in his father's privilege, on the day before the Nones of February; when at first light the relics of Blessed Agatha are customarily brought forth from the most sacred sanctuary, born on February 4 when her Relics are brought forth. to be carried devoutly around the city walls, as is still done with what is truly a triumphal celebration. But the day on which Peter's diploma was given, the day before the Ides of February, which is the last day of the Octave, those same relics are displayed for the adoration of the most numerous people throughout the entire day.

[65] It is fitting here to mention also a foreign King, who, because on the same vigil of St. Agatha he had happily escaped a certain danger of death, bore witness to his gratitude with a more devout memorial. This was Pertaritus, or Bertharidus, King of the Lombards, a pious man, Catholic in faith, and steadfast in justice, as Paul the Deacon commends him in book 5, chapter 33. Concerning him, Bernard Saccus writes thus in book 9, chapter 16, of his History of Pavia: "Whether the virtue in this King or the fortune of events was the greater, may be doubted. For, far from his homeland on more than one occasion, he first went to Germany: then, having been received in good faith by Grimoald, but discovering his treachery, he fled to Gaul lest he be ensnared. Next, as he was proceeding to Britain, that is England, Pertaritus, King of the Lombards, he was recalled to his homeland and kingdom by a voice unknown. He recovered his kingdom after the death of Grimoald, not by arms, but by the goodwill

and consent of his peoples. And mindful of the danger he had escaped when he eluded the hostile hands of Grimoald, he built a monastery dedicated to St. Agatha on the slope of the city, he builds a monastery in honor of St. Agatha at Pavia, where the most ancient walls of Pavia stand: because from that place, let down by a rope on the feast day of that blessed Virgin, he had escaped the peril as night was coming on, so that he might in the future establish an everlasting memorial of the benefit to the eternal God." These events occurred at the time when the grandsons of Dagobert were reigning among the Franks. The same events are more fully recorded by Jacobus Gualla in book 5, chapter 19, of the Sanctuarium Papiae, Antonius Maria Spelta, snatched from certain danger of death on her vigil; Stephanus Breventanus in book 3, chapter 16; and these last two expressly state that he fled on the night preceding the feast of St. Agatha. Paul the Deacon does not specify the day, but records the flight and return, and adds the following: "In the place which is on the side of the river Ticino, whence he had formerly fled, he constructed a monastery which is called the New, to the Lord his Liberator, in honor of the holy Virgin and Martyr Agatha, in which he gathered many virgins, and enriched the same place with revenues and various ornaments." and adorns it with relics. Mention of this church is made on January 7 in the Life of St. Crispinus I, Bishop of Pavia, number 6. Stephanus Breventanus relates in book 4, chapter 6, of his History of Pavia, that certain relics of St. Agatha were formerly preserved in the citadel of Pavia, and afterward transferred to the Cathedral. Whether Pertaritus obtained these from Sicily is not easily said. For he who is said to have adorned the monastery of St. Agatha, which he had founded, with the relics of Saints Primus and Felician — why did he not also place in it a relic of the holy Virgin herself?

[66] When the western Christian forces had begun to besiege Damietta, a very powerful city of Egypt (which most scholars consider to be the ancient Pelusium), in May of the year 1218, and were suffering great hardships, both from the citizens and from the army of Saladin which had pitched camp before the city; and had repeatedly attempted in vain to cross the river Nile; at length on the vigil of St. Agatha Victory at Damietta on the night of St. Agatha. they felt that help had been divinely sent to them, by the patronage (as we may piously interpret) of the holy Virgin herself. Godfrey, a monk of Cologne, who was then living, narrates the event thus: "On the night of St. Agatha the Virgin, God, renewing the miracles of his power, struck such terror into the Sultan of Babylon and his satraps, that, abandoning their camp, even without the knowledge of the Egyptians whom they had stationed to resist, they placed their hope in flight alone ... And so, as the Egyptians fled, the Christians eagerly and cheerfully, without any hindrance from the enemy and without the expenditure of blood, crossed over: and thus the city was besieged on all sides and firmly. The tents of those who fled were also plundered, and all their ships, together with much spoil."

CHAPTER XI

The Bishopric of Catania restored after the expulsion of the Saracens: variously honored by the Popes.

[67] Many and illustrious are the distinctions of the city of Catania: most of which, having accrued to it by the merits of St. Agatha, we have already gathered. It is fitting here to add the Episcopal dignity, not indeed first founded in consideration of her (for they record that Beryllus was Bishop there long before, as will be discussed on March 21), but chiefly preserved by her guardianship [the ancient Bishopric of Catania, the native city of St. Agatha, restored by Count Roger and Pope Urban II:] and restored through her patronage, in fulfillment, as they say, of a vow that Count Roger had made to dedicate to St. Agatha the possessions around Catania, if he should defeat the Saracens: though he does not mention this vow in the diploma of donation. Ansgerius, then, Prior of the Benedictine monastery in the town of St. Euphemia, a Breton by birth, a man of extraordinary piety, was the first Bishop of Catania, initiated by Pope Urban II at the request of the same Count Roger. There are extant in Pirro several diplomas of Roger by which both the foundation of the Church of Catania is confirmed and the properties donated to it are enumerated.

[68] It seemed worthwhile here to present the Bull of Pope Urban II, of which mention was made above. A copy of this was sent to us from Catania last year by Giovanni Battista de Grossis, a most illustrious man, an authentic copy of this Bull. first transcribed from the original in the year 1580, Indiction VIII, on the 24th of March, in the eighth year of the pontificate of Gregory XIII, by Alexander Cantonus, Master Notary of the Great Episcopal Court of Catania, with the names of the witnesses, the Magnificent Lords, appended: and thence copied by the hand of Don Hieronymus Bolanus, Archivist of the archive of the Great Episcopal Court of the city of Catania, attested by the Senate of Catania itself, with seal affixed, and signed by the notary Carolus Scotus, on the 9th of April, in the year 1651, Indiction IV; although the same Bull was also published by Rocco Pirro, Notitia I of the Church of Catania, number 6. It reads as follows:

[69] "Urban, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our beloved Brother Ansgerius, Bishop and Abbot of Catania, and to his successors canonically to be instituted, in perpetuity. As we are taught by the truthful writings of the most blessed Father and most eloquent Doctor Gregory I, it is established that the city of Catania, Register, book 6, Indiction 15, letter 38 where Blessed Agatha was both born and suffered, anciently shone with the glory of the Episcopal dignity. But when the island of Sicily was captured by the Saracen peoples, both there and throughout the other cities of the entire province, the Episcopal glory perished and the dignity of the Christian faith was destroyed. after the Saracens had been expelled from Sicily But after nearly four hundred years, with Divine clemency looking upon His people, the same island was restored to the jurisdiction of the Christians through the most valiant Count Roger. Moreover the same excellent Count, a most devoted son of the Roman Church, striving everywhere to restore, as far as the times allowed, the glory of the ancient dignity of cities, in the church of St. Agatha, Roger the Count establishes a monastery, determined that the mother Church of Blessed Agatha, situated at Catania, should become a monastery: so that the brethren there engaged in the service of God might implore the mercy of the Almighty Lord for his salvation, for the soul of his deceased wife, and for the souls of the soldiers who had restored that land to Christian rule with their own blood.

[70] We, therefore, approving the devotion of so great a man, as is fitting, decree by the authority of the present document that the monastery shall remain there in perpetuity. whose Abbot Urban II decrees shall also be Bishop, But since, as we have already said, the city of Catania is recognized to have formerly been illustrious by the Episcopal prerogative, we further add and by the present decree establish that in our own time as well it shall be restored to that prerogative: and whoever shall be elected Abbot by the monks in the aforesaid Church, the same shall also preside over the people as Bishop. Furthermore, the entire city and whatever cities or villages or towns in the vicinity which the aforesaid Count has offered or shall offer to the same monastery and to Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and whatever can be discovered to have pertained from ancient right to the Church of Catania, both in diocese and in possessions, shall always remain entirely under the jurisdiction of the Abbot and Bishop: and the same Abbot and Bishop shall take care, with the Lord's help, to govern the monastery according to the rule, and the Clergy and entire people according to canon law."

[71] "You, therefore, as the first Bishop of the city of Catania after so long a time, consecrated by our hands, as by the hands of Blessed Peter, and he himself first ordains Ansgerius, endowed by the authority of the present privilege, we decree that this decree shall remain perpetually valid also for your successors: so that they may always be consecrated by the Roman Pontiff, and may always preside over the monks as Abbot and over the people as Bishop. Finally, so that these provisions may stand firm, entire, and inviolate forever, to our most dear son, Count Roger, and gives blessing and indulgences to Roger and his men: champion of the Christian faith, and to his wife and sons and soldiers, for whose redemption he has offered the city of Catania, together with its entire diocese, restored by his own labor, to Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles: we bestow the grace and blessing of God and His Apostles, absolution of sins, and goodwill, in the exercise of the Apostolic authority which we unworthily bear: so that both in the present their triumphs and their magnificent deeds, gifts, and offerings may flourish, and in the future they may find the rewards of eternal blessedness.

[72] "But if anyone (God forbid) should pertinaciously attempt to contravene these our Apostolic constitutions, let him know, after being warned a second and a third time, that if he does not make amends with fitting satisfaction, he shall be grievously punished by the indignation of Almighty God

and of the holy Apostles, and pierced through with the anathema of the Apostolic See which he has scorned. But upon those who observe these provisions, may peace from God and mercy be preserved for ages present and future. he establishes penalties against violators. Amen, amen. Given at Anagni on the 7th of the Ides of March, Indiction XIV, by the hand of John, Cardinal Deacon of the Holy Roman Church, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1091, in the fourth year of the pontificate of the Lord Pope Urban II."

[73] We have also received from the same source a twofold diploma of Pope Alexander III, likewise drawn from the Catanian archive on the same day, April 9, 1651, Pope Alexander III by a twofold diploma and transcribed by the hand of Hieronymus Bolanus from an older copy, which in the year 1580, previously mentioned, Alexander Cantonus, Master of Acts, had produced before the same witnesses, from another copy that had been transcribed from the original in the year 1343, on August 30, (of which an authentic copy is in our possession) Indiction XI, in the first year of Louis, King of Sicily, by Julian de Augusta, public Notary, with the names of more than fifty witnesses appended; so that it might be given to the Proctors, Syndics, and Agents being sent to Pope Clement VI by the Prior and Chapter, that is, the convent of monks of the greater Church of Catania, lest the original should perish through some misadventure of the journey.

[74] The first diploma was given at Benevento by the hand of Gratian, Subdeacon and Notary of the Holy Roman Church, on the 7th before the Kalends of August, Indiction I, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1168, in the ninth year of the pontificate of the Lord Pope Alexander III; and was sent to John, Bishop and Abbot of the Church of Catania. The second was addressed to Robert, Bishop and Abbot of the Church of Catania, given at Tusculum by the hand of Gratian, Deacon and Notary of the Holy Roman Church, on the 13th before the Kalends of September, Indiction IV, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1171, in the twelfth year of the pontificate of the Lord Alexander III. Besides the Pontiff, thirteen Cardinals had subscribed the first diploma, and nine the second. In both was inserted the first paragraph of the diploma of Urban II, from those words "As we are taught by the writings of the most blessed Father," etc., up to "might implore His mercy." Then the following is set forth: "Wherefore Pope Urban of pious memory, considering the devotion of so great a man, blessed the Elect whom the same Count had sent to him as Abbot, and afterward consecrated him as Bishop: and established that the city of Catania should flourish with a twofold prerogative, so that whoever should be elected by the monks as Abbot in that place, the same should also preside over the people as Bishop." Then is added in the first diploma: "We, therefore, following in the footsteps of that same Predecessor of ours, receive you, Brother Bishop John, consecrated by our hands, however unworthy, as by the hands of Blessed Peter, and the same Church under the protection of Blessed Peter and ourselves, and fortify it with the privilege of the present writing: establishing that, just as was decreed by that same Predecessor of ours, both dignities, namely that of Abbot and Bishop, shall be preserved in the same place in one and the same person, he confirms the same, and that those elected by the monks of the same place shall be blessed and consecrated by the Roman Pontiff, and that the Church itself shall be subject to none but the Roman Pontiff." These matters are expressed somewhat more briefly in the second diploma. In both, the possessions of the Church of Catania are then confirmed and enumerated: the Pallium also is bestowed upon the Bishop, and bestows the Pallium. and the days on which he is to use it are prescribed, namely on the feast of St. Agatha among others: and he is admonished to apply himself to those virtues which the dignity of the Pallium demands. Later, however, the Bishops of Catania were subjected to the Archbishop of Monreale by Pope Lucius III in the year 1184, and the use of the Pallium was taken away from the successors of Robert, to whom Alexander had granted it in the second diploma; but it is not our intention to pursue everything that was done and changed in that Church: we have reported these diplomas here because they had been cited previously and seemed to pertain to the honor of St. Agatha.

[75] Augustine Inveges writes that, when the controversy concerning the homeland of St. Agatha was conducted at Rome, no account was taken of these Apostolic Briefs, some repudiate these diplomas, even though an authentic copy transcribed from the original was produced; because they were not to be found in the Roman archive, and their phrasing smelled of Sicilian usage, since they call the church Matrem Ecclesiam, whereas the Romans are accustomed to say Matricem. But the second Brief of Alexander does in fact contain the word matricem, and I do not see not on very solid grounds: why a church cannot equally be called Mater as Matrix, since not only Sicilians but other nations also use the term, and it was perhaps the usage of such peoples, or at any rate the wording of the petition of the Catanians, that was followed by the secretary of Urban II. For whether all the Briefs, diplomas, and privileges of Popes of every age are still preserved in the Roman archive, so that absolutely none has been lost, consumed by age, or not entered into it, I do not know, although I should very much wish it: but if they are extant, at what great advantage to pious and learned men could the letters and decrees of the ancient Pontiffs be published!

[76] What other objections the Palermitans raised against these Bulls, lest they should damage their own cause, we have indicated above. Wisely indeed does Pirro say: "Not for this reason, however, others accept them, did they, in my judgment, signify that the entire diploma (of Urban) is spurious. For what testimony will be worthy of trust if public Acts, drawn up by sworn notaries, and rightly, signed by men of honor and by the entire Senate, are held suspect? I for my part would rather be considered less astute than to doubt the trustworthiness of documents of this kind."