ON ST. DOROTHEA, A VIRGIN CONSECRATED TO GOD, AT ALEXANDRIA IN EGYPT,
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FOURTH CENTURY.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Dorothea, Virgin, at Alexandria in Egypt (Saint)
By J. B.
[1] This is another Dorothea, whose feast day being perhaps unknown, her name was here inscribed in the Martyrologies alongside that Caesarean Dorothea — first by Richard Wytford about one hundred and forty years ago, St. Dorothea of Alexandria is venerated on February 6. then by Franciscus Maurolycus, Petrus Galesinius, Petrus Canisius, and Philippus Ferrarius. Molanus also mentions her in his Notes on Usuard, and Baronius in his own notes on the Roman Martyrology, although the latter elsewhere conjectures that she may have been Catherine, about which more below. Galesinius celebrates her in these words, with which the others mostly agree: At Alexandria, likewise of St. Dorothea, who, fleeing the Emperors Maxentius and Maximinus, enemies of Christian chastity and faith, hid herself in the wilderness, where, assiduous in prayers and fasting, she led many other women by her example to that most holy manner of life. she lived not under Maxentius, Dorothea fled Maximinus Galerius Caesar, not Maxentius; for the latter waged war against the Christian religion and the chastity of virgins and matrons at Rome, not at Alexandria, though with equal madness. Wytford calls him Maximus instead of Maximinus.
[2] The name of this holy Virgin, omitted by Eusebius, was transmitted to posterity by Rufinus, who also treated the matter itself somewhat differently from Eusebius, in book 8 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 17, in these words: Maximinus was often vanquished, but under Maximinus Galerius; not only by men but also by women who, inflamed by the word of God and the fervor of faith, were indeed apprehended as women but were crowned as brave men in the contest; for they preferred to undergo death more readily — indeed even to seek it of their own accord — rather than to receive a stain upon the body. But when he was driven headlong by two most grievous masters, lust and cruelty, there was at Alexandria a certain Dorothea, noble, rich, learned, beautiful, born of a rather noble family, powerful in vast riches and noble relations. But in her the endowment of intellect and industry, and the pursuit of certain honorable arts, flourished more than these external goods. She possessed such glory of beauty and comeliness that she was believed to be a wondrous and special creation of God. But she, who strove to be more beautiful in the devotion of her soul and the uprightness of her life than in the beauty of her body, devoted to God: by the most equitable judgment of her mind resolved to consecrate to God what appeared beautiful and comely among men, rather than to indulge it for human use, and to remain a Virgin consecrated to God.
[3] But he who defiled things both divine and human with lust and cruelty alike, learning of the excellence of her beauty alone — not of her intellect and her resolution — set his mind upon violating the Virgin and polluting her chastity. But having discovered that she was a Christian, approached by the tyrant for defilement, who according to his own edicts seemed liable rather to punishment than to his lust, he began to waver in his uncertainty and not to know which way to turn. But when lust, which held wider dominion over him, conquered his wavering mind, and the Virgin was expecting to be dragged to execution for martyrdom, he sent secret messengers to solicit her for defilement. She answered that it was a sacrilege for her to pollute the temple of her body, which she had once consecrated to God, with the worship of idols or the contagion of lust; that she was indeed prepared for death; but that it was unfitting for a cruel tyrant to put forth anything soft or flattering, nor was it worthy that his savage spirit should be relaxed toward her — a spirit which the blood of Christians, poured out daily in floods, kept hardened.
[4] When to these responses he, inflamed with lust, grew still more heated, and resolved to act by force unless she yielded to his words, when he threatened violence, the most chaste Virgin abandoned all her possessions, her house, and her household, and by night secretly departed she fled secretly: with a few most faithful servants and with chastity, her dearest companion, leaving the mocked tyrant empty and senseless. But he also assailed many other noble women and virgins likewise by her example; yet finding them, by that same example, more ready for death than for the slavery of lust, he ordered them to be subjected to cruel torments. others undergo martyrdom for chastity. They submitted to death far more readily and joyfully than all others, because they believed that double crowns were being prepared for them by the Lord — not only for piety but also for chastity.
[5] These are the words of Rufinus in the edition of the year 1479, produced with care by Joannes Schallus. Vincent of Beauvais reproduces the same from him, Mirror of History, book 13, chapter 10. Petrus de Natalibus also treats of this St. Dorothea, book 3, chapter 102, where after other matters he writes thus: she herself lives in holiness in the wilderness: When therefore the Virgin of Christ was assailed by the same man (Maximinus) for adultery, having obtained a delay and fearing the loss of her virginity, in the silence of night she secretly fled; and seeking the wilderness, devoting herself for a long time to prayers and fasting, she rested in peace. Many virgins imitated her example.
[6] Eusebius, book 8, chapter 27, writes thus: Women indeed, no less than men, strengthened by the teaching of the divine word — some indeed undergoing the same contests as men and carrying off equal rewards of virtue, others when dragged to defilement preferred to submit their life to death rather than their body to dishonor. One woman in particular at Alexandria, when others yielded to the tyrant's lust, though she was of most noble and splendid rank and a Christian, overcame the intemperate and lustful rage of Maximinus's mind with manly constancy. She was illustrious in other respects — in wealth, nobility, and learning — but she held all these honors far below chastity. [she is said to have been tempted with many blandishments by the tyrant, then exiled and stripped of her goods:] Though he tried many blandishments upon her in vain, and she was more ready for death, the tyrant was unable to kill her, since desire occupied his mind more; he therefore exiled her, stripped of all her possessions. But innumerable other women, because they could not even bear to hear the threats of defilement that the governors of the provinces held over them, endured every kind of torment, racking, and deadly torture — women truly worthy of admiration.
[7] Our Franciscus Laherius in his great Menology of Virgins records nearly the same things as Rufinus; but he says that when approached by the tyrant's satellites, she used dissimulation and asked for two days, because she was not then suitably prepared; she died around the year 320. and so, having obtained a delay (as Petrus de Natalibus says), she secretly fled. He conjectures that she died around the year 320 and places her feast on February 7.
[8] Baronius, volume 3 of the Annals, at the year 307, number 31, thinks that the heroine of whom we have spoken Certain persons think she is St. Catherine; is Catherine the Virgin and Martyr, who is venerated on November 25; and that since she was called Hecaterina from Hecate, she was named Dorothea at baptism; yet since she was most famous among all, she remained better known to posterity by her former name. His chief argument is that it does not seem likely that the wrath and lust of the uncontrolled tyrant would have rested without having her brought back from flight; indeed he suspects that she, having escaped by flight, sought the mountains of Arabia, where the Christians of Alexandria were accustomed to take refuge in time of persecution; and that she, with a faithful company of Christians, climbed to the summit of Mount Sinai; but that she was also sought out again, found, harassed with torments, and crowned with martyrdom; and that her body was divinely translated to the place where she had found her hiding place in flight.
[9] The ingenious conjecture of so great a man, confirmed however by no more ancient authority or sufficiently solid reasoning, there is no reason for us to embrace lightly. this is scarcely probable. For let us grant that from Hecate the name Hecaterina could be derived, and not rather Hecataea or something similar — where has he read that she was called Hecaterina? In the Menologion published in Latin she is Catherine; in the Greek Menaea and Menologion she is Aikaterina. What has this to do with Hecate? I remember our Henricus Adamus, most learned in Greek and Hebrew, discussing this name some thirty-five years ago, and contending that when someone had read he Katharina written as he Katharina, they made it Hecaterina. But perhaps he had not seen the Menaea, which express it quite differently. But of Catherine elsewhere. Eusebius writes that Dorothea was punished with exile; Rufinus, who first revealed her name — having perhaps learned it by traveling through Egypt — would not have been ignorant if she had been thus brought back from flight and so savagely tortured.