ON ST. COINTA, OR QUINTA, MARTYR, AT ALEXANDRIA IN EGYPT.
In the year of Christ 249.
Commentary.
Cointa, or Quinta, Martyr at Alexandria (St.)
By I. B.
[1] It is said to be a presage of the most fierce tempest when, with no winds bearing down, the sea seethes, stirred from within by some secret breath. The same has occurred in the public calamities of the Church. For as soon as Divine Justice gave the evil spirit power to devise some new calamities, even though the principal instruments of these were not yet prepared, he nevertheless produced somewhere certain indications either of his already unbridled fury or preludes to his deadly joy. The persecution which raged under Decius against the worshippers of the sacred religion had already ravaged Egypt, and especially Alexandria, a full year before any edict had been issued, or perhaps before the tyrant himself had even seized the empire—some soothsayer, architect of crimes, stirring up the spirits of the Gentiles and driving them more vehemently to defend their ancestral superstitions.
[2] How those events unfolded, and what fury of the pagans blazed forth, is narrated by St. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, who had witnessed them, in his letter to Fabianus, Bishop of Antioch, as preserved by Eusebius in book 6 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 34. The first victim of this popular fury was St. Metras, or Metranus, of whom we treated on 31 January. Next came St. Cointa, or Quinta, whose martyrdom he recounts as follows:
[3] "Then they led a faithful woman named Cointa to the temple of idols and compelled her to worship them. When she refused and abhorred the deed, they bound her feet with chains and dragged her through the streets of the entire city, which were paved with rough stones, and, dashing her also against millstones and lacerating her with scourges, they brought her to the same place and overwhelmed her with stones." He says "the same place," which was a suburb (prooasteion), where he had reported that St. Metranus, after other tortures, had been crushed with stones. Musculus, the translator of Eusebius, has only: "they bring her back to the same place," and makes no mention of the stoning by which St. Metranus had been killed being applied also to Cointa; nor does Rufinus, who says only this in book 6, chapter 31: "Fastening chains to her feet and dragging her through the streets of the entire city, they tore her apart with a foul and horrifying form of punishment." But in the Greek it is expressly stated: epi ton auton agagontes kateleusan topon ("leading her to the same place, they stoned her"). For kataleusai means "to stone." Nicephorus also, in book 5, chapter 30, has it thus: "And finally, leading her to the place where they had also taken the aforementioned Metras, they surrounded her too with the same crown of stones."
[4] Vincentius Bellovacensis also treats of her in book 11, chapter 38, as does Baronius in volume 2 under the year 252, number 3; Silvanus Razzius in volume 1 of his work on women illustrious for their sanctity; and Petrus de Natalibus in book 3, chapter 106, who writes that she suffered under a Governor named Divinus. For the soothsayer whom we have said was the instigator of the tumult against the Christians is called by Eusebius mantis kai poietes ("a diviner and contriver"), and by Rufinus "Divinus"—a name which Petrus supposed to have been the proper name of the Governor. But if these events occurred in the last year of the Emperor Philip, no Governor was so demented as to dare openly wage war against the Christians; and indeed the popular uprising that was stirred up for this purpose was one that even under a pagan Emperor he ought to have suppressed and referred all matters to a lawful tribunal—especially since the Alexandrian populace was inclined to seditions of this kind and had often been restrained by severe remedies.
[5] The name of St. Cointa is inscribed in nearly all the Latin martyrologies under 8 February, though it is unknown (as is that of St. Metranus) to the Greek Menaea. Concerning her, Usuardus, Bede, Ado, and Notkerus declare: "On the same day at Alexandria, St. Cointa, Martyr. The pagans, having seized her and leading her to the idols, compelled her to worship. When she refused and abhorred the act, they fastened chains to her feet and, dragging her through the streets of the entire city, tore her apart with a horrible punishment." The Roman Martyrology has nearly the same, and Maurolycus and Galesinius in different words. Certain printed and manuscript martyrologies celebrate her with a shorter encomium.
[6] She whom Eusebius calls "a faithful woman," Nicephorus "a certain woman," and Rufinus "a certain noble woman," is made a Virgin by Petrus de Natalibus, as well as by the Martyrology of Usuardus published at Lubeck in 1475, and the Doctrinale Clericorum printed there in 1490; likewise by Bellinus, Maurolycus, Galesinius, Canisius, and very many manuscripts. Our Lahierius, in his great Menology of Virgins, holds that it can be inferred from Eusebius that she was never joined in marriage. Nothing certain about her rank or state of life is transmitted by St. Dionysius of Alexandria, as cited by Eusebius, nor perhaps was anything else known to him, given the great number of Christians. But since he expressly calls St. Apollonia (of whom we shall treat on 9 February) a Virgin in the same letter, concerning St. Cointa—whom he could have written of as either a pistin parthenon ("faithful virgin") or gunaika ("woman")—we cannot safely pronounce anything. We do not, however, approve in Lahierius the statement that she was captured and killed by the ministers of Decius, since this was done by the Alexandrian populace.
[7] The name, which properly seems to have been Quinta, rendered by the Greeks as Kointa and perhaps Kuinta, has been corrupted by various errors in manuscript and printed copies. For she is found written as Cuinta, Cointha, Coynta, Coyta, Coinda, Conita, Chonita, Connita, Couita, Conuita, Corintha, Corinthea, Chorintha, Conta, Concha, Chonta, Tonita, and Thonna.
[8] Hermannus Greuen, who praises her on 8 February in the words of Usuardus, has the following under 15 January: "At Alexandria, Tonita, or Cointha, Virgin and Martyr." And again under 21 August: "At Alexandria, Conta the noble." On which day the manuscript Florarium has: "At Alexandria, Concha, Martyr"—in which she is also commemorated on 8 February. No reason, however, is indicated by either author for assigning her memorial to different days; just as Maurolycus gives no reason for placing several Martyrs together on 19 February, each of whom has his own feast day, writing of them thus: "At Alexandria, Saints Julianus, Eunus, Macarius, Epimachus, Alexander, Metranus, Apollonia, Ammonia, Cointa, with ten others, Martyrs under Decius."