ON ST. EULALIA, VIRGIN MARTYR, AT BARCELONA IN HISPANIA
Year of Christ 303.
Preliminary Commentary.
Eulalia, Virgin Martyr, at Barcelona in Hispania (St.)
I. B.
[1] Two Virgins accomplished noble martyrdom among the people of Hispania at the same time, both of whom bore the name Eulalia; one at Emerita, Two SS. Eulalia, of Emerita and of Barcelona, a city of old Lusitania, the other at Barcelona in Tarraconese Hispania; the latter on the twelfth day of February, born at the age of fourteen years; the former at twelve or thirteen, on December 10. Entirely similar torments were applied to both; equal strength of soul, divinely bestowed, was given to both for freely reproaching the Judge; the soul of each is remembered as having flown away in the form of a dove.
[2] Which was the reason for various authors to suppose and write that there was only a single Eulalia, who, born at Barcelona, suffered martyrdom at Emerita. So L. Marineus Siculus, book 5 of his work on the affairs of Hispania: Eulalia, the most holy Virgin and Martyr, combined into one by certain writers; a native of Barcelona, in Emerita Augusta, a city once most flourishing, for the faith and confession of Christ, by the order of Dacianus, Governor of the province, first suspended on the rack and scraped with iron claws, and then, when burning plates were applied to both sides, consumed by fire, on the fourth day before the Ides of December, she rendered her spirit to God. But Maurolycus, and Canisius in his German Martyrology, have the Emeritensian killed at Barcelona on this day; although neither on December 10 (where they record her again) mentions the city of Barcelona. Peter de Natali, book 1, chapter 54, attributes to the Barcelonan whatever is narrated of the Emeritensian, and writes that she was buried at Barcelona on the fourth day before the Ides of December. Yet in the same book, chapter 48, treating of St. Leocadia, he mentions Eulalia as killed in the city of Emerita. Vincent of Beauvais, book 12, chapter 123, after briefly recounting the Acts of the Emeritensian Eulalia, adds: The feast of this Virgin appears to be recorded twice in the Martyrology, namely on the day before the Ides of February and on the fourth day before the Ides of December: unless perhaps there were two women of the same name who suffered in the same province and in the same persecution.
[3] Prudentius appears to have furnished others with a greater occasion for doubt, who, having sung the third Hymn in his book On the Crowns in praise of St. Eulalia of Lusitania, and having described her struggle at length, by others the acts of one are attributed to the other, nowhere treats of the Barcelonan, although he mentions Barcelona elsewhere. But he does not commemorate all the Saints, nor the glories of all cities. And that Eulalia of Lusitania was somewhat more celebrated for the multiplicity of her tortures: but the torments which are read to have been inflicted on her alone, some have also attributed to the Barcelonan. For Thomas Trugillus, among other things, writes of her in part 2 of volume 2 of the Treasury of Preachers: They cast her into quicklime, poured oil upon her, and boiling lead: then they rubbed her nostrils and all her wounds with mustard and vinegar, and with sharp potsherds they tore all her wounds, and burned her eyes with flaming candles. And after a few words: When Dacianus was now weary of such varied invention of tortures, and saw that he could not by this means deflect the immovable spirit of the Virgin from the firmness of her faith, although she was most tender and of slight age, he wished to exercise the torment of ignominy upon her, and so he ordered the holy Virgin, naked and wounded with so many wounds, to be led through the entire city, for her greater shame and the terror of all Christians; and thereafter to be beheaded in a certain field. The same is narrated by Ribadeneira and Villegas in the Flower of the Saints, John Marietta in his Ecclesiastical History of Hispania, book 4, chapter 1, Ambrosius Morales, book 10, chapter 3, and others. But those punishments were inflicted on Eulalia of Emerita alone. and what was similar in both was recklessly taken away from one or the other.
[4] By a similar error, some have attached to this Eulalia of Barcelona the teacher and exhorter to martyrdom Donatus, who attended the Emeritensian. This we have also noticed in various manuscripts, and Barnabas Morenus de Vargas noted it in book 2 of his History of Emerita, chapter 8. With whom, however, we by no means agree when he denies that the Barcelonan, living in the country, went voluntarily into the city to the Judge. St. Eulogius refutes him, writing thus in book 1 of the Memorial of the Saints: So Justus and Pastor, so Eulalia the Virgin of Barcelona, so Babylas the Bishop, and many others offered themselves voluntarily and were crowned. Running in the opposite direction, Morales, in scholium 18 on that book of St. Eulogius, writes thus: From this you may easily understand that Eulalia of Emerita did not proceed of her own will to the confession of the Christian faith, but was carried off by order of the Judge. Otherwise Eulogius would have adduced her example as well. That example might not have occurred to Eulogius. And for him to deny it expressly about the Emeritensian, the authority of Prudentius outweighs his for us, who writes thus:
She, loathing to endure in ignoble delay The aid of rest, At night she moves the doors without a witness, And as a fugitive opens the barred enclosures, Thence she takes her way through trackless paths. And after 18 verses: Proudly in the morning she approaches the tribunal, She stands in the midst of the fasces, etc.
The Acts, to be published on December 10, will reveal this more clearly.
[5] We give here the Acts of St. Eulalia of Barcelona from a manuscript of the monastery of St. Maximin near Trier, the Acts of the Barcelonan published here from manuscripts. and from a manuscript of the monastery of St. Cucuphas de Valles in Catalonia; formerly submitted by John Baptist de Castelarnau, a most devout religious of the same monastery. The same were published from a Toledan codex in the Hispanic Martyrology by John Tamayus Salazar. With these three sets of Acts agree what Francis Diagus narrates in Spanish from an ancient codex of the Church of Barcelona in book 1 on the Counts of Barcelona, chapter 8, and what Francis Padilla records in his Ecclesiastical History of Hispania, century 4, chapter 3, from a manuscript of the Church of Calahorra.
[6] Antonius Vincentius Domeneccus in his History of the Saints of Catalonia collected the deeds of St. Eulalia from various authors, other things written about her upbringing, and among other things, omitted in the Latin Acts and the already-cited records, narrates the following: The mother of the Virgin Eulalia was a Christian and most devout woman: who, so as to occupy her daughter's mind from earliest childhood with the study and love of Divine things, taught her to paint with a needle and to form figures of the Saints: and especially she set before her the life of the Virgin Mother of God to depict, so that she might strive to express with her character what she depicted with her art, even more zealously. But the most holy Virgin was borne along both with great devotion toward the Mother of God, and with much greater (as was fitting) devotion toward Christ: love toward Christ and the Blessed Virgin. and therefore at the beginning of every work she painted the figure of the holy Cross, and then the image of the Virgin Mother. While she was once meditating on Divine things, an Angel appeared to her visibly, and told her that she had been chosen as a bride by Christ, and promised her the triumph of the Cross as a dowry. Animated by this sign and promise, after giving thanks to her heavenly Bridegroom, she immediately set out for Barcelona. If these things are true, then what Trugillus writes is false — that she drew her origin from illustrious and noble parents, about whom it is not said whether they were Christians. Which Morales also writes. But so that we may determine nothing about that narrative of Domeneccus, her parents were Christians: the Acts themselves seem to us to indicate clearly enough that her parents too were Christians, who loved her for her humility and so great wisdom, and allowed her to serve the Lord in a secluded cell with her companions in the praise of hymns, etc.