ON ST. MARTHA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR, AT ASTORGA IN SPAIN
IN THE YEAR 251.
Preliminary Commentary.
Martha, Virgin and Martyr at Astorga in Spain (St.)
G. H.
[1] Astorga, a very ancient city of Spain in the kingdom of Leon, surnamed Augusta by Ptolemy, the capital of the Asturian people, to whom the river Astura gave its name: an episcopal see is said to have been erected there from the very beginning of the nascent Church. manuscript Acts of St. Martha, Virgin and Martyr In that city St. Martha the Virgin was crowned with martyrdom, of whom, says Tamayo de Salazar in his Spanish Martyrology at February 23, there is a celebrated memory throughout that diocese, a frequent name in the churches, a surname among women, and an invocation among the people. Tamayo published her Acts from a very ancient manuscript Legendary in the library of Diego de Arce Reynoso, Bishop of Plasencia, which we also give here. The title of the manuscript Legendary is: Here begin the histories which are not found in the Breviary, that is, the one common to the rest of the churches. For the same Acts are distributed into Lessons customarily recited at Matins, and from them published in Spanish by Francisco de Padilla in his Ecclesiastical History of Spain, century 3, chapter 6. A distinguished eulogy drawn from the same ecclesiastical office is read in Thomas de Trujillo, Thesaurus of Preachers, volume 2, at February 23, in these words.
[2] The Church of Astorga celebrates the feast of Blessed Martha, and it is read in her Office summary of the same that during the persecution carried out by the Roman Emperor Decius, Martha was seized by a certain proconsul called Paternus. He also urged her to worship the idols, and when she refused to do so, she was placed upon the rack and beaten there with certain knotted cudgels, and afterwards was thrown into prison. After some days, the proconsul ordered her to be brought before him again, and promised that he would give her his son in marriage if she would worship his idols, and he promised her many other things. But Martha despised all these things, saying that she was betrothed to Jesus Christ and did not wish to seek another bridegroom. The tyrant, therefore, seeing that his promises availed little, and his threats even less, ordered her to be killed with the sword and her body to be cast into a most unclean place. Whereupon a most honorable matron retrieved it and buried it with honor. Her martyrdom was consummated on February 23, or 22, as others say. So it reads there.
[3] On February 22 her memory is celebrated in the Menology of Virgins by our Lahier venerated on February 22 and 23 and in another Calendar. But on the 23rd, the feast of St. Martha is prescribed to be celebrated with a double rite throughout the entire diocese of Astorga, in the Order for reciting the divine office or Masses throughout the Spanish kingdoms, printed at Madrid in 1635 and 1646. That she is venerated on this same day is also attested by Alfonso de Villegas in his Appendix to the Flowers of the Saints; Juan Marieta, On the Saints of Spain, Book 4, chapter 20, and Book 22, treating of the city of Astorga; and Razzius, On Women Illustrious for Sanctity, volume 1, folio 170, who translated nearly the same eulogy from Trujillo, the last into Italian, the others into Spanish. In the Roman Martyrology at the same date of February 23, her memory is consecrated in these words: In the city of Astorga, of St. Martha, Virgin and Martyr, under the Emperor Decius and the Proconsul Paternus. Since the Acts state that this persecution took place under Paternus in the Spanish provinces in the year in which Decius died, the martyrdom of St. Martha should be assigned to the year 251, the time of her martyrdom near the end of which or the beginning of the following year both father and son Decius perished. Consult the preliminary commentary to the Life of St. Agatha on February 5, section 1, number 5.
[4] Sancho Davila, Book 3, On the Veneration of Relics, chapter 8, page 296, enumerates the Saints whose sacred bodies are preserved in the city and diocese of Astorga, is the body of St. Martha in the monastery of Riva de Sil? and reports that in the nearby monastery called Riva de Sil, the body of St. Martha, Virgin and Martyr, and of various other Saints is held in veneration. But Pedro de Ayngo Ezpeleta, in his Antiquities of the Church of Astorga, number 72, followed by Tamayo de Salazar, asserts that the sacred relics are still preserved with due honor in the church bearing her name, called "de Tera," in the same diocese of Astorga, or rather in the abbey of Tera formerly a Benedictine monastery, now an abbey, among the dignity titles of the Cathedral Church. They add that this is clearer than daylight, since there still exists a charter of King Alfonso VII concerning this preservation at Tera, in which the King himself declares that the relics were honorably placed there. Masini, in his guide to Bologna, reports that in the Franciscan church at Bologna the greater part of an arm of St. Martha, Virgin and Martyr, is to be seen, some relics at Bologna and that there are some relics of the same saint among the Barnabites in the church of St. Paul -- which he implies refers to this St. Martha, since her feast is placed on February 23.
[5] That there are many towns in Asturias, Galicia, Old Castile, and Leon designated by the name of St. Martha, towns named after her whose nomenclature it would be tedious to describe, the same Tamayo de Salazar writes, who by way of conclusion appends a double acrostic poem, composed in the dust of antiquity, with these words: an ancient acrostic
Martha, Astorga declares, loves her Martyr, And loves her own, and they acknowledge the Ages of time, Our ardor does not entirely envy the Roman fires, So many miracles the nurturing one shines with, by constant prodigies, Here she lies, here she will ease our sufferings at once, O nurturing one, how great the tender mercies you now bring forth here, Martha.
LIFE
from an ancient manuscript Legendary, published by Juan Tamayo de Salazar.
Martha, Virgin and Martyr at Astorga in Spain (St.)
BHL Number: 5550
[1] In the Spanish city of Augusta of the Astures, which is recognized as the city of Astorga, St. Martha, Virgin and Martyr, is venerated at Astorga the passion of St. Martha, Virgin and Martyr, whose deeds of suffering, though they have existed among the mists of oblivion, nevertheless the Church of God still venerably honors her most illustrious martyrdom among the crowns of the Martyrs.
[2] Therefore at that time when Decius, contrary to all divine and human law, ordered the Emperors Philip -- one at Rome, the other at Verona -- to be killed, and afterwards the tyrant ascended to the helm of the Roman Empire, in the year in which he died, in that Decian persecution under the Proconsul of Spain, Paternus, the persecution of the Christians was so great that within two months innumerable thousands were crowned with martyrdom. Whence, amid so many kinds of torments, although some Christians fell away, for the most part the greater number arrived at the goal of suffering crowned with laurels. In this storm of persecution, therefore, Spain was known to be ablaze, by order of the Proconsul Paternus and when Paternus arrived at Astorga, having issued edicts proclaimed by the dreadful voice of heralds, he permitted his soldiers to seek out the Christians. It was their custom, implanted by diabolical fraud, that Christians might be recognized immediately, since public sacrifices to the gods were decreed, at which the entire populace was compelled to be present under penalty of death. If anyone, therefore, was absent from this assembly, because she was absent from the sacrifice to the gods he was held to be a Christian and led to the prisons of the judges, until he could be compelled either to offer incense to the idols or to confess that he was a Christian. All this Paternus carried out at Astorga, and when it was learned that Martha, a Virgin of Astorga, born of noble parents and rich in wealth, had not been present at the public sacrifices to the gods, his soldiers, driven by suspicion, reported the matter to the Proconsul. she is seized and confesses herself a Christian Ordering the holy Virgin to be brought before his tribunal, he said angrily: "By what presumption do you dare, noble as you are, to despise our gods by secret evasion? Tell me, then, who you are, or by what name you are called." The Virgin replied: "I am called Martha, born of the noble lineage of the Asturians. I have given both my name and my soul to Christ; I belong to Him who made me from nothing and chose me for greater things."
[3] Turning these words over within himself, Paternus resolved to draw the Virgin's spirit to his own will through the blandishments of speech. Therefore, with a cunning smile, he persuaded the Virgin with a winding course of flattering words she spurns his blandishments to sacrifice to the gods, to obey the Emperors, and to turn away from the inventions of the Christians. But the most steadfast Virgin, persisting in her resolve, rejected the impious prefect's blandishments with a vigorous spirit. Paternus flared up in anger and, overcome with bile, struck the ground and air with his hands and feet. she is tortured on the rack Then it came to punishment. He ordered her to be suspended on the rack and her tender body to be torn limb by limb with iron hooks, with torches applied to her sides besides, until she should die with her entrails exposed and rubbed with salt. All was done as commanded. But what avails human power she is strengthened by an appearance of Christ when divine mercy cries out against it? Martha emerges from the punishment stronger; the unconquerable Virgin is taken down from the rack; and that same night the Lord, appearing to her with a great light, gently comforted her. By His most sweet vision and His words to her, she was so emboldened that she counted her sufferings as nothing.
[4] The Proconsul, seeing that he could overcome her neither by words nor by blows, after some days changed his tactics and ordered the Virgin to be brought before him again. He desired anew, by a crafty speech, to divert Martha from her fellowship with Christ and draw her to the worship of idols; and he went so far in his insistent persuasion she rejects marriage to the Proconsul's son as to promise the Virgin that he would unite her in marriage with his son. But the consecrated woman, who sought the footsteps of her divine Spouse in solitude and had caught the whispers of His voice, rebuked the Proconsul's ignorance and refused the marriage with his son, and professed herself the bride of Christ, from whose love and affection neither tribulation, nor distress, nor hunger, nor nakedness, nor peril, nor persecution, nor the sword could avail to separate her. she is struck down by the sword Paternus, exceedingly angry, cried out within himself: "Let me die defeated, for I see myself overcome by this mere woman!" Then, lest the Virgin's victory be made public, he ordered Blessed Martha to be struck down secretly by the deadly sword and buried in a most unclean place. When this was done, she is buried a most noble Christian matron, having extracted the body from the grove of olive trees, confidently committed it to honorable burial -- through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever. Amen.