ON ST. MARINA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR,
OF GALLAECIA IN SPAIN.
From the Roman Martyrology.
CommentaryMarina, Virgin and Martyr, in Gallaecia in Spain (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Thus it is read there on this day: "Of Gallaecia in Spain, of St. Marina virgin and martyr": for which in the notes Baronius adduces the Flower of the Saints of Spain and the Treasury of Preachers, volume 2, on the following day: namely Villegas, page 376 of the Saragossa edition of the year 1626 (an older one than which Baronius saw) and Trugillo, From Villegas and Trugillo Baronius received the cult, where she is placed on the XIX of July, though she seems rather to belong to this day, if any Marina is proper to the Spanish. These witnesses Baronius had of the cult exhibited to this Saint in Gallaecia and elsewhere, who for the rest is most unknown to all ancient fasti and among all Martyrologists, at least of any note, just as her deeds are unknown, her homeland, her parents, the time of her martyrdom, etc.; so that Villegas likens her to Melchizedek, inasmuch as by the Apostle, Hebrews 7, he is said to have been without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life; thus Marina is known only by her surviving cult. Trugillo comprehends everything in this brief elogium: "What is certainly known of this glorious Marina the Spaniard, is this, namely, that she suffered martyrdom in Galicia, near the city of Orense, where also is her most holy body, in a certain church called by her name, in a place called Holy Waters, where certain monuments are still shown, or indications of the martyrdom of this glorious Saint; namely, a certain oven, into which she was cast, and a certain fountain also is shown, in which they say certain miracles were done by the intercession of this glorious Saint. And throughout all those regions this glorious Saint is celebrated with great devotion. At Cordova, moreover, and at Seville, most sumptuous temples are found in honor of this holy virgin and martyr Marina." And these same things Villegas and Marietta narrate in Spanish.
[2] the rest the pseudo-chronicles embellished. Against gold is to be valued the candid and sincere relation of these Spaniards, to which only this doubt could underlie, whether it is sufficiently established that under the name of that Marina there does not lurk Margaret, most known throughout all the rest of the Christian world. But the novel fabulists and molders of Chronicles did not acquiesce in them, whom the often-praised Nicolas Antonio suffered nowhere to rest, harrying them here anew with a somewhat longer dissertation, the whole of which I did not think worth while to adduce here, since he proves at length what I judge clearer than the midday sun, namely that they trifled—both those whom Villegas refutes, and the pseudo-chronographers Dexter, Julian, Luitprand, Maximus, and the commentator Bivarius—when, by a notable plagiarism, they transferred the Acts of St. Margaret, otherwise Marina, which will be weighed on the XX of July, to their own Marina, one of the daughters of the fictitious Catillus and Calsia, nine brought forth at one birth, most ineptly inventing very many things almost similar to those which were long ago abundantly confuted on the XXII of May concerning St. Quiteria, and elsewhere; so that it is irksome to bring forward again here the merest trifles: let the sole announcement of Tamayo suffice, that the value of the rest may be judged. Hear the sworn declaimer: "At Amphilochium in Gallaecia of Spain, of St. Margaret, or, as others, Marina virgin and martyr, who, when with her eight other sisters, most holy virgins, by the disposition of the divinity she forsook her homeland Belcagia and her father C. Attilius, came to Amphilochium, where, being seized by the governor Olybrius for the Catholic faith, after she had overcome, by the sign of the saving cross, the aspect of the devil in the form of a dragon, and the sight of the governor in the shape of a demon, being beaten with continual terrible beating, and exercised through various contests of torments—of lamps, of bonds, of scourges, and of torches—she ran with brisk vigor to the palms of martyrdom and of virginity." Not an inelegant oration, truly, were it not nerveless and weak.