ON ST. MARGARET OR MARINA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR,
AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA.
Perhaps IN ONE OF THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Margaret, Virgin and Martyr, at Antioch (S.)
BHL Number: 5303
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
§ I. The memory of the Saint from the Greek and Latin records; her name.
This Saint, by far the most famous both among the Greeks and among the Latins, is reported on different days and under different names. The Greeks indeed commemorate her on the 17th of this month, under the name of Marina; but the Latins on the 13th and the 20th, as we noted on the said 17th, The Saint most famous among the Greeks under the name of Margaret or Margareta, from which she was here deferred. Further, her name is written in the Typicum, which is wont to be cited under the name of St. Sabas, in the new Anthologium, the Basilian Synaxarium, the Menologium which Canisius edited as translated by Sirletus, in both Greek Horologia, and also in another, or in the canonical Hours of Grottaferrata, printed at Rome in the year 1677; in the Calendar of the Greeks in Genebrardus (where by an error Matina), likewise in the Greco-Muscovite Ephemerides before the first volume of May, in the Ethiopic Calendar in Job Ludolf in the history of that nation page 422; to which add our transcripts, namely the Slavo-Russian Menologium, the Synaxarium of the Ruthenians, sent by our George David; likewise the manuscripts from the Ambrosian library; finally our Sirmond-Chifflet supplement to the printed great Menaia, which (following, as usual, Maximus of Cythera) mark her with the title of megalomartyr, which she enjoys also elsewhere, yet rarely, and with a most solemn rite sing several things to her in a canon or peculiar sacred song, whose acrostic is:
Χριστοῦ παρθενομάρτυρα νύμφην ἄσμασι μέλπω.
Bride of Christ and martyr, we sing thy honors.
[2] Into the praised canon is inserted a repeated announcement; to which are subjoined these little verses: she is celebrated with a solemn cult on 17 July.
Χεὶρ δημίου τέμνει σε, Μαρίνα, ξίφει. Χεὶρ Κυρίου χάριτι θείᾳ δὲ στέφει. Ἑβδομάτῃ δεκάτῃ Μαρίναν ἐδηροτομήθη.
The hand of the executioner cuts thee down, Marina, with the sword: but the hand of the Lord crowns thee with divine grace. On the seventeenth holy Marina bears the scourges.
There follows in the same place an elogium, which is a synopsis of the Acts; more contracted is that which is had in the Basilian; most contracted, that which Canisius has: but the said Anthologium in its own agrees with the printed Menaia; from the acrostic letters set at the end of the canon, ΙΩΣΗΦ, I gather that the name of the author who composed it is Joseph; of whom we have given more on the 17th of this month in the preliminary commentary of St. Alexius page 247.
[3] The first of the Latins, Rabanus, as far as we know, Of the ancient Latin Martyrologists we know none who marked this Margaret before Rabanus: but he, on the 13th, has thus: At Antioch, the passion of Margaret the virgin, whom Olibrius the consul, wishing to ravish and to turn away from the faith of Christ, afflicted with many torments, that is, hung upon the rack he ordered her flesh to be torn with most cruel hooks: afterward he cast her into a dark prison, where she overcame the seductions of the devil, who appeared to her in the likeness of a dragon and of an Ethiopian, and his fraud could in nothing harm her: but at the last she was beheaded by the sword of the persecutor, and passed to eternal life. And again, what you may wonder at, he reports nearly the same word for word of St. Marina, on the 18th of June, which we gave among the Passed Over on that day, and they are these:
[4] he marks her twice under a different name and day; At Antioch is celebrated the passion of Marina the virgin, who suffered many torments for the name of Christ through Olibrius the prefect, chains, prisons, scourges, the rack; whom also the devil in the likeness of a dragon and likewise of an Ethiopian tempted, and wished to overthrow, but by the sign of the holy Cross he was put to flight and overcome. But at the last, beheaded by the aforesaid prefect, she ended her life with a holy martyrdom. In both places you have the same martyrdom; the same prefect, the same arena, the same circumstances of the history, the same Saint, once by the Latins, once by the Greeks made different by the borrowed name alone, commemorated on two different days, and on another day than that on which she is celebrated among the Greeks; of which matter presently at more length. This elogium Notker transcribed,
being here deserted by his other guide, Ado.
[5] Wandelbert thus sings on 15 June:
Margaret shines bright with the splendor of martyrdom. Wandelbert likewise on another day; others on 13 July;
Why she is reported on that day is hidden from us; unless she was drawn hither either from 18 June or from 13 July. Meanwhile from what has been said it is clear that Castellanus, in his universal Martyrology, at the announcement of the Saint, falsely notes in the margin that she was unknown to all the ancient martyrologists and menologists. In the enlarged Ado, our manuscript Florarium, the Plantin Bede, and Maurolycus, she is marked on 13 July. Molanus, in his first edition, on 18 June to St. Marina of Alexandria, noted by Usuardus, applies the elogium which we have already given from Rabanus, confounding her with the Antiochene: this one we (not that one, as he wrongly notes in the margin) call Margaret. But in the second and third editions, using too much license, he drew the Alexandrian back from the text of Usuardus to his own additions on the 20th of this month; making her the Antiochene, and accommodating the elogium to her as above, and not sufficiently rightly observing in the annotations that into the text of Usuardus, perhaps through the carelessness of the scribe, Alexandria crept in faultily: and weak is the reason which he adds: For Bede (the supposititious) on that day, according to the history, has, at Antioch.
[6] Concerning the Usuardine codices, to which St. Margaret or St. Marina was afterward added, others on another day, with the Roman Martyrology. consult the observations and appendices to Usuardus published by us, on 18 June; 13 and 20 July: on both which days of this month she is marked by Felicius; but on the 20th by Bellinus and Galesinius; on the 17th by Ferrarius in the general Catalogue of Saints who are not in the Roman. The Roman Martyrology has thus most briefly on this day the 20th: At Antioch, the passion of St. Margaret, virgin and martyr. So much for the Greek and Latin records.
[7] Under a different name, as we have seen, of Marina and of Margaret or Margareta, among the Greeks and Latins, one and the same Saint is marked: On the diversity of the name for although the name is double (to say nothing of the different day of the cult, since this is so common to many others), we cannot bring ourselves to believe that a double Saint is here exhibited, where the circumstances of the deeds so perfectly agree among themselves. Here we seek the origin and cause of that different name. That proper, primitive, and patronymic names have been wont to pass from one language into another even from the most ancient times, and that in their place adventitious, adopted, and translated names have succeeded, is most well known. So Porphyry the philosopher is said to have received his name from Longinus from the purple, as it were the purple one (for in his proper or Syrian idiom he was called Malchus, which in the Tyrian tongue means king), as is handed down from Eunapius in Vossius book 2 On the Greek Historians chapter 16. So Tyrtamus, the hearer of Aristotle, on account of his divine phrase was transformed by his teacher into Theophrastus, as you will find from Strabo and Laertius in the same place book 1 chapter 9.
[8] Pelagius the heretic was called Morgan (which among the Britons denotes sea-born or sprung from the deep, of this one Saint, whence the Latin name Pelagius is derived), Ussher notes in the Ecclesiastical Primordia of Britain chapter 8 page 207. But that I may not pursue things far-fetched; concerning St. Alexius, called among the Syrians Riscia, that is prince, and on what occasion, was said in the preliminary commentary to his Arabic Acts in the fourth volume of July page 263. And on page 264 he is called Mar Riscia and Gabra D'Hallaha. On the same page 263 it is related that St. Artemius, because he was prefect of Egypt, is named by the Syrians Mar-Schialitha; where you will find certain things concerning St. Dula and St. Adauctus. Why then, by a similar metamorphosis of name, should not the name Marina, used by the Greeks, have passed into the name Margaret among the Latins? Who first did this, or at what time, we know not; but that it was done long before Rabanus will be clear below, where we shall show that the name of Margaret was in honor among the English in the seventh century.
[9] conjectures are brought forward Since it is not at hand to discover the certain cause of a transformation of this kind, let us proceed to insist on the conjectures with which we began. Margaret, a word Greek in origin, but now everywhere granted also to the Latin forum, is derived from μαργαρίτης; which word, whether it denotes a gem or a little stone (concerning which matter Vossius in the Latin Etymologicon), in either or in both significations could afford a handle to the Latins to pass from the Greek appellation Marina to the Latin Margaret; either because in this way they wished to express the brightness and whiteness of virginity; or because thus they wished to honor the Saint as the gem of virgins and martyrs by antonomasia, and distinguished above the rest by both dignities.
[10] various. Nor ought it to seem more wonderful that a name Greek in origin, Margaret, was given to the Saint by the Latins, than that a Latin name, Marina, was given by the Greeks. Nor is it an obstacle that it is hidden from us by whom first, or in what age or time, the oft-mentioned transformation was introduced: for changes of this kind, once the passage from one name to another is made, often are wont to pass in the course of time into oblivion; but that which was assumed in their place, to flourish and survive, the memory of those which were before being abolished. On 20 June from page 8 there was treatment of St. Gemma, virgin and martyr, among the Santones; where on page 10 the doubt of Castellanus concerning the name Gemma is proposed, but deservedly not admitted; and it pleased us to subjoin our conjecture, whether her name ought not to be rendered in Latin Jacoba. On 12 May page 182 you have Bl. Gemma the widow, who out of reverence for St. Gemma the virgin of Sulmona, because she was of the same country, wished to be called Gemma, whereas before she was called Elizabeth. What forbids that what happened in these two happened in our Saint, if not in the same, at least in a similar way?
§ II. The Saint distinguished from other homonyms; her cult in the East; the beginnings and propagation of the same in the West; her public veneration in the Missals and Breviaries.
Several virgins under the name of Marina to be distinguished we exhibited on 17 July on occasion of the homonymous man-formed or monk-virgin, Other Saints homonymous with ours being remitted elsewhere, who under a feigned sex lay hidden in a monk's habit. This argument, drawn out there in a whole paragraph from page 280, we do not here repeat. Concerning the two, namely the Alexandrian and the Antiochene, each a virgin and martyr, is chiefly here the controversy. The text of Usuardus, as it was edited by us, on 18 June has this: At Alexandria, the passion of St. Marina the virgin; of whom, but by name alone (the title of virgin, namely, being omitted), as having suffered at Alexandria, we admonished that there is treatment among the Hieronymian, the Epternach and the Corbie, both there in the observations and in our Acts on that day.
[12] For Marina of Lucca (but erroneously, as even to Florentinius himself it seems), the Marian and Blume codices substitute Maria. that the present Antiochene is truly to be distinguished But nothing compels us to change the name, the arena, and the title of virgin, so expressly marked by Usuardus: although in the chief manuscript (understand the Prato one) we noted in our Acts that Maria is written in the same place. If you judge that from that Marina, whom the said Hieronymian apographs mark without the title of virgin, that title is truly to be removed, and not omitted through the drowsiness of the copyists, then you will have a characteristic sign by which to separate her from the present one, who was a virgin and martyr; and whom we long ago established to be different in the Passed Over on the said 18 June, and gave separately on the same day.
[13] The question can now be resumed concerning Marina of Alexandria and of Antioch, we think, from the Alexandrian: or Margaret, whether the same or different? Baronius on this day in his notes thinks her to be the same, speaking thus: This one Bede (the supposititious) and Usuardus call otherwise Marina, on the 14th day before the Kalends of July… These are known to err, who report her to have suffered at Alexandria, since it is clear that this was done at Antioch of Pisidia, which the Greeks also hand down. But Baronius supposes, does not prove, that everywhere the same Saint is indicated; and relying on the same supposition he presently corrects the diversity of the arena. The things which we said in the Passed Over cited a little before, but too prematurely for anything to be then solidly established about this controversy, are plainly approved by us, and we feel with those who add the elogium from the Acts of St. Marina or Margaret of Antioch. But I judge the text of our Usuardus sincere and pure, so long as it is not proved corrupt; and so, from the arena of the passion, Alexandria, which he assigns to his Marina, that a virgin of that name was somewhere found by him, who suffered there, distinguished from the Antiochene both by the place of martyrdom and by the birthday to a better life; and that she is not ill reported by Maurolycus and Felicius on 18 June at Alexandria, although with the title of virgin only.
[14] As for Rabanus; I do not sufficiently grasp in what way he reported the same elogium once under the name of Marina and once under the name of Margaret. to whom the obscure text of Rabanus ought not to be an obstacle. If he thought them two different persons, how did he fit the same history to both? But if one single person only; why did he announce her on a different day and under a different name? Did he in the exemplar from which he transcribed or contracted the compendium of the history find Alexandria for Antioch; or did he by his own effort substitute that arena for this? Adorning the Marina whom he gives on 18 June with a borrowed elogium, but the other whom he marks on 13 July with a proper one, and reporting this latter indeed under the name of Margaret; which he could easily find somewhere, since from the seventh century it was well enough known in England, as we shall afterward say, and, as I suspect, elsewhere in the West. Howsoever the matter stands: since the text of Usuardus is clear for Marina of Alexandria, and that of Rabanus confused and obscure, I judge that the Alexandrian is to be retained and distinguished from the Antiochene, whether you establish two Alexandrians, one indeed without the title of virgin according to what was said from the Hieronymian codices, the other with that title from Usuardus; concerning which matter it is not sufficiently certainly established.
[15] That the Saint was most celebrated in several places in the East, The memory of the Saint both known in the East, is made out from the Greek records, and chiefly from the printed great Menaia; in which so great a solemnity with the title of megalomartyr seems to indicate that several sacred buildings were dedicated to her name among the Greeks; although of one only is it established to us from the above-cited Sirmond-Chifflet supplement, where these things are read: Τελεῖται δὲ ἡ αὐτῆς σύναξις ἔνδον τοῦ ἁγ. μ. Μηνᾶ. Her (Marina's) solemnity is celebrated within the church of the holy martyr Menas, at Constantinople, as I think: of which temple Du Cange in Christian Constantinople book 4 page 128. But very many monuments are at hand which commend the cult of the Saint under the name of Margaret or Margarita among the Latins.
[16] both in the West chiefly, from the seventh century; Among the ancient Analecta published by Mabillon
page 168 of the most recent edition, the name of St. Margaret is inserted into the Anglican litanies, which the praised author on page 169 proves to have been already in use in the English church from the seventh century. In the 8th and 9th centuries that cult without doubt increased: in the ninth certainly St. Margaret made a great name for herself in the West, as may be gathered from Rabanus and Wandelbert, who then flourished. Our Bartholomew Fisen, in the history of the church of Liège at the year 966 page 228, hands down that a parish of St. Margaret was founded: which is to him an argument that those regions through which is the convenient way into Hesbaye were then beginning to be cultivated by a great frequency of the multitude, but to us that the name of the Saint was then already sufficiently common in Belgium.
[17] various places being successively enumerated Ancient too, says Baronius in his notes, was the cult of this holy Martyr also in the Western church: for in the ancient litanies of the Roman Church, which are also placed in the Roman order, among the other holy Virgins and Martyrs she is reckoned: but what age these litanies present, he does not disclose. Unless perhaps they are the same which Wion attests, in volume 2 of the Tree of Life page 619, that he found and copied, ordained by St. Gregory (understand the Great) when a pestilential plague was raging at Rome, and written out from the library of Monte Cassino in Lombard letters, and which he committed to type from page 620, in which St. Margaret is noted. But on page 626 he observes that three names crept into those litanies, afterward added to them; and so not entirely genuine. That no very signal cult was given to the Saint at Rome in the eighth century, I gather thence, because the Little Roman Martyrology does not even have her name. That her veneration became greatly renowned in Italy in the eleventh century, this is an argument, that Alfanus, from a monk of Monte Cassino the first bishop of Salerno, celebrated her in verse; of which below. In our Browerus, in the book which he entitles Stars of the illustrious and holy men of Germany, in the Life of Ludwig of Arenstein, of the Premonstratensian Order, who lived in the 12th century, there is noted on page 15 a church of Bl. Margaret. The feast in her ancient parish church, and possessed already from the year 1199 by nuns of the Order of St. Benedict, you will find in Masinius in his Bologna Surveyed on 20 July.
[18] and especially in England; In the 13th century the cult of our holy Martyr was extended far and wide and with the greatest celebrity in England; for in the Council of Oxford of the year 1222 in Labbe volume 11 of the Councils column 274, chapter 8, among the feasts on which, other works being forbidden, the works of agriculture and of the plow are permitted, is noted the feast of St. Margaret. In volume 4 of the Anecdota in Martène, among the select statutes of the general chapter of the Cistercian Order of the year 1247, these things are set down: The petition of the abbot of Nept in Wales, who asks that the feast of blessed Margaret be made in his house only, which is frequently disturbed by the multiplicity of wars, that he may the more easily restrain the persecutors of the wars, who in some manner hold the said Virgin in the greatest devotion and reverence, in whose honor they have a chapel dedicated, is granted. And in the same place among the aforesaid statutes of the year 1260 it is thus decreed: Likewise the general chapter establishes and ordains that the commemoration of blessed Margaret be made on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of August throughout the whole Order. And there is added the collect: Almighty everlasting God, who the weak. In the same place, among the select acts of the general chapters of the Order of Preachers, in that which was celebrated at Bologna in the year 1285, it is established that in the Litany, where it is said: St. Catherine, pray for us, there be added: St. Margaret, pray for us.
[19] At Cascia, a little town of Umbria, an abbey under the title of St. Margaret, add Italy; of nuns of the Order of St. Benedict, in the diocese of Spoleto, is noted in Lubin in the notice of the abbeys of Italy page 89. The above-praised Masinius mentions a church of St. Margaret outside the gate commonly called Castiglioni, which from the year 1300 was assigned to the Servite fathers. That the continuation of the cult in the following centuries persevered in various places in the West, the following prove. Gregory XI in the year 1376 dedicated the church of St. Margaret of Montefiascone as a cathedral; as you will find in Ughelli volume 1 of the Sacred Italy. More things pertaining to this will be given in the appendix after the Acts. Concerning Lero, next to Lérins, commonly the island of St. Margaret, from an ancient chapel of that Saint there, we spoke in volume 11 of January page 21.
[20] Several feasts celebrated at Rome Piazza reckons in the sacred Hemerologium of Christian and pagan Rome on this day. and to this again England. A temple at the foot of the Esquiline mount in the year 1587 Floravantes Martinellus notes in Sacred Rome chapter 12 among the obsolete temples of the Saints; but Pancirolus, in the Trastevere Region 21 page 599, places a monastery. In England the feast of the Saint was abrogated after the schism, like many others, yet her name was preserved in the new Calendar of the Liturgy, as they pretend, reformed, as the Gallican legendist observes; after he had premised in the same place that it had been a double of the first class for more than three hundred years down to the said schism; but servile works were forbidden to women only, because they seemed to be chiefly under the tutelage of St. Margaret. In the ecclesiastical history of the city of Abbeville, published in French at Paris in the year 1646 by Ignatius Joseph of Jesus Mary, discalced Carmelite, page 60 is noted a chapel of St. Margaret. Concerning the church of St. Margaret, virgin and martyr, restored and consecrated at Augsburg in the hospital of the Holy Spirit in the year 1594, there is reading in the Augustan Hierarchy, by the author Corbinian Khamm, a Benedictine there at SS. Udalric and Afra, published in the same city in the year 1709, page 381; where also the inscription concerning this restoration, after which there is discourse concerning the Saints, among whom is St. Margaret, the chaplains being restored.
[21] To illustrate the cult of the Saint there conduce especially those things which the Missals and Offices of particular churches have. The cult of St. Margaret is illustrated from the Milan Missal. In the Milan Missal, which was printed in the year 1522, from page 185 these things are noted: Prayer over the people: Lord God almighty, to whom all devout virginity is joined; grant, we beseech, that we who venerate the revered solemnities of blessed Margaret thy virgin and martyr may be raised up by her patronage with thee. Through. Epistle: I would have you be without solicitude. Gospel: The kingdom of heaven is like to a treasure. Over the shroud: Grant us, almighty God, that we may follow with the examples of holy conversation blessed Margaret, thy virgin and martyr, whose festivity we venerate with due observances. Through. Over the oblation: Almighty everlasting God, we suppliants beseech thy mercy, that the gifts of our devotion, which we offer on the solemnity of blessed Margaret thy virgin and martyr, may be pleasing to thy majesty, and may by her intercessions work in us the health of mind and body. Through.
[22] which we have; Preface: Eternal God, recalling the magnificence of the merits, the pre-eminence of the miracles, the excellence of the rewards of thy venerable virgin and martyr Margaret with festive gladness and frequent devotion: whom victorious faith, stable hope, inextinguishable charity, the allurements of the flesh being trodden down, honors and the riches of the world being despised, rendered so most valiant and constant, etc. There follows a compendium of the passion. Postcommunion: Refreshed with heavenly nourishment, Lord, we suppliantly ask thee, that by the sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we have received in honor of blessed Margaret, we may both be cleansed from the filth of sins, and be led to eternal joys. Through the same. It is singular that in the index of the praised Missal the name of the Saint is noted on the 5th of this month.
[23] in the Verdun, the Tournai, and the proper Offices in Gaul; The Verdun Missal of the year 1554, on 13 July, has a proper Mass: Introit: Let us all rejoice in the Lord, celebrating a feast day. The rest I pass over, except the prose, which sounds thus: What the great continence of the lands, of the deep, of the whole world encompasses, let it be summoned with new praise, for a just cause is given, that all things may rejoice. Let the Church recall the piety of the highest king, and the precepts of his law. Him all flesh praises, with pure mind, with clear heart, with devout thanksgiving. Behold a glad day for us, on which the virgin Margaret ascended the heavenly things. A few things follow from the Acts, and thus the rhythm is concluded: Thou consecrated, thou blessed, behold our vows, and now spurn not the prayers of thy servants, that pardon of our offenses may be granted and not denied to our penitent mind. Amen. The Germano-Pratensis history, to be mentioned afterward, among the monuments which are collected toward the end to establish those things which are narrated in the said History, part 2 page CLXI, it is set down that the feast of St. Margaret is a double, as in the feast of St. John the Baptist… After Vespers there shall be a procession to the chapel of St. Margaret in a dance. In the index of the Tournai Missal of the year 1498 it is noted a double, and then the Mass in its place: and to this day the double rite there perseveres, as is clear from the proper Offices of the same church; with which rite it is also celebrated in the Cathedral only of Chalon, as our transcript of the proper Offices of that church, published at Lyons in 1620, bears witness, to pass over the proper feasts of the monastery of St. Lomer of Blois, in whose apograph she is set down under the same rite.
[24] and also in various Missals of other places. In the index of the Speyer Missal, which bears the year 1540, the name of the Saint is expressed in red letters, as the more solemn feasts are wont to be noted in it. To these can be added the Utrecht Breviary of the Leiden edition of 1508, the special Strasbourg Missal of the year 1512, the Cambrai of 1527. Now the Saint is inscribed in the Roman Breviary by way of a simple feast, with which she was noted in the Breviary of 1550, as Gavantus observes in the Commentaries on the Rubrics on this day the 20th of July page 155. By way of a conclusion there can be added to these the proper Mass printed in type, which we have, of the fourteen holy helpers; whose names are expressed in the collect, the secret prayer, and the postcommunion; among whom also is Margaret. Our Janning noted that this Mass is read at Lanchheim in the diocese of Bamberg: where on no day are all worshipped together: yet formerly they were thus worshipped on 8 August; as manuscript Martyrologies are said to indicate. The book on the fifteen holy helpers of the city of Palermo, published in Italian at Palermo in the year 1657, by the author John Baptist de Franchis and Spinola of the Order of Preachers, exhibits the same Saints, with one added. In the little book entitled Order of reciting the divine office, in which there is treatment of the feasts which are generally celebrated in Spain, printed at Madrid in the year 1718, under the title of the Deanery of Tudela and of the church of the kingdom of Navarre, from 20 July to the 21st is transferred the feast of St. Margaret, Virgin and Martyr, under the rite of a greater double.
§ III. The relics of the holy Martyr; by whom she is chiefly invoked; her posthumous fame.
Rayssius in the Belgic Hierogazophylacium reckons several relics under the name of our Saint: for on page 54 he mentions a skull in the collegiate church of Anderlecht
near Brussels; Several relics under the name of this Saint in Belgium: on page 160 in the college of the English at Saint-Omer he places an arm-bone; on page 314 in the cathedral church of St. Mary at Tournai a large bone; on page 197 in the cathedral of St. Donatian, tutelary patron of the people of Bruges, a shoulder-blade without the title of virgin and martyr (concerning which sacred relics with the title of virgin Sanderus also treats in his Flanders Illustrated page 215). The praised Rayssius on page 212 writes that in the Benedictine monastery of Epternach a finger is preserved; on page 201 in the monastery of Floreffe a joint; on page 378 in St. Nicholas des Prés of the Canons regular of St. Augustine at Tournai a notable relic; on page 411 in the collegiate church of St. Peter at Douai an arm; on page 357 among the people of Bruges he records that the left hand, and that entire, of the divine Margaret (whether the virgin and martyr?) is preserved, obtained by the liberality and munificence of Margaret countess of Flanders, foundress of that convent; on page 282 among the relics of the monastery of Liessies in Hainaut he reckons a finger and a bone of the same body.
[26] The same author may be consulted on pages 42, 55, 82, others in Germany, 93, 128, 215, 259, 261, 396, 402, 444, 455, 475; and our Willot in the compendium of his Martyrology page 37. But are not these sacred pledges too many to be of our one Saint? especially since there remains a vast abundance of those which under the name of St. Margaret are worshipped elsewhere also? Gelenius, On the greatness of the city of Cologne page 445, adds to the sacred treasure of the church of St. John and Cordula the right arm of St. Margaret virgin and martyr; which, conspicuous with flesh, sinews, fingers, and little nails, is to be reckoned among the more venerable relics of the city of the Ubii. On page 372 he numbers among the sacred treasure of the church of St. Pantaleon a finger of St. Margaret virgin and martyr. It would be long to produce from him the various other places in which he reckons relics. The work on the writers of the affairs of the bishopric of Bamberg, most recently published, volume 2 column 420, likewise notes relics of St. Margaret.
[27] Concerning the sacred remains carried over from the East into Gaul, after Saussay on the 20th of this month, the recent Gallican Legendist treats. and in Gaul Arthur du Moustier, in the notes on this 20th day, hands down the following: Of this glorious Virgin too, the athlete of Christ, some sacred pledges, brought into Gaul, introduced her cult into several churches of the most Christian kingdom. But especially her birthday is celebrated at Paris in the abbatial church of St. Germain des Prés, where her venerable girdle is kept and honored with great honor, not without testimony of divine munificence. There also, in the year 1608, the queen, Marie de' Medici, wife of Henry IV king of the French, gave a silver image of St. Margaret, beautiful and great, of the weight of 37 marks (you may see Breul in the Theatre of Parisian antiquities book 2 page 317), in which is enclosed the chin of the same Virgin. Add a small bone, enclosed in the base of another statue of our Saint, from the History of the aforesaid abbey published in French in the year 1724 page 315; which refers to the year 1556 that this girdle was carried off by theft on 6 September, yet so that there remained a small fragment; which was afterward ordered to be enclosed in a casket, and fitted, as it is seen to this day.
[28] At Paris and elsewhere: Let us return to Arthur: Of her head a portion is had also at Paris in the monastery of the Virgin St. Clare of the Ave Maria, and at Senlis in the building of St. Rieul… a foot also and certain small bones of the same in the cathedral church of Troyes. Then like relics are preserved in our building of St. Margaret near Gisors of the diocese of Rouen, at Abbeville of the diocese of Amiens in the parish churches, and others; which may be seen in the above-mentioned Legendist. Concerning relics under the name of St. Margaret carried to Arrouaise in Artois, we made mention long ago on 13 January page 834. Now let us proceed into Italy.
[29] and also in Italy. The Roman Sanctuary of Carlo Bartolomeo Piazza page 230 attests that part of the head is preserved at St. Cecilia's, and one rib at St. Mary in Trastevere. That at St. Bartholomew de Ravegnana a skull is seen, the author is Masinius in his Bologna Surveyed. An arm likewise of St. Margaret is attributed to Caorle in Ughelli, Sacred Italy volume 5 column 1407; the head of St. Margaret the virgin is placed in the Sacred Catania of John Baptist de Grossis page 7. Among the Saints whose sacred remains are reckoned in the sanctuary of Trani, a city of the kingdom of Naples in Apulia, in volume 1 of June page 258 is numbered the name of St. Margaret virgin and martyr; to say nothing of the name of St. Margaret being noted among the Saints whose relics are extant in the Neapolitan church of the Holy Apostles in Caracciolo, Sacred Naples page 167. There are those who would have the body of the present St. Margaret carried over from Antioch to Montefiascone; but since that matter cannot be dispatched in few words, we shall more opportunely treat of it in another place after the Acts. The proper Offices of the church of Brindisi, published at Rome in the year 1583, exhibit a catalogue of the relics existing in that church; among which is noted the head of St. Marina the virgin and the relics of St. Margaret the virgin. Add that concerning bones of St. Margaret virgin and martyr there is a setting-down in the History of the antiquity, nobility, and notable things of the city of Pavia, collected in Italian by Stephen Breventano, book 4 folio 103; and book 3 folio 87 one arm under the name of St. Margaret the virgin.
[30] To the famous relics of very many Saints (a Catalogue of which we wove together in volume 11 of January page 612; Portugal, and Spain in the Escorial monastery; and which we then said were brought to Lisbon in the year 1587, and in the following year translated with a solemn procession into our professed house) are numbered those which are of St. Margaret virgin and martyr. Notable relics also of our Saint the Spaniards claim for themselves; concerning which in the reliquary catalogue or manuscript Inventory of the relics of the royal Escorial monastery these things are handed down, translated from the Spanish: Likewise the left hand of St. Marina with part of the arm; who is the Antiochene virgin and martyr of Mount Sinai, whom the Latins named Margaret. But it lies upon them to prove this; which they can by no means do: for Laurence, archbishop and abbot of the aforesaid holy mount, who sent these sacred remains on 18 February in the year 1599 to Philip III, king of the Spains, as is clear from the testimony given concerning these relics, affirms that the whole and entire body of the aforesaid Saint exists on Mount Sinai, nothing else being wanting except three fingers of the right hand lost through age.
[31] If therefore that body, whole and entire, preserved there, but the last are of another Saint. except the three said fingers and the left hand with part of the arm, is that of the present St. Margaret, then it is consequent that nearly all the other relics, under the name of one and the same Saint exposed to public veneration in so many places, are parts not of this but of another sacred body, and, in so far as they are honored under the name of the present Margaret, false. Who would dare to suspect this? Let the possessors of that sacred pledge, I pray, declare when and how it was translated from Antioch of Pisidia to Mount Sinai; then whether and on what faith that translation is established. Yet it does not conflict but that that body may be of some Saint preserved there under the true and proper or arbitrary name of St. Marina: for since so great is the multitude of Saints of the same name, whom see on the 17th of this month from number 280, and whom we now know; what forbids that several other homonyms lie hidden whom we do not know. Three bones likewise under the name of Margaret virgin and martyr, which together with several other relics the Augustinians of Cologne gave to Philip II, king of the Spains, are noted in the aforesaid Inventory or Escorial reliquary catalogue, as is clear from the testimony under tradition 7 number 33, which is dated in the year 1593; and in it it is said that these relics (except the body of St. Constantius, and a head from the fellowship of St. Mauritius) Don Theodore Vomhirtz, a golden knight, called Bomderlascrone, carried off from Rome, and together with his wife Sophia (as is there said to be established from authentic writings, existing among them even then) gave to that convent in the year 1200. Likewise there is noted among the relics of the Escorial monastery a small bone of St. Margaret two fingers long. And so much more than enough concerning relics.
[32] Arthur rightly observes in the notes cited above, that this holy Virgin, above the other holy virgins, was held as the advocate, as it were the mother, of those in childbirth. St. Margaret patroness of those in childbirth Two examples the praised History of the abbey of St. Germain des Prés supplies us. At the year 1661 the following are narrated, here rendered from the French: The twentieth day of July is memorable for the ceremony which was held in the church of the abbey. The queen (Maria Theresa of Austria), at that time bearing in her womb, gave signs of her piety and devotion toward St. Margaret by the offering which she made of blessed bread on the day sacred to her. This she could not offer herself, because she was staying at Fontainebleau; but she supplied it through three of her almoners, who came to offer it in the church with the blare of the royal trumpets and drums… On the following 16 October the Father Prior of St. Germain was ordered by the King to carry the relics of St. Margaret to Fontainebleau, that satisfaction might be made to the devotion of the queen, who was asking for them, and was near her delivery. The Prior presently complied; but before his departure he ordered public prayers to be proclaimed for her majesty, the venerable Sacrament being exposed in all the churches of the suburb; which lasted until the first day of November, on which she was delivered of a Dauphin. A nearly similar example is there narrated at the year 1682 of the wife of the Dauphin.
[33] she is invoked for a happy delivery. And that St. Margaret is not invoked under that title in Gaul alone, but that her tutelage was more widely propagated to other provinces also, is made out from Jerome Vida, bishop of Alba, and laureate poet, in the hymn which he composed not inelegantly in honor of the Saint, singing thus:
Thee mothers, the months of travail now completed, implore as gentle, and call upon thee as they lie in the midst of death. Thou thyself dost favor, O Lucina: by thy gift the glad ones testify themselves safe: forthwith every choir of mothers approaches thy shrines; and to thee yearly they bear sacred gifts, and teach their daughters, not yet having known wedlock, to visit thy temples from their first years, and to venerate thee with vows, and to sing sacred praises.
Peter de Natalibus would have it that the Saint prayed before her death for those in childbirth; but we know that to little narratives of this kind little faith is to be given; as you may see below. Our transcripts of Montefiascone concerning the martyrdom of the Saint bring her in, among other things, praying: Succor
those in peril of childbirth. All which things, and things like these, though written speciously rather than truly, could nevertheless very greatly conduce to beginning, confirming, and promoting the confidence of mothers in childbirth toward the Saint. And this patronage of the Saint toward those in childbirth, although it is the chief part of the praises by which her posthumous glory is commended, yet to these can be added the following.
[34] Posthumous glory from writers A hymn in honor of the same Saint Alfanus, first archbishop of Salerno, bound in heroic meter; which is extant in Ughelli volume 2, among the various little poems composed by him concerning other Saints. Leo Allatius, in his Diatribe on the writings of the Symeons page 97, notes an elogium on the holy megalomartyr of Christ Marina, by the author Gregory of Cyprus patriarch of Constantinople, with this beginning: Καὶ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν ἄρα ἧς ὁ Χριστὸς κεφαλὴ, παράδεισον κατανοοῦμεν. We understand indeed that the Church, whose head is Christ, is a paradise. This elogium we have; concerning which afterward. Of the said Gregory, who flourished in the 13th century, more things from various sources a certain apostate bibliographer most recently collected in volume 3 of the Commentaries on Ecclesiastical Writers from column 556. The same writer composed an elogium of St. George the martyr, given on 23 April from page 123. Another in praise of the same Saint the same Allatius indicates on page 88 under the name of Theodore Metochites the great logothete, famous in the 14th century: whose beginning is this: Ἐμοῦ δὲ καὶ οὐρανὸς εἶναι δοκεῖ τὸ τῆς ἐκκλησίας στερέωμα, ἰδεῖν τε κάλλιστος. To me indeed the firmament of the Church seems to be heaven, and most beautiful to see. Further, concerning that author Vossius may be consulted, On the Greek Historians book 2 page 308.
[35] The Life of St. Gertrude the abbess, of the Order of St. Benedict, who is said to have flourished toward the end of the 13th century (concerning whom Wion volume 2 of the Tree of Life book 5 chapter 89, Menard on 12 November, and Bucelinus on the same day, and also on the 17th of the same month), and from her deeds. that Life, I say, published in French from the Latin at Paris in the year 1671, chapter 47, discloses a notable revelation shown to that abbess; by which both the posthumous glory of St. Margaret and the pious veneration of the day sacred to her are greatly commended. Thither we remit the reader; who will besides find the deed in the book on the holy helpers of Palermo indicated above from page 260. Dionysius the Carthusian in the 15th century, among the homilies on the Saints, composed a brief sermon, in which he succinctly touches certain things from her Acts, adding at the end that singular thing, that she freed many souls from the pains of purgatory. Its place here likewise most deservedly claims for itself the heavenly jubilee concerning the glory of our holy virgin, related among the other visions of St. Frances of Rome, most celebrated in the same 15th century, on 9 March page *126; which for the sake of brevity I do not here transcribe. Besides these, Baptista Mantuanus the Carmelite celebrated the martyrdom of the same Saint with an excellent heroic poem in volume 1, Parthenice 3. From the epigram of the praised Vida, subjoined to the hymn of which above, we learn that he himself by his own care magnificently restored the church of St. Margaret fallen into ruin through age: which he intimates in few words, when he thus sings:
Margaret, thy building, which age had overthrown, Vida has restored to thee out of his native marble.
Another epigram of another author concerning the Saint is indicated by Baronius in his notes.
§ IV. Images of the holy Martyr; the time of her martyrdom; her apocryphal Latin Acts.
The most illustrious lord Thomas Luytens, in the year 1637 in the month of December created abbot of Liessies (see the annotations at the end of the Life of the venerable Louis of Blois, Various is the manner of representing St. Margaret; on 7 January page 456, and the preliminary commentary to the Life of St. Etto bishop and confessor on 10 July page 51), in the letters which he gave to Bolland at Liessies in the year 1632, among various notices concerning the Saints, notes that St. Margaret is commonly painted in Belgium with a dragon, in royal dress: but in Gaul and Artois in the habit of a keeper of sheep, with loose hair, with a pastoral crook, and with sheep grazing around. That manner formerly obtained in Gaul, but afterward certainly did not obtain at least everywhere: for in the Germano-Pratensis history otherwise cited, where an engraving of the chapel of the same Saint is given on page 270, her statue is set forth quite different: for the Saint, clad in a modest and virginal habit, presses down a beast with her foot, and holds forth a cross in her left hand, and raises her empty right.
[37] But in the silver statue of smaller form, whose engraving is given on page 314, she is wont to be represented mostly with a dragon or similar beast; the Saint is exhibited likewise clad in a modest habit, and with hands joined, and eyes lifted to heaven like one praying, treading upon a beast. In the other statue there, of larger form, she likewise raises her eyes to the heavens, and with hands joined together bears a cross, and treads a beast under her feet; near which there seems to be placed a certain little vessel, like a boiling pot or cauldron; in accordance with those things which are narrated in the Acts number 37. It is a eucharistic gift of Marie de' Medici the queen, which she offered in the year 1608 on account of the happy delivery before of Louis XIII. In Hartmann Schedel, in the sixth age of the world folio 126, she appears with a crown on her head, with loose hair, bearing in the right and left hand an oblong cross crosswise, a dragon insinuating itself between the Saint's right arm and shooting forth as far as the neck. Another image of St. Marina, expressed in an old Grecian little picture from the museum of the Canons regular of St. Geneviève of Paris, Du Cange exhibits, Christian Constantinople book 4 page 149; she is represented, however, in a long and modest habit, holding a cross in the right hand, but showing an open palm of the left; and therefore both on account of that cross, and because she is represented with two other Martyrs, we suspect that our Marina is here understood: although Du Cange understood her who, accused of adultery in a monastery of monks, did penance; concerning whom we treated on the 17th of this month.
[38] [but not among the Muscovites: on which occasion certain things are said concerning that dragon.] In the figured Muscovite records of the Saints in us in the first volume of May, St. Marina is represented without a dragon with a cross in the right hand, clad in a modest and as it were monastic garment. On occasion of the famous dragon of St. George on 23 April, paragraph 3 of the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of the same Saint, mention was made in passing of the dragon of St. Margaret; which if you understand to be painted for her symbolically, because she overcame by the virtue of the cross the manifold machinations of the devil, as we then said there, you will estimate the painted thing according to truth; but if physically, then the dragon becomes a fiction, to be relegated to old wives' tales; just as the common Acts of the Saint bring it upon the stage for us, exhibiting by a graphic but feigned introduction or hypotyposis its external appearance, clothed with so many ridiculous circumstances that they move laughter. Other symbols are painted for other Saints; let that of our Saint remain hers, but expressed and understood in a fitting, not fabulous manner. So much of these things; now concerning the time of the martyrdom.
[39] On the epoch of the martyrdom Wholly uncertain and obscure is the time in which St. Margaret underwent martyrdom. At this Baronius stuck, professing that nothing sufficiently probable or likely in this matter was at hand to him, when he thus conjectures in the notes: But since all hand down that this was the daughter of Aedesius, a priest of the idols, there came to mind that Aedesius most addicted to the cult of the idols, a most bitter enemy of Christian things; concerning whom Eunapius of Sardis writes more things in the Lives of the philosophers, famous in the fifth century, and mentioned in Vossius On the Greek Historians page 252, and Tillemont, History of the Emperors volume 2 page 133. The same Baronius, since he numbers that Aedesius in the year 351 among the familiars of Julian, on this supposition the martyrdom of which we inquire could be fitted to the fourth century somewhat advanced. But grant that that true and proper name adhered to the father of the Saint (which, on account of the slight faith of the Acts, could be denied without any rashness); by what reasoning, if he does not prove it, will Baronius at least probably persuade that she was the daughter of this and not of some other Aedesius? Add that for Aedesius there is written Theodosius in the Acts which are read in Peter de Natalibus and Mombritius: and also in several of our manuscript codices, and apographs of the martyrdom.
[40] nothing certain. Schedel, in the place cited before, places our Martyr immediately before St. Blaise, as having suffered under Diocletian, Maximian, Licinius, or Julian; see 3 February page 332; Saussay likewise connects her with the Diocletian persecution, our Laherius in his Menologium about the year 300. I prefer Tillemont, who, having found nothing sufficiently obvious or safe where here he might set a foot unhurt, among the few things which he collected concerning St. Margaret, Ecclesiastical Monuments volume 5, gave her a place under the title of Saints who flourished in the first three centuries under an unknown epoch; as you may see article II page 562. But I know not whether even that reckoning of time, so confused, can safely enough be admitted on account of the uncertain and suspect Acts, of which we shall now speak.
[41] The holy Acts contain nothing of great moment besides a pious drama; The Acts corrected in Surius, not sincere: which must be very ancient, if, as we shall report in number 47 from Radulph of Tongeren, they were numbered among the apocrypha in the canon of Pope Gelasius, who lived at the close of the fifth century. That nothing certain is learned of the same Saint, the recent Gallican Legendist noted in the critical table of the authors and Acts of this month page 18; not here, although often elsewhere, a judge more rigid than is fair. The apocryphal martyrdom Peter de Natalibus published in compendium book 6 chapter 130; but it is read at more length in Lipomanus and Surius (from whom Haraeus extracted a small compendium page 458) under the name of Metaphrastes. Deservedly there the author complains that that martyrdom was adulterated, into the true narration, as into pure grain, tares being cast by the common enemy of all, by that demon, he says, who is there feigned to have been in the midst of her contest, and by his utterances: so that those who hear, attending how ridiculous and absurd is that demoniacal diction, doubt even of the very martyrdom of the excellent victress Marina. Therefore, casting away the trifles and fables, and applying his mind to true things, he promises a brief oration, and one that contains nothing superfluous. But although according to his promise he purged very many defilements in it, yet he left not a few to be purged. For who would dare to expect grain pure from tares and chaff from a granary most ill compacted with darnel and thistles? especially since we do not know, and certainly the author does not indicate, from what store he drew forth those better herbs.
[42] Of worse, nay of the worst note are the Acts which are read in Mombritius volume 2, those which Mombritius has from folio 103 verso, with this beginning: After the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the time of his glorious
ascension into heaven: in which, besides the inept and ridiculous dialogues between the Saint and the devil, several other absurd and false things are stuffed in; which nevertheless (if it please the Powers above) under the mask of an eyewitness an idle artificer of trifles peddles to the readers as true. Hear the follies of the graceless babbler: I, he says, Tectinus (Theotimus), took care carefully to learn how the most blessed Margaret fought against the demon and the tyrant, and I wrote all that she suffered. Having premised this persuasion to conciliate authority to himself, he presently adds: All ears, hear, etc. To pass over other things, see how prettily the fabulist plays his part with St. Margaret in prison: Now Contimus (Theotimus) was in the prison and her nurse, ministering to her bread and water; and they looked through the window, and wrote down her prayer, and noted with fear of God all things that happened.
[43] And behold (a scene worthy of the yawn of so great a prattler) suddenly from a corner of the prison came forth a horrible dragon, they are of the worst note, as is clear from the fabulous dragon, all gilded with various colors. His hair and beard were golden: and his teeth appeared to be of iron: his eyes shone like pearls, and from his nostrils fire and smoke came forth: his tongue panted: upon his neck was a serpent: a glowing sword appeared in his hand: and he made a stench in the prison. He drew himself into the midst of the prison, and hissed strongly: and there was light in the prison from the fire which came forth from the mouth of the dragon. And after the trifle-monger had exhibited St. Margaret praying (behold for you a lid worthy of the dish), the dragon with open mouth placed his mouth upon her head, and stretched out his tongue upon her heel, and sighing swallowed her into his belly: but the cross of Christ, which blessed Margaret had made for herself, grew in the mouth of the dragon, and divided him into two parts. And blessed Margaret came forth from the belly of the dragon, having no pain in her. And behold, at that very hour she looked to the left part, and saw another devil sitting, like a black man, having his hands bound to his knees. There are several other things which it is wearisome to report.
[44] with absurdities Do you want a specimen? The devil is brought in speaking thus: Solomon in his life enclosed us in one vessel; but after his death we sent fire from that vessel, and the men of Babylon coming thought to find gold, and broke those vessels, and then we, loosed, filled the whole world. Other things again, lest I be too long, I pass over. The prayer of the Martyr smacks of apocryphal Acts, in which she thus asks: If anyone shall read the book of my deeds, or shall hear my passion by reading it, from that hour let their sins be blotted out. And whoever shall make a light in my basilica from his own labor, let his sin not be imputed to him from that hour. Whoever shall be in that hour in the terrible judgment, and shall be mindful of my name, free him from torment. Further I ask, Lord, whoever shall read or shall bring, or shall hear it by reading; from that hour let his sin not be imputed to him: for we are flesh and blood, and we always sin. Further I ask, Lord, that whoever shall make a basilica in my name, and shall write my passion; or who shall from his own labor procure a codex of my passion, fill him with thy Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth, and in his house let no infant be born lame, or blind or dumb, neither let it be tempted by a spirit; and if he shall ask concerning his sin, pardon him, Lord. What shadow of truth is here?
[45] and falsehoods, unworthy of the Saint. Add the thunders and the dove speaking with the Saint, which affirms that her petitions will be fulfilled. Most absurd is the prayer in which the Martyr is narrated to have addressed the lictor in these words: Brother, take now thy sword, and strike me. Behold, I have now conquered the world. He said: I will not do this, nor kill a holy virgin of God. But God has spoken to thee: therefore I cannot kill thee. Blessed Margaret answered: If thou wilt not do this, thou shalt not have a part in the paradise of God with me. Then the questioner with fear and trembling brought his sword, and striking with one blow cut off the head of blessed Margaret, and cut it off, saying: Lord, lay not this to me for a sin. And the trembling striker fell with his striking-weapon to the right side of blessed Margaret. The narrator at last concludes his old wives' fables, subjoining these things: I, Tectinus, took the relics of blessed Margaret, and laid them in a coffer, which I made of stone, with an odor of sweetness, and placed them in the city of Antioch in the house of Siclitus [*] and Matrona. For I was he who ministered to her in the prison bread and water, and I considered the whole contest which she had against the impious warriors, and wrote all her prayers in paper books with much shrewdness, and transmitted them to all Christians in the same truth.
[46] Of the same or a like bran are those Acts which are noted in our manuscript parchment codex, Others in manuscript of the same or a like note. which once belonged to Don Isaac Vossius, and in various other of our manuscripts likewise on parchment. Of several other transcripts which are at hand, the manner of writing is in substance the same, namely of the Passion from the manuscript parchment legendary of Cardinal Barberini, marked f 207; likewise the Windberg and the Fulda; which have been collated with the manuscript of St. Maximin at Trier; add the Anchin manuscript; that of the queen of Sweden number 80, that of St. Ghislain in 4 in red leather, the Vaucelles, and finally another transcript, which is thought to be copied from a manuscript of St. Bernard at Antwerp. For several causes also our transcript displeases; which is noted as received from the manuscripts of the church of Montefiascone with this beginning: The feast day of the divine Margaret is kept: where from the word divine for holy the youth of the writing is betrayed, as we shall observe below. In a manuscript Catalogue which we have, of the Lives from the ancient codices of the monastery of Weingarten in Swabia, are noted Acts with this beginning: Bl. Margaret was the daughter of Theodosius, but from the coeval author Theotimus estimate the matter. In an ancient parchment Escorial codex, entitled Many Passions of the Martyrs, is noted this title: The passion of the holy and most blessed virgin and martyr of Christ Marina, who suffered in the plain of Limia, which is beneath a city of Armenia. What does the plain of Limia in Armenia mean; where in the Acts mention is everywhere made of Antioch? In the same title it is written that she suffered on the 15th day before the Kalends of August, and at the end it is said that she suffered on the 11th day before the Kalends of August. It thus begins: In those times, when after the corporeal coming of the Savior. Various dialogues there, prolix prayers, Theotimus, a long description of the dragon, the Saint swallowed by him, the cross growing in the belly of the dragon; the dragon himself divided into two parts; then various dialogues of Marina with the devil, altercations with Olibrius, and long prayers.
[47] But lest I seem to anyone here too severe a judge, The judgments of other authors it may help to bring into the midst the judgments of others concerning the said Acts, and first of Baronius, who in the notes has this: But as for what pertains to her Acts; these things Radulph of Tongeren, On the observance of the canon II: "The Passion" (he says) "of blessed Margaret I saw at Rome at the Lateran in the canon of blessed Gelasius numbered among the apocrypha." Thus he: which we greatly wonder at, since neither in the ancient manuscripts, of which very many copies are available from the various libraries which are at Rome, nor in those codices which are printed, could we find anything of the kind in the decree of Gelasius. Yet we do not deny that in her Acts, which Metaphrastes edited and which are recited in volume 6, and Surius in volume 4, which also, received from Latin codices, Mombritius transcribed in volume 2: which finally we read in several very ancient manuscript codices, as among others that of St. Mary ad Martyres, and of St. Cecilia across the Tiber: we do not, I say, deny that in them are found some things which need no light emendation. Add that, according to Gavantus above, Pius V took away the uncertain lessons concerning her martyrdom, and changed the prayer. In the present Breviary you have substituted a prayer from the common, and a lesson from St. Ambrose.
[48] Concerning the Acts of St. Margaret John Hessels of Louvain, in the censure concerning certain histories of the Saints, published in type by Molanus at the end of his Martyrology of the first edition, says, chapter 7, The Passion of St. Margaret, "After the passion and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and his glorious ascension," does not please for the same cause for which the Passion of Juliana displeases (concerning which he had treated in chapter 2), because the devil, compelled by Margaret, says that Solomon enclosed the demons in a new vessel, which being done they were loosed. Which is false, and smacks of the magic art, by which the devil feigns himself to be enclosed. Likewise it is said that, wherever the book of her Passion is, no infant shall be born lame, nor blind, etc.; and that whoever shall buy the book shall be filled with the Holy Spirit. Our Elders, in volume 1 of May page XXVI in the Greco-Muscovite Ephemerides, long ago indicated in a word what they thought of the Acts of St. Margaret or Marina.
[49] the judgments. The Life, After the passion and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the name of Theotimus as an eyewitness, Tillemont asserts that he saw, Ecclesiastical Monuments volume 5 page 797 in the notes; adding that quite beautiful things are contained in it, that the style is lofty, magnificent, and elegant enough; that the greatest part of the ridiculous prodigies which are in Surius is omitted; but that the apparition of the devil is even now there; and that the things which the Saint is brought in to speak seem rather composed at leisure and extracted from St. Augustine On the City of God, than written under that person who openly speaks before the judge; in a word, that not even the least vestige of a note of this kind is had in those Acts, which the author wishes to obtrude as sincere. Molanus without doubt had seen them: for in the notes on this day to his Usuardine Martyrology he says that the history is in truth apocryphal, which is had under the title of Theotimus, who writes that he ministered to the Saint in prison bread and water, and considered the whole contest; although the same Molanus there does not produce the beginning of the history. Paulus Æmilius Sanctorius of Caserta, in a peculiar book on the twelve Virgins and Martyrs, printed at Rome in the year 1597, published the martyrdom in an elegant style and adorned with oratorical trappings; in which would that he had noted more things to be corrected than he did! That the pseudo-chronographers of Spain most ineptly transferred by a signal plagiarism the Acts of the present Saint to their Marina, we observed on the 18th of this month. A little compendium of the Passion our Raderus has, part I of the Viridarium
page 251. The same our Laherius likewise contracted in his Menologium; where he also notes certain things against Bivarius. I pass over our Peter Ribadeneyra, and Alfonso de Villegas, who last attributed to Theotimus (he himself writes Theostitus) more than is fitting, because he did not sufficiently know him.
Annotata* Otherwise, Sincletica.
§ V. The apocryphal Greek Acts; the Latin, which are here given.
In the first volume of May, in the cited Greco-Muscovite Ephemerides page XXVI, we said that the fabulous Acts of St. Irene, although we had them in Greek, We do not give the Greek Acts from the Imperial library we did not judge should be inserted into our work; and this, I know not how, befell also certain other distinguished virgins and martyrs, most cultivated in the West no less than in the East, for instance Barbara, Margaret or Marina, and Catherine. What we then said, though even then prematurely, concerning the Greek Acts of our Saint, we now also say, and exclude them from the work. A threefold apograph, therefore, of the Greek Acts is at hand. And one indeed is noted to have been taken from an ancient manuscript paper codex, elegant and of good note in 4, from the Imperial library (concerning which Lambecius may be seen in the Vienna Library book 8 page 71), copied partly by our Janning, partly by our Baert. The author is Gregory of Cyprus patriarch of Constantinople; with this beginning: Καὶ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν ἄρα, ἧς ὁ Χριστὸς κεφαλὴ, παράδεισον κατανοοῦμεν; which coincides with that which we indicated above in number 34 from Allatius.
[51] These Acts I had already made Latin; but understand the causes because scenic. why they are kept from the press. What would you expect from an author of the 13th century besides words and phrases? This is betrayed even from the very beginning of the oration, which contains a verbose introduction; but at the end it has a long apostrophe to the Martyr, stuffed with examples of men celebrated in the Old Testament, with whom he compares her: but in the course it sets forth the desire of martyrdom with which she burned, the fury of Diocletian and Maximian against the Christians, the frenzy of Olibrius, the dialogue of the Saint with him; the contempt of the punishments, etc.; likewise the graphic hypotyposis of the dragon, who after he had devoured the Martyr was burst asunder; the Saint's song of victory; the demon, the cross, the dove, the similitudes, the new torments, the martyrdom of others converted to Christ, and at last the Saint taken from among the living. Which things report both the argument of the common history and the fabulous scenes of the little Greeks.
[52] Another Greek exemplar likewise we have from the Vatican manuscript 866, Other exemplars likewise unworthy of the press. which also I had turned into Latin, with the same beginning which in Leo Allatius, in the Diatribe on the writings of the Symeons page 123, is produced, τῆς ἀναστάσεως τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος, καὶ τῆς ἐνδόξου αὐτοῦ ἀναλήψεως, where the same author denies it to Metaphrastes; but if not his, it certainly betrays the genius of another little Greek, playing his parts more than once, both here and in Theotimus, of whom above, to say nothing of the fabulous dragon and other trifles. For who could patiently read this? But the Saint, turning, and finding an iron hammer, began to beat the devil overcome by her, and setting her foot upon his neck, beat with the hammer his head and back. A third, finally, apograph is at hand from the Medicean library, shelf 9 codex 33, presenting this beginning: Οὐδὲν οὕτως ἡδύνει καὶ καθιλαρύνει ψυχὴν ἀγαθὴν καὶ πιστήν. Nothing so much renders sweet and cheerful a good and faithful soul; and it is that martyrdom which Lipomanus and Surius published in Latin. Now which Latin Acts it seemed good to commit to type before the others, receive in few words: but first we would have it observed that those which are in Lipomanus and Surius nearly agree in substance with ours which we destine for the press.
[53] We have them in our Rebdorf transcript (it is a monastery of canons regular of St. Augustine in Bavaria, The Acts from the Rebdorf apograph are here given. concerning which Bruschius among the monasteries of Germany folio 102 verso). There is prefixed to it a prologue of the author concerning his correction of the same. But at what time he lived is hidden from us: this one thing is established, namely that he did not write before the times of St. Gregory the Pope (understand the Great), since he there indicates him. Nor have we anything ascertained concerning his name or profession of life. Yet that he was a monk or religious may seem able to be argued from this, that among other things which he prefaces he hands down this: To your most humble entreaty, dearly beloved brethren, I have thought it not incongruous to assent. Further, it has seemed good to commit these Acts to type before the rest, not because they are altogether and in every way good and approved (for who would hope for that concerning any Acts of our Saint?), but because less bad and improbable; whether the author had before his eyes others of a somewhat better note, or these same ones, or some of those which we have mentioned, recalled by him to a stricter balance such as it was. Howsoever the matter stands; more tolerable are the things which he reports concerning the apparition of the dragon than those which Peter de Natalibus, Mombritius, Lipomanus, and Surius have, and the transcripts indicated above. Besides, either he did not find in his exemplar, or if he found, he rightly cut away the prayers, truly suspect and apocryphal, poured out to God by the Saint now about to die: which you may see above, and also in the said authors: although Peter de Natalibus mentions them most briefly.
[54] as less bad. Add that concerning the fabulous Theotimus, and the inept dialogues of the Martyr with the demon, reckoned above from Mombritius, he keeps deep silence. But now, that we may note certain things to be corrected even in that very one; he is everywhere excessive in the verbose and prolix discoursing of dialogues and prayers ever recurring, so much the more likely to deserve well of the whole context of the martyrdom, the more he had restrained himself in this kind. Which, what else is it than to adorn a homily, and not to compose a pure and genuine history of the martyrdom? But let us grant him this pardon. That in some places a few superfluous things also are cut away by us, will be noted in the annotations. Certain gaps likewise in our apograph will be supplied by the help of another, which we have transcribed from an ancient manuscript codex of St. Mary ad Martyres at Rome, from volume, as it is inscribed, the fifth, folio 356. But it lacks the prologue. That very exemplar without doubt Baronius had read, as we noted from him in number 47. And these indeed are the things concerning which it seemed good to forewarn the reader. Behold now the Acts from the above-praised codex, emended to this latter.
ACTS
From the Rebdorf manuscript, corrected against the manuscript of St. Mary ad Martyres. By an anonymous author.
Margaret, Virgin and Martyr, at Antioch (S.)
BHL Number: 5308
FROM THE MANUSCRIPT.
PROLOGUE.
The series of the divine Scriptures is the more delightful to the ears of the wise, the more, proceeding along the line of Grammar with truth preserved, The author, having prefaced that certain Acts of the Saints have been corrupted, free from the dye of falsehood, it flows as it were a most pure stream. For it is proper to humanity to accommodate faith to those devout discourses which are agreed not only to proceed along the path of truth, but also, through eloquence of speech, to run with unhindered feet. Hence indeed it comes about that certain of the excellent doctors corrected the deeds of certain not lowest Saints, corrupted a through the unskillfulness of the translators, and, lifted from the darkness of ignorance, made them shine with so great a light that, their former faultiness being driven away, they poured out a vibrant light to all readers.
[2] Finally, blessed Ambrose, whose eloquence through the most holy Church sounds rather divinely than resounds humanly, but others of a better note, adorned the glories b c of the blessed virgin Agnes with so brilliant a speech that it is able to provoke even the minds of unbelievers to faith in so great sayings. Nor is less faith to be accommodated to the honeyed diction of the blessed Pope Gregory, with whose sweetness the text of blessed Felicity and of her sons d is so anointed that even the fastidious are delighted to enjoy its nectar-sweetness. And their most valid authority, who by right of the heavenly edifice might be called columns, the moderns too have followed with a not improbable tenor, desiring, namely, to give the master's flock to drink, if not in broad bowls, at least in narrow cups.
[3] Fenced about, therefore, on every side by these most valid bulwarks, I have thought it not incongruous to assent to your most humble entreaty, he strives to correct these of St. Margaret. dearly beloved brethren, and I have studied to correct the life and passion of the most blessed virgin Margaret, relying not on my own but on divine powers e. Nor have I feared confidently to thrust myself into the fiery torches of envy; since I do not deny that any earthly burning, however most violent, can without delay be extinguished by the divine dew, and that tongueless infants, when it shall please the divine majesty, can also be made most eloquent.
ANNOTATA.
CHAPTER I.
The Saint, hateful to her father for the constancy of her faith, is brought to Olibrius the president.
[5] The cycle of nearly two hundred and ninety years a from the Incarnation of the Lord Savior was rolling, The Saint, having heard of the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian when Diocletian, the son of a Dalmatian scribe b, held the reins of the Roman empire with a most cruel dominion. For he in the first c year of his reign associated to himself as colleague in the kingdom a nefarious and impious man; namely Maximian surnamed Herculius. Both of whom began to rage against the Christians with most vehement cruelty; but Diocletian, boiling more atrociously against the Christian faith above all the emperors, raged so far that throughout the whole dominion of his kingdom he appointed judges and presidents, that wherever they should discover Christians, they should by sword, fire, and famine slay their life with torture, that he might utterly destroy the Christian name from the earth.
[5] most atrocious having been heard, For in the nineteenth year of his reign he himself in the East d, Maximian in the West, did not cease to lay waste the churches, and utterly to kill the Christians. But by the judgment of almighty God, in the second year e of the persecution Diocletian at Nicomedia, Maximian at Milan, laid down the dignity of the empire. Nevertheless the persecution of cruelty, once arisen, did not cease to rage until the seventh f year of Constantine, the son of Helena, so far that, crossing the border of the ocean, he there killed very many with various punishments. But at the same time, at the Romulean city, Marcellus was then held the Apostolic pontiff, who himself too was crowned with martyrdom g.
[6] prays to God, But at the same time in which such things were being done, blessed Margaret, in the fifteenth year of her age, hearing that atrocity of this kind was boiling up against the Christians, poured out a prayer to the Lord in these words: Lord Jesus Christ, the strength and life of the Saints, the consoler of the sorrowful and the salvation of the wretched; who never
forsakest those who hope in thee; strengthen me, a little one, in thee, that, if the tyrannic power shall come, and shall seize me, and through bloody kinds of torments shall tear my body in pieces, thou suffer not, Lord, thy handmaid to fail through fear of punishments, lest I deny the faith of thy grace, and through dread abandon thy holy name.
[7] that he protect her. For thou art, Lord, the fashioner of souls and bodies: thou knowest human frailty. Remember, I beseech, that we are earth and dust: for my father and my mother, who ought to have exhorted me to obey thy commandments; behold, they strive to deceive me; because I do not venerate the worship of false gods. But since, Lord, my most faithful savior, I believe that thou wilt deign to take me up, therefore I will not fear what man may do to me.
[8] Now this Virgin was the daughter of a certain man named Aedesius, Hateful to her father for the constancy of her faith a most powerful man, who was also a priest of the temples, and seemed to hold the rank of the first authority. He, thus [*] loving his daughter greatly, gave her to be nursed far from his own city, namely Antioch h. But the mother of blessed Margaret being dead, when her father Aedesius had learned by experience that she was in every way a Christian, and could in no way separate her from her holy purpose, cruelly kindling with wrath, and sharpening all the bitterness of his fury against the girl, he could not even look upon her with his eyes. Moreover he abhorred her and cast her off. But the almighty Lord, who never forsakes those who hope in him, deigned to console her with his wonted piety, and made her so beloved to her nurse that she loved her as a daughter of her own womb. For she too was a Christian, and was devoted to Christian works.
[9] she feeds the sheep of her nurse. For among the other great things of the virtues which divine grace had conferred on her, the Virgin of the Lord had so subjected herself to holy humility that she had no boasting of her noble birth. And since her father, abhorring her, had cast her far off, she so served in all things her nurse and mistress, that she even kept her little sheep, and did not disdain to lead them out to pasture with the other girls. She fed them, however, with all humility and meekness: just as that Rachel of old, the mother of the patriarch Joseph, a humble and comely girl, humbly kept the sheep of her father. Meanwhile a certain prefect, named Olibrius, swollen with cruelty and impiety, was coming from Asia into Antioch on account of the persecution of the Christians. And as he was making his journey, it happened that he saw blessed Margaret walking in the pasturing of the sheep with the other girls of her own age.
[10] She therefore, among all, seemed beautiful with incredible beauty. Olibrius burns with love of her; being brought to him, Wherefore the president, overcome by concupiscence, commanded his ministers, saying: Go quickly and diligently seek out that girl. If she is free, I will most lovingly join her to myself in marriage: but if she is bound under the condition of servitude, I will pay a worthy price for her; and she shall be joined to me by the right of concubinage. But they, going more quickly, and doing their lord's command, seized her; and returning with hurried course, brought her to the president.
[11] But when the blessed Virgin was led by the impious ones, and mindful of her own frailty, from fear of the punishments inflicted on others crushed with terror and fear, being not unmindful of feminine frailty, she began most vehemently to be afraid; and especially on account of the atrocity and the burnings of the punishments, which were then cruelly inflicted by the impious. For the devil, the enemy of the Christian name, had devised such punishments and such tortures through his satellites against the servants of God, that he might overcome not the body, which was easy to kill, but the vigor of the mind by deceiving: as blessed Jerome most fully reports in the Life of St. Paul the hermit i. Whence very many chose to lead a most straitened life in the mountains and caves with the beasts, rather than to be seized by the hands of the pagans; fearing in all things lest perhaps they should yield to the most bitter kinds of torments, and, compelled, should fall from the summit of the holy faith.
[12] The virgin of Christ Margaret, greatly dreading the punishments of torments of this kind, and those threatening herself, implores the help of God, now placed among the hands of the impious, with eyes lifted to heaven, besought the king of all ages, saying: Have mercy, Lord, have mercy on thy handmaid: help, succor me in this tribulation: give strength, give endurance to overcome the stings of the punishments, that they who hasten to take me away from thy piety may see and be confounded. Suffer me not, Lord, to be separated from thy holy religion; but resist the adversary vehemently hostile to me; that my soul, by thy help, may be freed without crime from these bloody beasts, and that the modesty of my virginity, which I have consecrated to thee, Lord, may remain inviolate. Wherefore, Lord God, send now thy holy angel, who may guard, protect, and defend my body and my soul, that I may praise thee, glorify thee: for thou art blessed for ever and ever.
[13] And when the most blessed Virgin uttered these and things like these from her mouth; she is then set before the prefect. the soldiers came with her to the prefect; and being presented, they immediately said: Lord, the magnificence of your dignity cannot transgress the worship of the gods, and the decrees of the emperors, which not only the Roman nobility, but the whole world everywhere keeps. The girl indeed, whom thou didst command us to seek out, whether she be a handmaid or free; professes herself to be a Christian; and altogether estranged from the worship of the sacred gods; and testifies that she worships that Jesus, whom the Jews of old crucified. When we had seized her, we strove to bend her with both milder and harshest words; but by no promise of dignity, and by no fear of punishments, could we soften her mind. Nevertheless, that your industry may more clearly investigate these things, let her be presented to your examination.
ANNOTATA.
* Otherwise, "therefore."
CHAPTER II.
The Martyr is shut in prison; then brought out in public before the president; whose blandishments and threats she spurns.
[14] Which things being heard, the most wicked judge, greatly saddened, ordered her to be presented more quickly to his sight. The Saint is interrogated by the prefect; And when she had been presented, he began thus to address her: O girl, all fear being laid aside, tell me thy family, and whether thou art a handmaid or free, disclose more manifestly. To whom the most sacred Virgin answered: My lineage indeed is most well known to all in this city, nor am I of so lowly and ignoble a stock that my origin can lie hidden. But as for what thou askest me concerning freedom, know in all things that I am subject to the servitude of no one. But I profess myself, with mouth and heart, the handmaid of my Lord Jesus Christ, whom from my tender age I have adored and worshipped, and shall never cease to worship.
[15] [she is condemned in prison to thirst and want of food: but is visited by an angel.] To whom the prefect: By what name, he said, art thou called? Margaret answered: Among men I am called Margaret: [but what is more illustrious, from the font of holy baptism I am called Christian.] a When these things were said, the president, kindled with excessive fury, commanded the servant of God to be shut in a dark prison, and ordered all human comfort of food and drink to be utterly excluded from her, so that, destitute of all help and wasted by the darkness of the prison, she might more easily be bent to his will. But she, consoled by an angelic visitation, and made bright by the illumination of the heavenly light, most constantly persevered in the confession of Christ, and reckoned as nothing all the things which had been inflicted on her for punishment.
[16] But when the prefect saw that by no blandishments and by no terrors could he recall her from her intention toward Christ, The prefect proclaims a public assembly, seizing upon the journey he had begun, he set out for Antioch, and there, calling together to himself the nobility of the whole city, and all who seemed to be wise, having taken counsel with them, how he might, by studious argumentation, not by killing destroy blessed Margaret, but by terrifying overcome her. Then, after long and much deliberating, at last it seemed good to him that in an assembly of the peoples she should be examined by public examination; saying: Perhaps, bowed by the confusion of shame and the sight of the peoples, she will more quickly recall her mind from her purpose; and her whom the want of the prison and the hunger of fasting did not humble, the multitude will overcome. Determining these things, finally, on the second day after he entered the city, the prefect ordered a most magnificent tribunal to be prepared for him, and, for the spectacle of the holy Virgin, the multitude of the whole city to be called together.
[17] When these had come together, there was made a rather copious assembly of both sexes. before whom he blandly addresses the Saint: Then the prefect, exalted by the excellence of honor, when he sat upon the throne, at once commanded the worshipper of the faith of Christ to be brought into the sight of all. And when she had been presented, he began first to persuade her with bland speech, saying: We see thee, O girl, walking along the way of perdition. We see thy mind entangled in certain errors, and pertinaciously resisting our admonitions; but because we do not wish to destroy thee, nay rather with the utmost effort we are busy to free thee, we exhort that, all excuse being removed, and all error left, thou walk along the way of salvation which we show thee, whereby thou mayest both obtain our favor, and escape the punishments of torments. Certainly because we are greatly afflicted at thy destruction, therefore we have hitherto given thee a respite, and have not caused thee to be more quickly slaughtered. Let thy mind, therefore, find a most salutary counsel, that thou mayest receive salvation, and not atrociously undergo the dreadful kinds of punishments. Behold, there is set before thee life and death; joy and torment; to which thou wilt, stretch forth thy hand: choose what seems to thee better.
[18] To whom the Virgin of the Lord answered: The counsel of salvation and joy I have now, by the favor of God, truly found, but, having suffered a repulse, he more harshly upbraids her, and in the citadel of my breast placed with firm stability, namely that I may adore, magnify the Lord Jesus Christ, whom I glorify with sure confidence, and never cease to worship him with all my heart. Nevertheless let there be no more labor to thee from this, nor be thou wearied in uncertainty; because no
power, no atrocity whatsoever can ever pluck such and so great a treasure from my heart. Then Olibrius said: From the moment thou didst begin to speak to me, thou hast brought forth [*] thy answer with pertinacity and pride of mind, and as much as we have tried to exhort thee with sweet words, so much have we found thee most harsh against our clemency.
[19] as though it could not be corrected: but this she herself refutes; Whence we can not incongruously conjecture that not of thyself, but by the persuasion of some other, thou dost not fear to pursue these things. For I know not what unskilled person has entangled thee in fablings of this kind. And thence it is that thou knowest not to return to thy heart: and hast brought us these premeditated answers: for thy very age plainly demonstrates what I say: because thou couldst not have known to produce this of thyself. But who this may be, all argumentation removed, declare as quickly as possible. To this blessed Margaret answered: Why dost thou assert me to be seduced and thoroughly taught by foolish meditations? if thou willingly hear, thou canst more quickly discern, if only thou wilt believe in Christ. To whom the judge said: I both patiently hear, and desire patiently to learn what it is.
[20] affirming that she was taught by the Holy Spirit: Holy Margaret answered: Wonder not, O judge, that my littleness knows to set a reason before thee: this is no human argument. Hear therefore, and wisely attend. He who faithfully serves the Lord Jesus Christ needs no secular teaching, that he may seek what to speak, or what he ought to answer. He himself indeed deigned to promise to those confiding in his virtue, saying: When ye shall be delivered up to the powers of the world for my name's sake, and shall stand before kings and presidents; think not what to speak, or how ye ought to answer. The Holy Spirit speaks worthy things for you. Therefore if this is so; nay, because it is so, I have been taught not by meditating, but by believing. By believing I found a master. By believing, indeed, we know to set forth the tradition of our faith, and to struggle against your infernal persuasions.
[21] which the president tries to weaken, Then the president said: We thought thou wast intimating something plausible, but thou buildest up a most impudent lie. And we indeed have heard that such is the seduction of Christ, that whomsoever his doctrine has once entangled, no assertion, no violence can ever loose. Therefore, according to thy pertinacity, what we long ago perceived by hearing, we now learn by experience. Let such a master not teach my soul: let such a doctrine be far from me, which makes one despise the power of princes, lose the most pleasant joys, and find perpetual tribulation. But since thou art ignorant, O Virgin, how great is the indignation of the emperors against the faith of the Christians, therefore thou professest to hold as secure what seems to thee right and holy.
[22] adding threats, But if thou wilt hear the counsel of our exhortation, thou wilt plainly see how thou mayest escape death, and find life. Let not vain hope deceive thee, nor false deception. Know most truly that the most invincible emperors therefore established me judge here, that all worshippers of Christ, who shall not adore the most sacred gods, I may through various torments without any pity tear in pieces, and, torn, deliver to a most bitter death. And because these things are sanctioned by the imperial decrees, take counsel for thyself now, while thou hast time, and while the faculty is granted by our clemency to thy littleness, lest perhaps afterward thou seek and find not, when thou shalt have begun to feel our indignation about thy hardness. Let not empty deceit seduce thee, that in some way thou canst escape from the hand of my power, or that any violent power whatsoever can snatch thee away. If thou hast thought this, give it over to oblivion, and at last, returned to thy heart, be busy more quickly to fulfill what we command, so that on an appointed day thou mayest adore the majesty of the gods together with us: otherwise through various torments thou shalt breathe out thy spirit.
[23] Blessed Margaret answered: Why dost thou threaten me with punishments, which the Martyr despised. impious judge? Why by terrifying dost thou despise the Christian religion, and boast that there is none to snatch from thy hand. If my Lord Jesus Christ were only man, as thou in thy folly supposest, and were not most truly God and man, and king of heaven and earth, thy threats could bring fear upon me, so that I should obey thy commands, and adore mute images: but because he dwells in the heavens, and looks upon the lowly, and according to the prophet: Heaven is his seat, but the earth his footstool: and of so great power is he, that, if he willed, he could command that hell should thus swallow thee alive and thy followers, [whence he is proved in all things most foolish, to leave such and so great a Lord] b and to bend the neck to vain idols and give glory to them. Therefore, judge, in this matter thou needest not be doubtful. Undoubtedly receive what I say: that I neither keep the decrees of the emperors, nor tremble in fear at thy threats, nor exhibit honor to false gods. Kill, cut, burn, deliver to the teeth of beasts: kill me indeed thou canst, but to separate me from the charity of Christ thou shalt in no way be able.
ANNOTATA.
* Otherwise, "thou hast produced."
CHAPTER III.
The tortures; the prayers to God; the machinations of the devil.
Hearing these things, the president, full of fury, ordered her to be hung by the head, and cruelly beaten with rods. She is most cruelly beaten with rods, And the apparitors, fulfilling the nefarious commands, so scourged her most tender and most holy body, that her blood, like a fountain, flowed over the earth. Many men and women among the bystanders, beholding this most monstrous cruelty, turned to weeping of bitterness and to a groan of grief, said in a consoling voice to the blessed Martyr: O beautiful Virgin! we greatly grieve and are exceedingly distressed at the torture which we see in thy members, and with the utmost effort we would desire to free thee, but we cannot: yet we will give thee counsel, and we do not deny how thou canst escape. For this tyrant, as thou thyself seest, does not cease from the fury of his anger, but, once angered, hastens to destroy thy memory from the earth.
[25] [and she moves to compassion the gentiles, by whose words and tears she is not swayed.] But thou, O Virgin, according to thy wisdom, at length spare thy soul: have pity on thy little body, and yield at least a little to his words. Perhaps, appeased by pity, he will not lead thee into the snare of death. To whom the holy Virgin said: Cease, O most illustrious men, I beseech you; withdraw, O noble women, and do not by weeping break my resolve: for according to the Apostle: Evil communications corrupt good manners. But I spare you, because you do this humanely, and walking in darkness do not see the true light. For if you had the light of truth known, you would not only fear to draw me from the right way, but would also of your own accord deliver yourselves with me to punishment for the name of Christ.
[26] She is hung on the rack, torn with hooks: Then the president, indignant, ordered the Martyr of Christ to be hung on the rack and her most sacred limbs to be torn with the sharpest points. But the executioners, fulfilling the tyrannic commands, when they were most bitterly tearing the holy members, came even to the secret parts of the belly, and the bowels being laid open and the blood poured out, it seemed to all the bystanders most cruel, so far that even the most abominable arbiter himself, and those who were present, turned away their faces [*] and shuddered to see tortures of this kind. But the Saint, strengthened by heavenly aid, reckoned these punishments of torments as nothing: whose most robust constancy very many admiring said: Behold, a most tender and delicate girl patiently sustains bloody contests, which even the most robust men would fear to behold.
[27] she is condemned to the flames: But the most pagan men, and utterly estranged from God, whence they ought to have been bent to mercy, thence were carried to the atrocity of murder: for seeing that the Virgin of the Lord derided the lacerations of the hooks and the wounds of the rods, they devised graver punishments, by which they might either overcome her, or certainly deliver her to a most ferocious death. Then they decreed to burn her the next day with the burnings of flames. And determining these things, they ordered her to be again consigned to the darkness of the prison. The most holy Virgin, therefore, when she had entered the prison, with hands raised to the Lord pouring out prayers, prayed:
[28] she prays in prison: Lord God, king of heaven and earth, creator of things visible and invisible, bestower of eternal life, and consoler of the mourning, make me to remain manfully in the confession of thy holy name, that, since with thy help I have most confidently begun to fight, with thy help I may deserve to obtain victory, lest at any time those who wickedly oppose me insult over me, saying to me: Where is his God, in whom he trusted? But the light which the blind obscurity of the prison has taken from me, let the angel of thy light, coming, restore, and let it cast far off all the phantasms of the ancient enemy by the right hand of thy power. For we know, Lord, that thy mercy will be present in temptations.
[29] [she puts to flight by her prayers the devil appearing in the likeness of a dragon;] While blessed Margaret, praising the Savior of the world, was thus praying these and things like these, behold, the head of wickedness, with a thousand arts of harming, with various machinations and phantom deceits, set upon her to terrify her. For appearing in the likeness of a dragon, he transformed himself into diverse shapes, and at once vomiting forth from mouth and nostrils a most foul fire, strove to devour the servant of God. But the holy Virgin, beholding phantasms of this kind, ran to the arms of her wonted prayer, and tracing the sign of the holy cross against the enemy, in these words demanded help: Lord Jesus Christ, defender of thy soldiers, who didst humble the pride of the devil through the victory of the cross; arise to my aid. Say to my soul: I am thy salvation. For thou hast said: Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and thou shalt trample the lion and the dragon. At this voice, therefore, the ancient serpent, confounded, withdrew, and was able to exercise no evil against the Virgin.
[30] But blessed Margaret, exulting in the heavenly protection, whose new machinations she despises; did not cease to render thanks to God the savior of all. But the devil, the enemy of the Christian name, grieving most bitterly that he had been overcome by a woman, did not fear to oppose other terrifications. For appearing in the guise of a man hairy down to the heel, and presenting himself horrible in countenance, he tried by a new fraud to bring in terror. When the blessed Virgin beheld him: I recognize, she said, Satan, your snares, I recognize the noose of your craftiness. Why do you try to strike terror into me? If you despise me for this, because I am little, I have a great Lord as helper and a great aider.
[31] He indeed is my Lord, who reduced your most ferocious power to nothing, and drives him away. humbled your boasting, and, when the end of the world shall come, will cast thee and thy colleagues into everlasting hell, where you shall always burn. Therefore, since it is so, in his holy name I command thee, most wicked demon; that thou depart far hence, and presume not to approach me further. At once the wicked spirit, compelled by the divine power, said: I will do what thou hast commanded: for thou art proven to be the handmaid
of the heavenly king. For indeed, at thy prayer, his majesty broke all our snares, and now our cunning can prevail nothing against thee. Saying these and many things like these, the demon vanished from her sight.
Annotata* Otherwise, "faces."
CHAPTER IV.
The repeated victories over the tyrant; the conversion of others to Christ; the martyrdom of the Saint.
[32] These things being thus done, a heavenly visitation came, which gladdened the Virgin of Christ: for a divine light, shining like the sun in that same prison, The Saint is refreshed by a heavenly apparition, put to flight the horrid stench which the wicked spirit had sprinkled, and then in such brightness the sign of the saving cross shone forth, and upon the same cross a dove whiter than snow was seen to rest. And at once a voice came to her, saying: Rejoice, most faithful Virgin, exult, glorious martyr: for through many contests thou hast despised the ceremonies of the false gods, and hast more boldly preached the glory of the name of Christ; behold, through thy martyrdom thou wilt reach the eternal joys, where with the angels and with all the Saints thou wilt rejoice for ever.
[33] and she is strengthened against the new assaults of the tyrant; And by this visitation, therefore, the holy Virgin was strengthened more and more, and her mind was so comforted unto the passion that she reckoned all kinds of torments as nothing. But when morning came, the arbiter of iniquity, not unmindful of the malignant cruelty which he had devised against the Servant of God, drawing her from the most foul squalor of the prison, ordered her to stand before his tribunal in the sight of the people. And when she seemed to be with a glad face and as though having suffered nothing evil, he, driven by furies, began with these words to break her constancy: O most impudent of all women, and most hostile to thy soul and to thy body! why hast thou hardened thy heart after the manner of beasts, and hast contrived nothing concerning thy salvation?
[34] trying with many words to shake the Martyr's constancy: Behold, thou art become harder than iron, stronger than adamant, thou reckonest all tortures as nothing, thou spurnest the decrees of the princes, and disdainest to exhibit due honor to the sacred deities. We too know how to apply to thee a fitting medicine, and to thy arts most fitting remedies. But why do we lead thee through many things? By the safety of the most invincible kings, and the magnificence of the gods, unless thou immediately profess with thy mouth to bend thy swollen neck to the immortal gods, and offer sacred libations, I will shake out thy iron soul with a fire-vomiting burning, and if so great is thy love to worship Christ that thou reckonest little the burnings of flames, we will most evidently prove it. But hasten, unhappy one, to succor thy soul, before the prepared fires consume thee and the ardor of the flames burn thee.
[35] but she is despised by the Martyr: These things being heard, the holy Martyr thus addressed the most proud tyrant: Why art thou anxious, O judge, and threatenest to bring upon me the stings of fires? We fear not thy threats, and in no way dread thy punishments, since indeed, to one considering the magnitude of the rewards, every torture is rendered contemptible: For the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory that shall be revealed in us. Therefore from my Lord Jesus Christ neither fire, nor sword, nor the moment [*] of death shall ever be able to separate me. Only, what thou art about to do, defer now no longer; for thee and thy gods alike we despise, and I shall not cease to adore and glorify the Lord Christ alone.
[36] [she is afterward tortured with lighted lamps, the tyrant himself insulting, but in vain.] While she said these things, the judge of cruelty, boiling with greater anger, ordered her body to be stripped and hung from the ground: then he commanded her triumphal members to be burned with lighted lamps, and deriding her, said: Margaret, rejoice and be glad in Christ, whom thou assertest thou wilt in no way deny. This rest, this joy he himself has procured for thee. Wherefore, if he can, let him succor thee, and snatch thee from this burning. But if thou wilt yet obey our command, and hasten to succor thy most unhappy self, we will bring forth so many and so great advantages of delights, that thou wilt give over to oblivion all the torments which thou hast suffered. Holy Margaret answered: Thou congratulatest thyself over a momentary burning; and thou attendest not to the everlasting. This is the glory of Christians, through which one comes to a joy that is never ended. For this I have continually desired, and had in longing. This fire indeed burns my limbs for a little while, but thee, as most pagan, everlasting burnings shall torture. He indeed, the Lord of heaven and earth, who since he snatched the three children from the furnace of burning fire, himself grants refreshment to me his handmaid, so that this fire may not have dominion over me, that, thy pertinacity being overcome, I may deserve with them to sing the hymn of glory.
[37] And when she had said these things, with eyes lifted to heaven she thus prayed: She pours out prayers to God and is cast into a vessel full of water, Lord, creator of all, whom all the elements serve, hear me crying to thee. Grant me that this fire may in no way be able to overcome me. Wonderful grace of the Lord! for she bore the burning lamps as it were the refreshment of a most sweet dew, and said to the judge: [At least understand thou who is my Lord, whom I worship, who is of so great virtue and so great power that this fire cannot burn the little body of his handmaid. At last, wearied and overcome, they left her hanging, yet unhurt by the burning of the fire; and they said to the judge] a Let our lord decree how the enemy of the gods may be punished: for all your effort has been reduced to nothing. Then the president ordered a great vessel to be brought, and filled with water up to the top, and commanded her, with hands and feet bound, to be cast headlong into it. But holy Margaret, when she had been plunged into the deadly precipice, prayed to the Lord, saying: Break, Lord, these bonds, that I may sacrifice to thee a sacrifice of praise, and that the peoples seeing may believe that thou art God alone, and glorious, whom this wretched world knows not.
[38] At this voice those bonds were broken, and she is wonderfully preserved. and from that vessel she rose without harm. But those who were present, beholding so great wonders wrought in the Virgin of God, marveling said: Truly great and true is that God whom this Virgin serves, at whose prayers so many and so great prodigies have been accomplished. Having found this occasion, therefore, the most holy Martyr began to speak to them: O most prudent men, attend and know that the Lord Christ himself is the creator of all, whom all creatures serve, as you yourselves in these things which have happened to me could more evidently prove.
[39] Wherefore, leaving the worship of images, be converted to your creator, and the savior of souls, who has called you out of darkness into his admirable light: to whom if with your whole mind you be converted, and be washed with his baptism, and keep the religion of the Christian faith in deed and profession, not only shall blessed rest receive your souls, but also, when the general resurrection shall have been made, you shall possess double rewards, that is, in your souls and bodies you shall rejoice without any end.
[40] But at this preaching a multitude of the people, The conversion of others to Christ and their martyrdom: leaving the error of paganism, were converted to the faith of Christ. When the most abominable president learned this, he began to fear [*] lest a commotion of the peoples should be made against him, and he should lose the honor of his dignity together with his life, and without any examination he ordered those who had believed at the preaching of the holy Virgin to be beheaded. Whom indeed it is established to have received the regeneration of holy baptism in their happy blood, and without doubt to have attained everlasting life. After the consummation of these, therefore, the perfidious tyrant, when he beheld the most invincible constancy of the holy Martyr, and despaired now of bending her, ordered her to undergo the capital sentence.
[41] after whom the Saint, having poured out prayers to God, And the apparitors, taking her, led her outside the city to the place where they had determined to slay her, and there delivered her to a certain executioner, whose name was Malchus, to be beheaded. Then holy Margaret asked that leave to pray might be given her. And when she had obtained it, in these words she poured out prayers to the Lord: I glorify thee, Lord Jesus Christ, I praise and bless thy name: for the virtue of thy power has strengthened me, set in a frail sex, and has made me run through triumphal contests; and therefore I suppliantly beseech that now my soul may be received by thy angels, that I may deserve to possess the joys of eternal felicity with the companies of the Saints, and to see thy desirable presence, which I have always desired. Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest through all ages. Amen.
[42] she is smitten in the head. And saying these things, she exhorted the executioner to strike. But he, according to what he had in his commands, cut off her head with the sword. And the most holy virgin Margaret was martyred for the name of Christ on the 16th day before the Kalends of August b. When the faithful worshippers of Christ heard this, they came and, taking away her body, delivered it to burial with worthy veneration, as is the custom of Christianity. In which place, when peace was restored to the Church, they built a basilica in her name, to the praise and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ: who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns through the infinite ages of ages. Amen.
ANNOTATA.
* peril.
* to fear.
APPENDIX I.
Concerning the body of the present St. Margaret, as they will have it, translated from Antioch of Syria into Tuscany.
From the manuscript of the church of Montefiascone, by a more recent anonymous author.
Margaret, Virgin and Martyr, at Antioch (S.)
BHL Number: 5311
PrologueBY THE AUTHOR I. P.
In the Commentary, prefixed to the Acts of this Saint, we indicated this translation in passing, to be discussed here, as we there said, at more length. The author of this translation, dreaming of a false patriarch of Antioch, For indeed there are very many things which incommode it, and weaken the truth of the matter. The author, first of all, of uncertain name and time, I add also of uncertain faith, because he heaped together not a few things which do not cohere, and which we do not have sufficiently ascertained, doubting whether he himself sufficiently understood those things which he obtrudes upon the readers so confidently and roundly to be understood. Thou wouldst say that he wished not so much to deserve as to affect a singular authority by heaping up the circumstances of very many things; so wholly is he taken up in enumerating the proper names of men and places; but off the point, as we shall now show. From the very beginning of his narration he brings in the history of Eusebius patriarch of Antioch, upon whom he builds the translation of the Saint, upon a most weak and ruinous foundation certainly: for in the chronological history of those patriarchs, edited by us before the fourth volume of the current month of July, no Eusebius appears either before or after the time indicated by the said author. For indeed from the year 904 to 931 Elias, the first of this name, sat. How therefore does he obtrude upon us that Eusebius? who never existed in the nature of things. From so bad a beginning of the history, judge of the whole course of the same.
[2] By Antioch, whence he would have the sacred remains translated, confounding two Antiochs, he manifestly understands the patriarchal Antioch of Syria, and by the Saint, of whose translation he treats, he denotes no other than her who suffered under Olibrius the prefect, as thou mayest see below number 14. But the present Margaret is by all ascribed to Antioch in Pisidia. Therefore either he confounded this one with that, or took another Saint for the present one; or he ought to teach us that the present one was translated from one Antioch into the other: which came into whose mind even to dream? He will also grant us this pardon, that the things which he prattles concerning Andronicus the prince of Antioch, and concerning Simardus, the son of Simetrus, who was substituted for that prince, we do not admit before some better and surer light shine forth from a fitting monument of antiquity, mindful that he who so basely gropes in darkness and deceives is not lightly to be believed. Besides, that return of Andronicus from the city of Rome to Antioch, which he laid waste with sword and fire, as thou hast in number 2, is of no better note, so long as a fitting writer on this matter is not produced.
[3] Nor do I think that more credit is to be given to those things in which there is set forth the Prior of the temple (of SS. Margaret and Euprepia), a certain Augustine, of Pavia by birth, and sinning in several other things taught by Ubaldus the elder priest where they lay; and likewise in number 3 the two familiars, of whom the name of the one was Luke, of the other Albert; whom, enticed by large gifts and promises, he (Augustine) bound to himself by an oath, that he would endow them with the belt of knighthood, if they set out with him into his country. Nor would I have passed over in silence, that in numbers 12 and 13 the body of St. Felicity at the fort of Rovilliano in Tuscany he would have to be that of that St. Felicity who was the fruitful parent of seven Martyr sons. But since we have set forth our opinion on that matter on the 10th of this month, volume III of July page 9, thither we remit the reader. I ask likewise what faith such an author, sinning in so many things, deserves in the apparitions which he describes from number 13.
[4] The inscription too, found by the body of the Saint in the city of Antioch, number 3, renders his history suspect and fabulous; must deservedly waver among the learned as of feeble faith, because it is metrical and Latin: whose phrase seems to indicate a more recent author or interpolator; as likewise the word "divine" for "holy" or "blessed," which he so often repeats. For indeed that a word of this kind was formerly unusual in ecclesiastical matters, and is not read in the Roman Breviary, except perhaps in the most recent lessons, we have elsewhere noted. Consult the 11th of this month page 202; and the 12th page 267. The youth of the maker, interpolator, or collector most manifestly betrays itself from those things which at the end he reckons concerning the church of Montefiascone erected into a cathedral by Urban V in the year 1389; concerning which matter the bull treats in Ughelli volume 1 of Sacred Italy. a But experience long ago taught us not quickly to believe writings of this kind, unless they be strengthened by other authority. Not to be longer, we would have the people of Montefiascone asked to deign to teach us from better documents that that body which they possess is, as they will have it, that of St. Margaret of Antioch or the present one, and not of another honored there under the adopted name of the Antiochene. And here likewise the difficulties are to be resolved by them which are to be resolved by the Spaniards, who think they possess the hand of that body in the Escorial monastery. Go to the preliminary commentary to the Acts from number 30. A few things worthy of note will be said in the annotations.
[5] This history Ughelli has, volume 1 cited, a extolling it far above its merit, edited by Ughelli, and praised above its merit, when he asserts that it is extant in an ancient codex of that church, and calls it a most faithful narration; adding that an exemplar is had in the Vallicella library. When and by whom it was sent thither, we learn from a manuscript apograph of the same, which we have at hand; in which, from a letter of Laurence Mezzini, given at Viterbo on 12 July 1601 to Father Antonio Gallonio, our Papebroch attests that these things are had, which I thus render from the Italian: I send him the translation of SS. Margaret and Felicity, extracted from an ancient Martyrology of the cathedral church, manuscript on sheepskin parchment. But whether that transcript was corrupted by the copyist, or afterward faultily printed, plainly faulty are those things which are read edited in Ughelli. Our transcript likewise from the manuscript of Gallonio swarms with errors. We shall follow our apograph from the manuscript of the church of Montefiascone. The text is divided into two parts and into its numbers after our manner, purged of certain errors; where also the gaps are supplied from another exemplar.
[6] [which a certain more recent writer also published in Italian, with certain wonders of the Saint added,] The history of the same translation, from the Latin of Ughelli, in the year 1688 at Ronciglione, in the Italian idiom, Joachim of Montefiascone, of the Order of the Friars Minor of St. Francis Capuchin, published, and dedicated to the most Eminent Lord Cardinal Barbarigo, bishop of Montefiascone. It was sent to our Janning by Bernardino Coccovagini. Certain wonders at the time of the burning of the church of the same place, superadded by the same interpreter, and by him attributed to the very patronage of St. Margaret, we here compress into a Latin compendium. The church of St. Margaret was consumed by fire in the year 1670, on 4 April, on the evening of Good Friday about the third hour of the night: (he there sets forth the occasion of the fire) and first indeed the wonder was, that, no one being found who would enter there to take away the most holy Sacrament, one man, more spirited than the rest, offered himself for this task. Having entered the temple, therefore, after he had come to the chapel in which the Venerable was kept, he took charge of it, passing through the midst of the flames, and not injured by the fire even in a single hair. The second is, that all the images of St. Margaret remained unburned. The third, that the marble statue representing the effigy of holy Margaret and placed at the entrance of the choir, and girt with a silk girdle and surrounded on every side by flames, remained unhurt: which indeed was placed among the relics preserved in the cathedral church. The image of the Crucified, breathing something pious, placed in the chapel of the Lords Piatti, remained unhurt, although the fire devoured the altar with all the neighboring apparatus.
[7] Both these more recent things, and several other more ancient ones, commend the Saint honored there under the name of Margaret, and concerning her veneration at Montefiascone. as the chief patroness of Montefiascone, according to the same Joachim page 60. In a synod held in the time of Laudivius Zacchia, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and bishop of Montefiascone, in the year 1623, on 20 July these things are noted: Of St. Margaret, virgin and martyr, the solemnity is kept with an Octave, and a procession is made in both cities, namely in Montefiascone and Corneto, whose bishopric is united to this one. See Ughelli column 1066. Behold now for thee, of the above-said translation such as it is,
PART I.
The translation to the church of St. Peter in Tuscany, and thence to the fort of Rovilliano there.
FROM THE MANUSCRIPT.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen [a].
In the year of salvation nine hundred and eight, The author sets forth, Sergius b being Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Church, and Berengarius c reigning as emperor, when between Eusebius d the patriarch of Antioch and a certain Andronicus e, prince of that city, the greatest discord had arisen, on account of the insolence of that Andronicus, whom the people could no longer endure, Symardus, the son of Symetrus f formerly prince, fourteen years old, was elected prince by all the people, and by the patriarch himself confirmed during the celebration of the liturgy. He afterward, being made the son-in-law of that Andronicus, not timidly accused his father-in-law of insolence, especially against the patriarch. But Andronicus, excommunicated by the patriarch himself for his crimes, not enduring the correction of the prince, who favored the patriarch, had departed to Rome for fear of the tyrant.
[2] Who, returning by night unexpectedly, kills Symardus his son-in-law, on which occasion invades the city, and after much slaughter of men hither and thither, laid waste all things with sword and fire; and the sacred buildings being burned, which, very many in that city, adorned with gold and silver, shone with the veneration of sacred relics, he overthrew the temple of the sacred virgins Margaret and Euprepia. At the same time the Prior of that temple was a certain Augustine of Pavia, illustrious both in birth and in virtue, who, shuddering at the destroyed cross, and weeping over the burned temples, resolved to migrate back to his country. And not wishing thus to desert the most sacred bodies of the said holy Martyrs uncared for, taught by Ubaldus the elder priest where they lay, he thought to carry them with him, that with these two gems he might adorn the temple h of blessed Syrus g the confessor in his country.
[3] This man had two familiars, of whom the name of the one was Luke, the bodies of SS. Margaret and Euprepia of the other Robert. Whom, enticed by large gifts and many promises, he bound to himself by an oath, that he would adorn them with the belt of knighthood, if they set out with him into his country. Therefore in the silence of the night, the place being dug out where the most sacred bodies lay hidden, about one pace down they found a porphyry chest, fortified with iron and bronze, where letters carved were disclosed to this effect:
Margaret the martyr is here, in thrice five years: she herself rendered her virgin soul to heaven.
Fire being applied, they loosed that chest: where within was another of silver, adorned with gems, which contained the body of the holy Virgin. Glad therefore, and refreshed by the most sweet odor, they secretly went to the house of a certain Crisperis [*], a friend of the Prior: where, no design being disclosed, they kept themselves four days. Then the body being placed in a certain wooden vessel, they sold the silver chest which they had broken, and entering upon the journey, they went aboard a ship.
[4] But by the favor of almighty God, from Antioch to Rome; and the glorious Martyr herself as it were their guide, with full sails they came to the port of Brindisi. Where they bought two horses, and thence through Apulia setting out for Rome, they betook themselves to the house of a certain Jacintus near the temple of blessed Theodore i the martyr. Here, when that prior Augustine had for fifteen days with great devotion of mind visited the temples of the Saints, wearied by assiduous labor, he fell into an adverse condition of body, which they call dysentery. Feeling himself oppressed by it, and fearing lest, cut off by death, he could not carry the sacred bodies to his country, immediately departing thence with his companions, he came to Sutri k.
[5] and thence afterward were carried into Etruria On the following day they betook themselves to the temple of blessed Victoria on the public road near the old hall, and could go no further on account of the Prior's infirmity. And since on the same day on which the solemnity of blessed Marcus the Pope, and of the holy Sergius and Bacchus is celebrated l, the basilica of blessed Victoria was to be consecrated into a church; of the glorious relics of the divine Margaret, namely of one rib, he granted a small particle, and to the praise of almighty God, under the renowned name of the Virgin, an altar was there erected.
But on the following day they set out to Monte Luca m, namely to the building of the divine Mary and of blessed Candida, where the Prior gave a most excellent pallium and two shrouds. Thence they proceeded to the church of blessed Peter of the Valley, carried near Lake Bolsena: where by Boniface the Abbot and the brothers of the monastery n he was received with honor for some days.
[6] to the monastery of St. Peter: But weighed down by his infirmity, feeling that the said Prior could no longer live, he ordered the abbot and the brothers to be summoned; and groaning and weeping that in a foreign soil he was losing his life unknown, he disclosed that he had the sacred relics, namely the body of Margaret and the head of Euprepia: and he commended himself to almighty God, and to the prayers of the abbot and brothers, and the ecclesiastical Sacraments being received, he departed from life duly and rightly on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of November. He was buried not far from the altar of St. Blaise the martyr. But the abbot and the brothers placed the body of the renowned virgin Margaret upon the high altar; and for eight days with solemn sacrifices, hymns, and canticles, to the praise and glory of Jesus Christ and of his dedicated Virgin, they most devoutly celebrated.
[7] in which place At which time in that place many miracles shone forth, the clemency of the most high God granting it on account of the merits of the glorious Martyr. For a certain Donatus, sprung from the fort of St. Victor, a rich man, when he happened to be there, and touched the coffer of the sacred body with his left hand, which he had withered, it was at once made strong and powerful by a miracle. Matthew, keeper of the garden of that place, was made firm from paralytic. A certain Aegidius of Pisa, nephew by the abbot's sister, in a desperate condition of the dropsical disease with which he labored, being lifted up by Viventius [*] a priest of that place, and led to the sacred relics, escaped unharmed.
[8] A certain man, who was called Mugentius, because being dumb he lowed, several miracles and did not speak, touched by devotion to the Martyr, formed words. Rosa of the fort of St. Christina, vexed by an evil spirit, and on that account bound with chains, drawn by her husband to the most sacred body, was at once freed. Laurence, son of Albonectus [], long burdened by the infirmity of St. Flavian, the arthritic [], placed on a horse and led thither, began to go sound on his feet. The vicar of Rolland of the same place, being deaf, received his hearing. Lucianus also of the said place, when he long labored with the stone disease, escaped unharmed. Likewise Vitellus was freed from a quartan fever. Berta, a woman of the aforesaid place, for four days set in the peril of childbirth, the name of Margaret being invoked, the delivery being accomplished, was preserved safe. Palma of Bagnorea o, when day and night she was vexed by a malignant spirit, straitened with chains, and led thither by Britius her husband, uttering loud and inhuman cries, was freed.
[9] A certain most noble woman named Rorisana, sprung from Orvieto [p], is woven; when she suffered a flux of blood for a long time, and could be healed by no curing of the physicians, a vow being made to God and to blessed Margaret, was made unharmed. Whence, not ungrateful, she offered to the sacred body a pallium, a shroud, and a silver chalice. Floriana also of Bagnorea, having suffered for five years a most grievous infirmity of body, being led to the venerable body, was at once made firm and strong. A certain Scambius of the Borgo of St. Valentine, lame by nature, brought to the sacred relics, began to walk strong and upright. Henry, a most wealthy man born in the same place, when on account of a long sickness of the eyes he had lost his sight, deserved to receive his vision.
[10] Brimachius, an inhabitant of St. Christina, laboring so grievously of which here that already his funeral was being arranged, by the grace of the Martyr escaped free. Ubertus, a man indeed illustrious in nobility, archdeacon of Paris, returning from Rome, with many accompanying, when he wished to descend from the horse on which he sat: the horse, terrified, and rearing itself into a leap, cast its master to the ground, and when, still holding the bridle, he tried to rise, and the horse was rampant with its feet; the reins at last being loosed, struck by its hooves, he broke his legs; and affected with most grievous pain, being able to depart thence neither on foot nor on horse, he passed the night there.
[11] But there came into his mind Margaret the most holy virgin, the series, is woven. whose name for her stupendous miracles was most celebrated in every church, and pouring out tears from the depth of his heart, vowing a vow to the glorious Martyr, with a long prayer he commended himself. And the prayer being finished, seized by a certain drowsiness, he began to sleep, and blessed Margaret appeared to him in sleep, saying: Fear not; give thanks to almighty God, who deigned to free thee by my prayers. And she seemed to him to touch softly his broken limbs, and to set together the broken bones, and to render him sound. And when, shaking off sleep, he perceived himself free and firm: to God and to the blessed Martyr he gave innumerable thanks, and approaching the place of the sacred relics, he gave sixty pounds of Lucca [q].
[12] Another translation to Monte Rovilliano. It happened that a few years after, by the force of wars [r] which were waged in those regions, that place was deserted and left uncultivated: but according to the situation of the same Lake Bolsena toward the river which is called Marta [s], there was a certain fort which they called Ruvillianum [t] [*], where a small temple of the Mother of God Mary stood built: in which the relics [u] of the divine Felicity the martyr, mother of seven sons, were kept under good religion, whose feast day is kept on the fifth day before the Kalends of December. The clergy therefore of the same temple, with the inhabitants of the said fort, translated thither the most sacred body of the virgin Margaret, and placed it beside the body of St. Felicity. Where the blind were enlightened, and those laboring with various sicknesses, by the merits and intercession of the invoked Virgin, recovered good health, and very many miracles there shone forth, which it would be long to enumerate. For the strengthening of good minds the aforesaid, which we have touched in brief discourse, have seemed to suffice. But the body of the blessed Virgin was translated from the church of St. Peter to Ruvillianum on the day before the Ides of October, namely on that day on which the passion of blessed Callixtus, martyr and Pontiff, is celebrated, to the praise and glory of the most high God.
ANNOTATA.
p. Urbs vetus (Orvieto), the capital of the Orvieto territory, in Etruria at the confluence of the rivers Chiani and Paglia, situated upon a mountain.
q. Money, if I am not mistaken, so called here from Lucca, a most well-known city of Etruria, which Du Cange in his Glossary affirms, from Albert of Aachen, to be called also Luculensis; where he also hands down the values of various pounds; the value of this one, perhaps, concerning which we here treat, is 10 asses of bronze, as is the Genoese.
r. Concerning the wars raging through Italy in the 10th century, especially under the tyranny of Berengarius and Adalbert, Baronius treats at the year 960.
s. It is a river of Etruria issuing from Lake Bolsena, then flowing southward through the province of the Patrimony toward Tuscania, whose walls it grazes, which is carried into the Tyrrhenian sea below the city of Corneto. There is a town of the same name Marta in the same place.
t. This fort thou wilt now seek in vain: of which, as the above-praised Joachim here adds, today not even the very traces appear; which also is said here in the text presently.
* Otherwise, Chrisperius.
* Otherwise, Vincentius.
* Otherwise, Albonettus.
* arthritic.
* Otherwise, Rovillianum.
PART II. The translation to Montefiascone.
[13] But when both Ruvillianum, on account of the wars, had been leveled to the ground, and already thickets had grown up The fort of Rovilliano being destroyed. where men had dwelt, the divine piety did not suffer the sacred bodies of the said Martyrs, adorned with the highest merits, to lie hidden perpetually unknown in the woodland places; but in the year of salvation 1185, in the third Indiction, Urban III being Roman pontiff [a], Frederick reigning as emperor, there were in the wood of the Marquis, which is between Naples and Terracina b, two hermits, men quite religious, of whom one was called John.
[14] The Saint appearing to a certain hermit John To him Margaret appeared in sleep, saying: John, servant of God, arise, and set out to Montefiascone as my messenger. Tell the prior of the basilica of the divine Flavian the martyr c not to suffer me and Felicity to lie hidden any longer in a deserted place. To whom John the hermit seemed thus to answer: Who art thou? who commandest such things. And the Virgin: I, she said, am Margaret, the handmaid of God, who, for the name of Jesus Christ at the city of Antioch under Olibrius the prefect having suffered death, was by the work and industry of Augustine of Pavia carried into Tuscany. But he, as the name of Margaret sounded in his ears, seized by a certain religious fear: I, he said, most holy Virgin, know not the place which thou biddest me seek, and know not what to do. To whom Margaret: Arise, I say; let thy companion be thy comrade; doubt not, thou wilt keep the right way; so it is pleasing to God: with me as guide thou wilt accomplish all things rightly.
[15] But he, when he had awakened from sleep, narrated all things in order to his companion. she indicates her body, Who, immediately entering upon the journey, like those who are led by the Spirit of God, came to Montefiascone, where again blessed Margaret appearing said: Hasten to the Prior d: what I have told thee, announce to him in my name, that I and Felicity, at Ruvillianum, where the temple of the Mother of God Mary had been, lie hidden beneath the earth among the brambles. Let him send fit men to dig us out thence. It is not pleasing to almighty God that we be any longer uncared for. But the hermit, desiring to fulfill the commands of the Virgin, nay of God, having set out to the prior,
explained the whole series of the matter. But the Prior, turning his head away from the reporter, gave no credit. When the hermit saw this, affected with grief, he groaned. To whom a third time Margaret said: Do not groan: put away grief: return to the same man, and report again and again the things which I commanded.
[16] And she orders it to be transferred to a place of honor: But the hermit said: He gives me no credit. Do thou, I pray, hasten to him, Virgin; thee he himself will believe; thou wilt more easily explain in his presence whatever needs to be done. But a voice presently proceeded from the Virgin: Return, man of God; doubt not; he will give thee credit; the prince himself, God willing, by thy ministry and office these things are to be accomplished. Which voice indeed was heard not only by the hermit, but also by many who were there present: and when they saw no other but the hermit alone with his companion, struck by the virgin's voice, and seized by sudden religious awe, all together went to the Prior. And when they cried aloud and asserted that the things which John the hermit declared concerning the virgin Margaret were true, the Prior acquiesced and believed, and girding himself to dispatch the matter, ordered Ugo the presbyter, and with him a certain Scagnus, and some others, to seek out that place, and diligently to search for the finding of the sacred relics.
[17] which, being sought, But they, desiring to execute the Prior's commands, having set out thither, consumed a whole day in digging in the ground where the sacred building had stood, and when they could find nothing, disdaining that they had labored in vain, they returned to the town, and with troubled minds announced to the hermit what had been done. To whom he answered: My brothers, let there be no disturbance to you: I myself have never gone to the place, but follow me, and I will show you where lies hidden the treasure so graciously granted. And taking the way, with many accompanying, he set out thither: where, looking around, he saw in a certain place, where the temple had been e, that brambles had grown up more than elsewhere; Cut these, he said: dig here: for as Margaret seemed to disclose to me, here lie the relics of her and of Felicity the martyr, with two ribs of the holy Cosmas and Damian f. But they, forthwith executing his admonitions, found marble tablets most carefully closed, in which these letters carved were disclosed: Here rests the body of blessed Margaret and Felicity.
[18] and, being found But when the tablets were opened, the place itself gave forth a sweetness of odor, and the sacred relics were found, as that holy man had foretold. All therefore rejoiced, were glad, exulted, sent messengers to the town to disclose the matter to the prior and the people. But the prior and all the people, filled with gladness, hastened to the sacred relics, and with the greatest veneration, the clergy singing and chanting, carried them to the town: but night coming on, darkness fell, and all the sky was covered with clouds, so that where the way to the town was could in no way be found. But the old men, and the children, the women, the sick, in short all the people who had flowed together thither, terrified by the dark and unexpected night, greatly feared, despairing of return. Whence, vows being sent up to the sacred relics, all cried out: Help us, blessed Margaret. At once with a heavenly and clear light the way shone forth, as if the day brightened with the noonday sun, and, this going before, they came to Montefiascone as far as the house of Benencasa g beside the house of Sigismund, where also the light vanished: and the sacred relics remained so fixed there that by no force could they be moved thence h.
[19] All being stupefied at which miracle, Benencasa is summoned, it is transferred to Montefiascone, and, an option being given him, that he should either sell his house for whatever he wished, or exchange it for another, being often asked, he refused to do this. Suddenly the Lord thundered from heaven, and a black night lay upon the earth, and at the same time a storm arising, with rains and frequent lightnings, for three continuous days terrified the city. Terrified indeed by which thing, Benencasa of his own accord granted his house, and in the same street most kindly received another. Which being done, the sky was immediately rendered clear and mild, and all the storm being put to flight, all broke forth into gladness and the praise of the holy Martyrs, and girding themselves to the work, exhorting one another, there built a basilica, ever new miracles multiplying.
[20] For Scontra Voneluca of the street of St. Bartholomew, where she is famous for prodigies, who for a long time had suffered ulcers in the breasts, so that by no medicine could she be cured, approaching the bodies of the Saints, was very quickly freed. Tedescus Cognetti of the region of Porticella, most grievously affected by an incurable disease of the nostrils, which is called cancer, having heard of the miracles of the Saints, rose from his bed, and having set out thither, was made so sound that no traces of the disease appeared. A certain man from beyond the mountains, blinded by an infirmity of the eyes, by the merits of the said Martyrs was enlightened. In the street of the divine Bartholomew a strong fire was kindled; where also a certain woman named Foletta perished, since by no quantity of waters, by no force, could it be extinguished. Ugo the priest presented the head of the divine Margaret, and carried it to the fire: which being extended, the flames at once were quieted, and all the fire was so extinguished that not even a fiery spark could be found i.
[21] These, and very many other miracles were done there, the church erected under her name into a cathedral. and are done daily. These shining forth, that basilica was erected into a cathedral church k under the name of Margaret the virgin, where priests and ministers to the number of eighteen l daily perform pious prayers and the divine offices, to the praise and glory of the most high God, and of the holy martyrs Margaret and Felicity, whose bodies were translated to Montefiascone on the eighteenth day before the Kalends of December, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, to whom be praise, honor, and glory for everlasting ages. Amen.
ANNOTATA.
APPENDIX II.
Concerning St. Margaret, tutelary patroness of the island of Procida in the kingdom of Naples.
Margaret, Virgin and Martyr, at Antioch (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
[1] A document on the present subject, written by an author of uncertain name, our Bolland received on 7 March in the year 1645; [On what occasion the Saint is thought to have taken this place into her tutelage, is set forth;] and this gave us a handle to note those things which are narrated in that manuscript, here rendered from the Italian: The occasion on which Procida is said to have St. Margaret as tutelary patroness is this, that several years ago now elapsed, when the Turks came to that island, above its chief church certain lights kindled appeared several times, which suddenly cast them into flight. At another time, when the prefect of the Turkish galleys, named Barbarossa, wished to introduce the Turks thither, in the middle of the night the church bell gave a sound; at which the prior, together with all the others, rose from his bed, to see what this matter might be. And they saw the bell sounding, although no one was present who might ring it. At which sound that rabble rushed away. Others say that at Procida it is presumed that the body of the aforesaid holy Virgin is there.
Nevertheless, which of these reasons proves this Saint the tutelary patroness of the place, I for my part am by no means able to know.
[2] Prochyta, Prochyte, Procita, now Procida, is a small island of the Tyrrhenian sea in the kingdom of Naples; and the matter is elucidated concerning which the Geographers say more. That Barbarossa above named, if the matter truly subsists, will have been the second of this name, successor to his homonymous brother in the kingdom of Algiers, who in the 16th century somewhat advanced is read to have descended into Italy. And concerning the island of Procida invaded by him, Spondanus, the continuator of the Annals of Baronius, treats at the year 1531 number 1. By the prior likewise mentioned above I understand the abbot (in which sense that "prior" often occurs in the rule of St. Benedict, Du Cange notes in his Glossary), namely of the monastery of St. Michael the archangel, of the Order of St. Benedict, of which the perpetual commendatory abbot was the most Eminent Robert Bellarmine; which abbey now, the commendatory abbot remaining, the monks being expelled, has been made the parish church of the whole island, thou wilt find in Lubin praised above page 310. Pope Clement VIII willed that that island and abbey itself be of the diocese of Naples, of which it had formerly been, subject to the Archbishop of Naples: concerning which matter there is extant a diploma in Ughelli volume 6 from column 240, given on 6 September in the year 1600.
[3] and it is examined. As for those lights and the sound; I answer that it lies upon those who wish such things to be believed to fortify them with the strength of some fitting testimony, otherwise worth no more with us than little vulgar histories of this kind, resting on report alone and on no monument of antiquity. I certainly have hitherto found nothing whereby these things can be proved. But another and various reason may underlie this Saint being taken by the people of Procida as tutelary patroness, although it lies hidden from us. In a singular manner also St. Trophimena, patroness of Minori in the same kingdom of Naples, is said to have protected the people of Minori against the assailing Turks, concerning which matter we made mention from John Baptist d'Afflitto, as may be seen in us in the second volume of July page 232. Certainly the praised author, in a brief history of the life, martyrdom, and miracles of the same Saint, published in Italian at Naples in the year 1685, is wholly taken up in adorning that deed, or at least piously believed by the common people. What both there and elsewhere in similar little traditions befalls, I suspect has place also in this of which we treat, that it is said more speciously and believed more piously than fittingly, truly, and historically. Be that as it may, while the monuments are lacking, it must suffice for the people of Procida that mention such as it is has here been made of their patroness, as the report goes. The things which our manuscript above subjoined concerning the body of St. Margaret, as if it can be presumed to be preserved at Procida, are sufficiently refuted by what has been said.