ON ST. MATRONA, ROYAL LUSITANIAN VIRGIN, NEAR CAPUA IN ITALY.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
St. Matrona, royal Lusitanian Virgin, near Capua in Italy.
CHAPTER I
The Life, feast, and relics of St. Matrona the Virgin, not a Martyr.
[1] Capua had as its first Bishop of the Christian religion St. Priscus, one of the ancient disciples of Christ, as Michael Monachus proves in the Sanctuario Capuano from the Roman Martyrology, from other records, and especially from the MS. Catalog of Capuan Bishops of Cardinal Bellarmine, The body of St. Priscus, first Bishop and Martyr of Capua who had himself formerly been Archbishop of Capua and, according to the same Monachus, was accustomed in his sermons to the people to mention the episcopate and apostolate of St. Priscus. Before the city, not far from the gate called the Alban Gate, on the road leading to Benevento, Priscus dwelt with his two ministers, as the same Monachus relates from the Ecclesiastical Office: there by his sermons and miracles he moved countless mortals to embrace the Faith of Christ. That place, whether town or village, is now famous under the name of St. Priscus: found by St. Matrona the Virgin where he is also believed to have completed his martyrdom, and where he was certainly buried. For there his body is reported, at the beginning of the sixth century after the birth of Christ, or rather toward the end of the fifth, to have been found by divine admonition by St. Matrona the Virgin, born of the Suevic Kings of Lusitania or Gallaecia, and to have had a church built for it: she herself is also venerated in the church of St. Priscus. Her acts, the same Monachus says, we had not written in ink on paper, but expressed in images on walls; which from the walls he himself thus transferred to paper.
[2] She suffered from a flow of blood Matrona, daughter of the King of Portugal, at the age of twelve was suffering from a severe flow of blood. Her father sought remedies from everywhere, but in vain. The girl implored heavenly aid, and at length was divinely instructed in the means of curing her illness. By angelic admonition For an Angel appeared to her in a dream and said: "Matrona, go to Italy, penetrate into Campania, halt on the Via Aquaria near Capua. There you will find two untamed young bulls which daily separate from the herd and kneel in a certain place. See to it that the place is dug up: you will find the body of Blessed Priscus, Bishop and Martyr, one of the ancient disciples of Christ. She comes from Lusitania to Italy When you have extracted and touched the relics, the blood will stop and you will be healed. And lest you be hesitant about the divine will, accept this cord, which you shall place on the heads of the young bulls." Matrona, rising in the morning, told her parents the vision she had seen during the night. They rejoiced, and chose twelve virgins and the most trusted men to accompany her. Matrona therefore, dismissed with a most noble retinue, traveled all the way to Capua, and upon finding him is healed and having discovered the sign of the young bulls, she had the place dug up: she found the relics of St. Priscus, and the illness departed. She then approached the Roman Pontiff she builds a church for him and obtained the faculty for constructing and dedicating a church in honor of St. Priscus. And so in that very place, above the holy body that had been found, she erected a church and endowed it with the surrounding fields.
[3] Thus far the Acts of Blessed Matrona, not written but painted. On the walls of which this Life was painted The paintings were, the same writer says, on the walls of the church, joined with the tribune — that is, with the surviving part of the basilica which blessed Matrona herself had built. Eventually, as the population grew, the church had to be enlarged and the painted walls demolished. But Archbishop Cesare Costa ordered a painter to take copies and, following those examples, to add side panels to the icon of the high altar. Seven years after the Sanctuarium Capuanum was published by Monachus, his nephew Don Silvester Acosta published in Italian a brief Compendium of the Life of St. Matrona the Virgin, drawn from the already cited Sanctuarium, printed at Naples by Roberto Molle's press, on a single sheet. In it, Matrona is said to have been warned by the Angel to tie those two young bulls with her own girdle The body of St. Priscus is now at Capua to find the place where St. Priscus was buried — not that she received a cord from the Angel to place on their heads. It is added that this parish church of St. Priscus is three miles distant from the new city of Capua. Part of it in this parish church The part of the ancient basilica built by the holy Virgin that survives is now called by the people "the old Tribune," and on the altar some relics of St. Priscus are preserved, the rest of the body having been carried into the city to the treasury of the Cathedral.
[4] St. Matrona's house survives, in part But what happened to St. Matrona? Monachus answers: She built a house near the basilica, of which remains survive. The place is called LA MOTTA: where "Motta" now is which name, when applied to persons, signifies a kind of gathering; and when applied to buildings, a house or town surrounded by assigned fields — and either meaning may apply to us. For the house, annexed to the basilica, was the center of the surrounding and assigned field; and there with her companion virgins, the Virgin remained until her death. Her body in a chapel, enclosed in a chest The dead body was honorably deposited in a polished marble chest within a chapel whose dome, decorated with mosaic work, rests on four columns, and whose white walls, encrusted with polished marble tablets, from which a liquid (commonly called Manna) used to flow endured until our grandfathers' times. In the chest there is a small opening below, from which the holy body is said to have emitted a liquid (commonly called Manna). Aiossa, cited just above, wrote to us that salutary for diseases the sacred liquid from the Saint's tomb ceased flowing around the year 1540, when a woman of scandalous life inserted her finger into the opening from which it flowed. The liquid, as the old people themselves recounted now suppressed — who had learned this from their parents in childhood — was salutary against every kind of ailment and often of immediate efficacy.
[5] The Capuans were divinely prevented from carrying away the chest The same man testifies that it is everywhere celebrated in the conversations of the people there that the Capuans once came to the town of St. Priscus to carry off to Capua the marble chest in which the relics of St. Matrona are deposited: and when it had been lifted into the atrium between the cells of the same Saint and the church, a great storm suddenly arose which forced them to desist from their undertaking: and this happened three times, and each time the chest was afterwards found in its chapel. This turned their minds, so that they were fully persuaded that the Saint did not wish her relics to be taken from there to Capua: and therefore they permanently abandoned the plans they were forming. So those had reported to whom their own parents, then eighty or ninety years old, had said they had been present when these things occurred.
[6] That chest is kept carefully closed. George Cardoso in volume 2 of his Portuguese Hagiologion writes that when the Capuans wished to convey the tomb of this holy Virgin to their city, it was found, not without a miracle, in its former place: and this has been ascertained, that to the present day the tomb has not been opened, because out of a certain religious awe they do not wish such holy and wondrous relics to be handled. Yet Monachus declares that the tomb was opened for him, so that he could see with his own eyes and touch with his hands the enclosed relics — he who wrote thus in the Sanctuarium twenty-seven years before Cardoso published the second volume of his Hagiologion, in it now a portion of the bones on page 150: "Now there is nothing there but a glass urn, full of smaller bones. The townspeople believe it is the entire body: but although their simplicity has been deceived, their piety has not. believed to be the entire body For those who devoutly visit the tomb of Blessed Matrona even now receive graces by divine piety: and women who suffer especially from a flow of blood daily experience the power of her intercession. There is a great concourse And on the twenty-fifth day of January, when the feast of the Dedication of the Church occurs, it has always been called the Feast of St. Matrona: especially on January 25 and there is a very great concourse of people from the neighboring regions of Capua to the Church of St. Priscus, with votive offerings, invoking the name and aid of St. Matrona."
[7] In the Italian Compendium of the Life of this holy Virgin, already cited above, the same things are related about her relics deposited in an elegant marble chest, which chest is placed on the altar of the chapel erected in her honor and decorated with mosaic work. This chapel is in the church of St. Priscus, and on March 15 a little distant from the old tribune. A second feast of St. Matrona, her own proper feast, is celebrated in the Church of St. Priscus on March 15: on which same day, as the same Monachus rightly notes, the Roman Martyrology makes mention of another Matrona. on which other St. Matronas are venerated He does not, however, call her a Virgin, as he cites it: he otherwise rightly observes that it is not unusual for several feasts of the same name to fall on the same day, or to be deliberately placed together when the proper day of one is unknown. He adduces examples, as we also frequently do in our work. This one is painted with a palm
[8] He also writes that some ask why Matrona the Virgin is seen in the icon of the high altar with a palm — that is, with the sign of martyrdom. And he says that it was certainly done by the error of the painter and of a certain hired Priest of the Church at that time; and that just as it was an error to paint her in that way, so it was the negligence of the Rectors thereafter not to correct the error. He warns, however, that nothing should now be changed in that icon, Is she then a Martyr? both because of those who believe that Blessed Matrona was brought here from Africa during the Vandal persecution, either dead or alive; and because of the authority of the Capuan Breviary, in which, on the Ides of March, St. Matrona Virgin and Martyr is noted — although it is not clear whether it speaks of ours or of the other. And if it speaks of ours, it should not be entirely rejected. For Blessed Matrona could have survived to old age, and could have suffered torments for the faith from the impious, idolatrous, and vile Lombards, who invaded Italy in the year 567 or 568, or for her virginity, as many others did.
to suffer, or for her virginity, as many others did.
[9] The same writer, however, in Part 4 of the Sanctuarium, presents five Capuan Calendars. Matrona's name is absent from the first two; in the third, found in the Capuan Treasury, it reads: "On the Ides, of St. Matrona the Virgin"; in the fourth: "On the Ides, of Matrona the Martyr." But he acknowledges that March and April were attached to this Calendar from elsewhere. The fifth, prefixed to the printed Capuan Breviary, as also the manuscript preserved in the Capitular archive: "On the Ides, of Matrona the Martyr." He himself notes that the Roman Martyrology and others generally treat of St. Matrona the Martyr of Thessalonica. She does not seem to be a Martyr Likewise, that at Barcelona in Spain, Matrona the Virgin and Martyr is treated: but these are different from the Matrona venerated on the Via Aquaria. In the Office of the Capuan Church, nothing is done concerning Matrona. The conjecture of the same writer is therefore idle, by which he questions whether perhaps the Lombards perpetrated the murder of St. Matrona after the year 568. For if she came to Italy under the Emperor Zeno, who died in mid-April of the year 491, even if she had been only twelve years old when she departed from Lusitania the preceding year, it would have to be admitted that she was born in the year 479 at the latest, nor was she translated to Barcelona so that at the time of the first Lombard invasion she would have been nearly ninety years old. By what reasoning, then, does the same author establish elsewhere that this could be the Matrona whose relics were translated to Barcelona, when we have previously affirmed on the most weighty testimony that they are judged by the most serious men who contemplated them closely to belong entirely to a very small girl?
[10] But about the time when Matrona came to Campania by angelic admonition, we shall shortly inquire, and how credible the inscription cited for that purpose is. First, let us set forth what Baronius thinks about her in his Annotations on the Roman Martyrology. Was she brought from Africa to Campania? Thus he writes on the Ides of March, letter c, among other things: "Two other Martyrs named Matrona are recorded as having suffered in Africa under the Emperor Diocletian, together with many others, whose deeds, described from Proconsular Acts, are found in Surius on February 11, in the entry for Saturninus and his companions. We believe that one of these is the one who is held in honor near Capua in Campania: for we think she was translated there by African Bishops who fled during the Vandal persecution, as happened with the relics of other Martyrs, as we say of Castus, Aemilius, Marcellinus, and Saturninus on October 5. We are more willingly led to such a conjecture in an obscure matter than to give credence to certain Acts that in no way hold together, in which it is said that Matrona came from Lusitania to Capua." Neither is this proved
[11] So Baronius, without any other proof than that he considers the Acts of the Capuan Matrona at hand to hold together in no way. Even if we granted that, would it follow that the relics of one of the two who, together with St. Saturninus and many others, obtained the crown of martyrdom at Carthage and are venerated on February 11, were brought from Africa to Campania during the Vandal persecution? Could there not have been another Matrona, since Baronius admits that many holy Martyrs are venerated under that name? Monachus thinks thus about this conjecture of the standard-bearer of sacred history, as he rightly calls him: "If so great a man were to opine," he says, "that St. Matrona came here alive with the holy African Bishops, and was afterwards admonished about searching for the body of St. Priscus, I would most willingly agree. But not otherwise, unless he were to bring some reason that seemed more solid and probable than the things narrated about the Lusitanian Virgin Matrona." Monachus continues: since many things oppose it "But while he opines that the relics of a deceased Matrona were brought here, since the entire history is thus denied, I cannot assent. Why should I deny that St. Matrona was ill and suffering from a flow of blood, if the most ancient and most constant devotion is that women, and even men, whatever blood-related illness they suffer, commend themselves to Blessed Matrona? Why should I deny that St. Matrona built the basilica of St. Priscus, if the feast of the Dedication of that Church is called, by the most ancient and most constant tradition among the Capuans, Aversans, Calatins, and Casertans, the feast of St. Matrona?"
CHAPTER II
The age and royal lineage of St. Matrona from Lusitania.
[12] Michael Monachus continues the discussion he had begun, In the history of St. Matrona there is nothing unusual in favor of asserting that the Campanians possess the relics of St. Matrona received from Africa — full of honor and dignity, both on account of the pilgrimage voluntarily undertaken to them from the remotest borders of Spain, and the residence and domicile established among them, not for a brief time but from her very adolescence for the entire remainder of her life; and on account of the discovery of the tomb in which the remains of their first Bishop, St. Priscus, had been laid, and finally on account of the basilica built in his name, of which part is still visible. He continues, I say, the action begun by us in the preceding paragraph and related by us, with these words: "Why should I deny the Acts, in which nothing contradictory, nothing improbable, nothing unusual is found?" Then he extensively and learnedly shows that nothing is narrated in those Acts that does not have many parallels in the Lives of other Saints and in ecclesiastical histories, and he expends almost excessive diligence on an argument that is not necessary, since there is no one who could deny that similar things are found everywhere.
[13] There are, however, two chief points that may not seem sufficiently explained: one pertains to the time at which the Virgin is reported to have come to Italy, an inscription placed in the church for which conflicting dates are adduced. The other he raises himself as an objection: how could she be called the daughter of the King of Portugal if Portugal at that time did not have the title of a kingdom? The solution to this latter difficulty is not hard: has erroneous chronological characters the former, if it cannot be solved, must be cut. The difficulty lies in this: on the walls of the church of St. Priscus, besides the paintings with which we said the entire life of St. Matrona had been depicted, there exists an inscription, carved in what Monachus calls a quasi-Lombard or quasi-Frankish character, in this form: "In the Year of the Lord five hundred and six, the fourteenth Indiction, in the reign of the Emperor Zeno in the city of Constantinople, with erroneous chronological characters Pope Gelasius being in the city of Rome, Blessed Matrona caused this basilica to be built in honor of Blessed Priscus, and with the authority of the aforesaid Pope and other Prelates she constituted and ordained that all who should devoutly visit this basilica should receive an Indulgence of one thousand one hundred and two years for their sins." But (to pass over the barbarism of style) these chronological notes by no means agree with one another, except that the fourteenth Indiction did fall in the year of Christ 506. But at that time, the computation of years from the birth of Christ was not used for ordering common chronology. Neither the pontificate of Gelasius nor the reign of Zeno reached that year. For the latter had begun to reign when Leo the Younger was sole Consul, which was the year of the now-received Era 474: he died in mid-April of the year 491, when Olybrius the Younger was sole Consul. But St. Pope Gelasius held office from March 2, 492, to November 21, 496. What then? from the ignorance of the writer Shall the entire credibility of the tradition handed down by ancestors concerning her acts collapse? Shall the entire reverence for the most ancient devotion be extinguished? Shall the entire memory of so many benefits received from St. Matrona be obliterated — because the person who composed this inscription was betrayed by a lapse of memory or by his own ignorance?
[14] What if there is not even an error in those words? For no one can be so dull-witted as to think that all these things happened in a single year: the noble Virgin fell ill; many and prolonged remedies were applied; when these had proved fruitless, she implored the Divine by chaste prayers; a vow was also conceived, as Ferrari and certain others piously suspect, of preserving virginity for as long as she lived, if she recovered her health; a long journey was prepared and completed; the body of St. Priscus was found; a church was built for him; leave was sought from the Roman Pontiff unless they are conveniently explained for undertaking this enterprise and then arranging the dedication. But if under Zeno's administration of the Empire she came to Italy, and afterwards under Pope Gelasius she built the basilica of St. Priscus, and in the year 506 she arranged for its dedication and for it to be adorned and secured with the treasure of various Indulgences — will there be anything that anyone could rightly complain holds together in no way? Is it therefore certain and beyond doubt that things happened thus? We do not assert so; but who would assert it, by what testimony of an ancient writer could he be refuted? Now therefore, since the remains of the temple built by the Saint, the very many miracles performed there, the annual feast of Matrona in that church celebrated on the Ides of March from all antiquity, and piously and the frequent concourse of people there all support this narrative — is it not better to retain, or allow those who wish to retain, the opinion that has long been deeply rooted in all minds, rather than to invent the notion that the relics of another Matrona were brought here, about which there is no writing or other monument anywhere?
[15] Was she herself the daughter of the King of Portugal? The other difficulty is: how could she be called the daughter of the King of Portugal if Portugal did not then have the title of a kingdom? But Kings she nevertheless had — not from the old Lusitanian stock, but foreign barbarians: Alans, Vandals, Suevi, who, as St. Isidore testifies, in the Era 446 (that is, the year of Christ 408), occupying the Spains, perpetrated slaughter and devastation with bloody raids, burned cities, and exhausted the plundered substance. There were Kings there at that time But three years later, that is, in the Era 449, "finally, turned by the Lord's mercy to making peace, they divided the provinces among themselves by lot for their possession: the Suevi occupied Gallaecia, the Alans Lusitania and the province of Carthaginensis, and the Vandals, surnamed Silingi, received Baetica by lot. Atax of the Alans in Lusitania The Spaniards, however, beset by calamities in their remaining cities and fortresses, submitted to the servitude of the barbarian masters." In the Era 454, which was the year of Christ 416, Wallia, King of the Goths in Spain, exterminated all the Siling Vandals in Baetica by war. defeated by Wallia the Goth in the year 416 He so routed the Alans, who had dominated the Vandals and Suevi, that when their King Atax was killed, the few survivors, forgetting the name of their kingdom, subjected themselves to the rule of Gunderic, King of the Vandals, who had settled in Gallaecia. So Isidore in his history of the Goths. In his history of the Vandals, however: Gunderic of the Vandals in Gallaecia "The first King of the Vandals to succeed in Spain was Gunderic, reigning in the regions of Gallaecia for eighteen years. He, breaking the treaty of peace with the Suevi, plundered the Balearic Islands of the Tarraconensian province: then turning from Carthago Spartaria with all the Vandals to Baetica, he destroyed Hispalis, sent it for plundering with slaughter. When he had extended the authority of his royal power into the Church of the same city, forthwith by God's judgment he was seized by a demon at the doors of the church and perished." In the Era 467, that is, the year of Christ 429, Gaiseric, brother of Gunderic, succeeded him in the kingdom for forty years; he, having become an apostate from being a Catholic, is reported to have been the first to cross into Arian perfidy. He, from the coast of the province of Baetica, crossed over with all the Vandals and their families to Mauretania and Africa.
[16] From the entry, therefore, of these three nations into Spain, which occurred, as stated, in the Era 446, the year of Christ 408, Hermericus, Rechila, of the Suevi in Gallaecia and Lusitania there were always those who held Portugal, or a notable part of it, under the royal title: first the Alans in Lusitania; the Suevi together with the Vandals in Gallaecia, of which part is now reckoned under Portugal; and when the Vandals crossed to Africa, the Suevi alone. Their first chief was Hermericus; his son Rechila, in addition to other provinces brought under his power, annexed captured Mérida to his own kingdom. In that city, in the Era 486, or the year of Christ 448, he ended his life under the worship, it is reported, of paganism. His son Rechiar, Rechiar, a Catholic having become a Catholic, succeeded to the kingdom; but after nine years he was defeated in battle by Theodoric, King of the Goths, his father-in-law, and then captured and killed at a place called Portucale. Then the Suevi who remained in the farthest part of Gallaecia set up Maldra, son of Atsila, as their King; Maldra soon another faction of them set up Frantanes. Frantanes When he died, the rest, having made peace with Maldra, plundered Lusitania together. In the Era 498, the year of Christ 460, Frumarius after Maldra was killed, a dispute arose between Frumarius and Remismund over the royal power. In the Era 502, when Frumarius died, Remismund, Remismund, who becomes Arian having summoned all the Suevi into his dominion by royal right, restored peace, entered into a treaty with Theodoric, King of the Goths, from whom he received arms and a wife. From there he crossed to Lusitania, plundered Coimbra, which he had deceived with peace, and occupied Lisbon. In his time, Ajax, a Galatian by birth, having become an Arian apostate, emerged among the Suevi with the help of their King as an enemy of the Catholic faith and the divine Trinity; bringing this pestilential poison from the Gothic region of Gaul, and infecting the entire Suevic nation with a lethal contagion.
[17] As were his successors for 100 years The Kings of the Suevi remained in that heresy for nearly a hundred years: St. Isidore did not record their names, since they were deemed unworthy of having their memory preserved among orthodox writers. At length, as the same author has it, Theodemirus, Catholic, in the year 558 Theodemirus assumed the royal power; who immediately, having destroyed the error of Arian impiety, restored the Suevi to the Catholic faith, with the help of Martin, Bishop of the monastery of Dumium, renowned in faith and learning: whose Life will be given on March 20. He attended, in the third year of King Ariamirus or Theodomir, the year of Christ 561, the First Council of Braga, and then in the Era 607 the Second Council of Lugo. The Suevi reigned in Spain for 170 years, according to St. Isidore, or 177 according to García de Loaisa.
[18] It is clear from what we have brought forward that there were Kings in the provinces of Portugal at the time when St. Matrona is reported to have lived. Which of these was the father of St. Matrona? But which of them was her father is not established. Some judge it was Rechiar, because he was Catholic. By that argument one might equally suspect the same of Maldra, Frantanes, or Frumarius. For since the Saint is recorded as having reported the heavenly vision to her parents, and they approved it and furnished what was necessary for the journey, and yet none of these three Kings reigned long enough to have been able to send a twelve-year-old daughter to Italy, she could have been born before her father was advanced to the throne. Furthermore, since she is said to have received leave from her parents, this can be understood of guardians, or even of her father's successor. We shall also readily grant that, even if she was not born of a reigning King, she was believed to have been of royal blood; and that even if she herself concealed this, her companions either revealed it, or the Campanians conjectured it from the numerous retinue and equipment. Was he certainly a King? And even if this was not as great as the painting showed, that long and arduous pilgrimage could still have been taken as an indication of royal lineage and a royal character. As for the twelve Virgins who are said to have accompanied her, if they were not attached to serve her, they perhaps followed her of their own accord, with the consent of each one's parents, together with some retinue of grave men and women, under whose protection she and her companions would be. Finally, however the whole matter may have stood, it should not by any means be allowed that we should not, as far as possible, defer to antiquity. Which is also the opinion of Philip Ferrari in the Catalog of the Saints of Italy, in his annotation on the encomium of this very Virgin on the Ides of March.
[19] George Cardoso in volume 2 of the Portuguese Hagiologion, at March 15, page 184, column 2, letter c, in his commentary, Was Remismund the Arian her father? thinks she was the daughter of Remismund or of his successor, whom he calls Theodulus — like a rose born from thorns, or rather plucked from them by the propitious will of God, lest the poison of the Arian heresy infect her chaste and holy mind; and for this reason she more readily resolved to fix her abode in Italy, where she had recovered the health of her body, lest in Spain she should lose the health of her soul. If it seems surprising to anyone that an Arian father would have allowed his daughter to go in hope of dispelling her illness to the tomb of St. Priscus the Bishop, let him remember both that this hope was instilled in her by the Angel's words, and that the Arians did not abominate the tombs of the holy disciples of Christ: [for even heretics and Gentiles sometimes invoke the help of Saints for themselves and their own] since we know that even Calvinists, sworn enemies of the Saints, who in the past century overthrew the monuments of the Saints and burned their bones, now sometimes reverently kiss the relics of the Saints when they have found them beneficial to their health, venerate the sacred places dedicated to them, and draw drink for themselves and their own — both children and servants and even beasts — from the fountains which are said to have been elicited by invocation of the Divine or dedicated to the Saints for some other cause, and together with it, health. The Gentiles themselves are not averse to similar things. And by this means, many adopt a benign attitude toward Catholics and gradually embrace their doctrines and rites. We narrated a closely similar event in volume 1 of January, on the eighth day, chapter 9 of the Life of St. Gudula the Virgin: where the daughter of some overseas King, still a Pagan, suffering from her very cradle from a multiple and most severe weakness of limbs, was several times divinely admonished in dreams to come to Brabant, a province of Second Belgium, and visit the tomb of St. Gudula the Virgin, and humbly beseech her, certain to obtain through her patronage the recovery of health. And so it came to pass. Wherefore her father and mother also came to venerate the same Saint, themselves too, to the monastery of Moorsel, where Gudula's tomb was: and both received baptism together with their daughter.
CHAPTER III
The many benefits of St. Matrona toward mortals.
[20] What has already been reported above — that from the very numerous votive offerings St. Matrona is invoked against a flow of blood which men and women daily bring to the chapel and tomb of St. Matrona, it is widely known among the Capuans and their neighbors that her patronage especially stanches a flow of blood — need not be confirmed with further examples or testimonies. For rain and fair weather But not only in this matter is her beneficence toward mortals seen: for if they wish for rain, if for fair weather, if for any other thing, they institute processions to her chapel, which is in the church of St. Priscus. These are attended with great piety by people of every sex and age, with processions instituted for this purpose and indeed young women go barefoot, with their hair loose, loudly crying out "Mercy!": and whatever they ask, as the Reverend Don Silvester Aiossa wrote to us, they almost always obtain through the merits of St. Matrona and St. Priscus.
[21] The same Saint has driven away many diseases with heavenly remedies, offering herself to be seen by the sick and even anointing the affected parts of the body. A twofold example of this was written to us by the same person: we give it here as received from a grave, pious, and learned man — not, however, as approved by the supreme judgment of the Church. The first happened to Julia de Monaco, the sister of Michael Monachus, appearing to a sick woman, she anoints her paralyzed arm and side and aunt of the same Don Silvester. For nine whole months, her right arm and side had been paralyzed by a certain stroke, already threatening death, with the doctors having given her up for dead several times. But on the very night when they predicted she would die, awakened from sleep, she beheld entering her room St. Matrona, surrounded by wondrous splendor, carrying a small vessel in her hands, who thus addressed her: "Rise, Julia; for I am here to heal you." But Julia, observing that the form of the Saint appearing to her was like the one she had painted in her room — dressed, that is, in a green garment, with flowing hair, after the manner of young Virgins — thus addressed her: "O my holy Matrona, what is this grace? I, having entirely lost my strength, can by no means move." and instantly heals her But the Saint, smiling gently, approached the bed of the sick woman and anointed her arm and side, freeing her from every discomfort of her long illness. Julia immediately rose from her bed and called her father and mother, she publishes the favor repeating these words many times: "I am well." They, astonished by the sudden event, asked who had cured her. "St. Matrona," she said, "cured me," and showed her arm anointed with heavenly oil. Both parents, pressing their faces to the ground, gave thanks to God and St. Matrona; and the next morning they went with their daughter to the church and showed her arm, entirely healed, to all the people. And the Rector of that Church, Don Luca Pisano, a learned and pious Priest, offered the sacrifice of the Mass at the altar of St. Matrona and gave thanks to God for the gift.
[22] Julia throughout her entire life celebrated the benefit she had received from heaven: and proclaims it throughout her whole life "and often asked me," he writes, "to commit it to writing for the memory of posterity, since she knew I was devoted with a particular devotion to the cult of St. Matrona and had published an Italian epitome of her life. This writing she showed to all the Priests who did not know of it: such as the Rector of the Church of St. Priscus, Don Cesare Bociardo, Doctor of both Laws, and Tommaso Bociardo, a distinguished physician of our time, and likewise Pietro Giuseppe Bociardo, Doctor of Sacred Theology and both Laws, Pietro Paolo de Angelo, my cousin and her nephew and that of Don Michael Monachus — for he had three sisters. The said Don Pietro Paolo is now the Rector of the Church of St. Priscus: for he had devoted his mind to studies so as to imitate our uncle at least in this way, and then exercised the learning and eloquence he had acquired in preaching sermons to the people, and gave Lenten sermons in many places of the Capuan diocese. Julia was his and my aunt, a woman endowed with distinguished virtue and especially with singular devotion toward St. Matrona. She lived many years after the aforementioned illness, and finally died around 1654, nearly eighty years old."
[23] Not dissimilar is what the same Aiossa wrote to us in 1650, in this manner: "In the year 1589, Julia Palmeria, from the town of St. Priscus in the diocese of Capua, having given birth to a son, to whom she gave the name Giovanni Carlo, a few days later fell into a fever which clung to her from the feast of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul to All Saints' Day. [Another woman with a similar paralysis of the side and a long-lasting fever, already nearly given up] After many remedies were tried in vain, a paralysis of the nerves also completely debilitated her left side, and she now needed the help of two women to be moved from her bed. When therefore the doctors despaired of her life, she, oppressed with languor and pains of her whole body, heard someone saying that she would die within a few days. Deeply shaken by these words, she turned with all the feeling of her soul to her patroness St. Matrona, and prayed for her help. Two days later, about three hours before sunrise, when the door of her room needed to be open because of the excessive heat of her illness and difficulty breathing, and the splendor of the moon entered through it so that it seemed almost broad daylight, and she herself, being awake, was thinking about death, suddenly she saw entering a most beautiful girl, with a shining countenance, of such elegant appearance that she remembered never having seen anyone like her, clad in a yellow garment, with loose hair, carrying a small vessel in her hands. Entering, she greeted the sick woman appearing and anointing her in a similar manner, she heals her and added: 'I could not come to you sooner, because I was attending another sick person in that city' (the name of which had slipped Julia's memory). 'Now take care to place yourself in a comfortable position, for I wish to anoint you with this ointment.' The sick woman replied: 'I cannot move, since I am debilitated by paralysis.' The Saint came closer and anointed the left side, which was languid, and the arm. Then she bade her turn over. When she denied she could, the Saint said: 'I will help you,' and placing her hands on her body, turned her. Julia later confessed that the hands touching her seemed softer than cotton; and when she wished to thank her, the Saint had already withdrawn from her sight.
[24] She immediately called her mother, who was keeping watch in the same room, and asked whether she had understood everything that the most beautiful girl had said. The mother denied having heard or seen anything. Julia recounted to her everything St. Matrona had said, and asked her to get up and light a candle, for she was well. The mother, as if dismissing her daughter's words, and thinking she had been rendered irrational by the force of her illness, nevertheless went to light a candle. Meanwhile Julia rose from her bed, crying out: 'I am well! St. Matrona has cured me!' The mother was astonished when, bringing the light, she found walking about the one whose death had been pronounced shortly before. Immediately therefore they gave thanks to St. Matrona; she immediately publishes the news and when dawn broke, they publicly announced the heavenly favor, with the townspeople rushing in rivalry to see unharmed the one they had thought dead, and asking how she had so unexpectedly recovered her health. She narrated the vision that had been presented to her during the night. This was indeed observed: that the arm and side which had been anointed appeared far more radiant than the other, which had not been anointed.
[25] At the same morning hour, but a little later, she went to the church; and while she was praying alone in the chapel of St. Matrona, and on that very day visits her chapel she noticed the stone covering the Saint's tomb gradually rising, so that two or three fingers could already easily be inserted. While she was suspended in suspense at this sight and anxious about where the matter was tending, a multitude of people came along and diverted her attention; and when she went outside and soon turned her eyes back to the tomb of the Saint, she saw nothing more. She persuaded herself, however, that without the noisy crowd of people, the Saint would have shown her the relics preserved in the tomb. Julia narrated these things before men of great authority, and the whole matter was entirely public; and Julia herself was still prepared (for she was still living in 1650, when he was writing) to confirm what has been said under oath, if need be. She is a woman of very honorable lineage, of proven life, grave and pious." So Aiossa, to which he adds:
[26] In the old cell of the Saint, pigs die for a certain woman "Other benefits of the same holy Virgin bestowed on mortals are recorded. Margarita Vellonesia, wife of a certain Giovanni Battista, lived for eight years in the houses of the Church of St. Priscus, which we noted above from Michael Monachus are called the Motta, and in the old dwelling of St. Matrona, which is on the side facing the sanctuary of the said Church, where there are still two cells, similar to those of the Capuchin Fathers: that is, square, eight palms wide. In one of these, pigs, donkeys, and other animals were stabled: for since she was poor, she attended to nothing but her own convenience. When on a certain day I showed her that I did not approve of this, she simply told me that the pigs and donkeys for which she had made a stable there had all died within a few months of dysentery, which had caused her great despair. I said it was very wrong to abuse so holy a place, for it was one of the old cells of St. Matrona. I therefore urged her to clean the place at once, gave her an image of the Saint to place there, when it was cleaned, things went well for her and advised her to recite the Rosary of the Mother of God with the girls who were there. She did this promptly, with great benefit both to her health and her fortunes: for her health always remained good, and her domestic resources increased, so that she now seemed to herself rich for her station. After many years she moved out of those quarters, and now, in the year 1660 (the same Reverend Don Aiossa was then writing to us), she complains that her affairs are going badly and that she finds herself in poverty."
[27] Elsewhere the church of St. Simmius was not profaned with impunity "What happened here to animals stabled in the old dwelling of St. Matrona, the same thing happened within the city of Capua in a certain small church dedicated to St. Simmius — or, as Monachus on page 194 of the Sanctuarium interprets, St. Symmachus. Whether disfigured by age or gradually profaned by the negligence of those who should have cared for it, horses and other animals brought into it died within a short time — and this happened many times." So Aiossa.
[28] "But here he calls us back to St. Matrona and narrates the following, which we are not entirely sure is different from what has already been related. The public and legitimate Acts have this: 'I, Joanna de Angelo, with full and undoubted faith affirm that when I was a young girl of about nine years, St. Matrona appears to the young girl I was living with my aunt, called Margarita, in the houses of the parish church of St. Priscus, which were formerly St. Matrona's. One day around the twentieth hour, I see coming toward me a distinguished Lady, dressed in a fine white linen garment; who gently touched my face with her hand and spoke thus: "Daughter, where is your aunt Margarita?" I replied that she had just gone out. and bids her warn her aunt about the same neglect She said: "Tell her when she returns to grant me this favor: that she no longer bring pigs and other unclean animals into that cell, but clean it out, and there recite the Rosary." Having said this, she departed from the atrium with a dignified step. I was frightened by the sight of such a foreign woman and was ill for three days, and then recovered. As soon as my aunt returned home, I told her what I had been commanded. She immediately obeyed, cleaned the place, and recited the Rosary. I affirm these things juridically for the attestation of truth, and I have caused them to be entered in the records, in the presence of Don Silvester Aiossa, Rector of the Church of SS. Cosmas and Damian, called de Quadrapone, in the city of Capua, so that they might be made public through those who are zealous for the honor of St. Matrona, for the propagation of the memory of this matter to posterity.'" And from these things that have been narrated, the history of St. Matrona is confirmed: namely that she came to these shores, lived here until her death, and founded a convent here — since the most ancient cells can still be seen, which are also called St. Matrona's.
[29] During a time of plague, her voice was heard by a woman praying to her "When a pestilence was afflicting the Campanians, certain pious women used to come by night to the church of St. Priscus to offer prayers before the image of St. Matrona. To one of them, as she prayed, this voice reached her ears: 'Daughter, listen to what I will say in one word.' She, not knowing what or whence the voice was, was struck with fear: and shortly afterwards the same voice repeated: 'You did not wish to hear one word from me.' She then suspected the voice was sent by St. Matrona, because she was often seen and heard she was often seen and heard by various people by various men and women living near that church, giving good wishes or advice about matters to be attended to."
[30] "I think it may be permitted to add one more thing to illustrate the memory of St. Matrona — trifling indeed, but for which similar things exist in the Acts of other Saints. In the year 1623, a tall peach tree was felled, A peach tree planted by her stood for about 1100 years which tradition received from ancestors reports was once planted by St. Matrona. Whoever may judge that a tree could not have lasted for eleven centuries should recall that fig tree called the Ruminalis, under which the she-wolf was said to have suckled Romulus and Remus, which is said to have stood beyond the 800th year from the founding of the City; nor can it be considered to have been a small and newly planted tree when the she-wolf brought her teats to the infants beneath it. Moreover, a peach tree seems firmer and more robust than a fig. And what of the thorns in which St. Benedict is recorded to have rolled to extinguish the ardor of the flesh? like the thorns of St. Benedict They are said to still exist, but transformed into rose bushes by rose plants grafted into them by St. Francis or some other Saint, from which some plucked leaves were once sent to us from Italy as a pious little gift by a religious friend. But those thorns now seem to be somewhat older than that peach tree planted by St. Matrona was forty years ago. Still, if tradition is mistaken, it may have been propagated by grafting or otherwise."
[31] "So far what we have been able to learn about St. Matrona, supplied by Michael Monachus and his nephew Silvester Aiossa, both most learned men and most zealous for amplifying the honor of the Saints. From the former, long before he published his Sanctuarium, Ferrari had received what he wrote in the Catalog of the Saints of Italy, St. Matrona was unknown to the older Portuguese writers where he rightly noted that no record of this Matrona exists among the Portuguese writers, as far as he knew. Certainly our own Antonius Vasconcellius, in his description of the kingdom of Lusitania, though he most diligently sought out whatever existed anywhere pertaining to the Portuguese Saints, makes no mention of St. Matrona anywhere. From Ferrari, Luis dos Anjos drew what he published about this Saint in his Garden of the Saints of
Portugal — but not what he asserted: that she was crowned with martyrdom and her relics translated to Spain and preserved on the Hill of Jupiter near Barcelona. For neither of these things is found in Ferrari; much less the claim of the same author that St. Matrona with her nuns observed the Rule of St. Augustine. Did she observe the Rule of St. Augustine in her convent? Nor does his argument sufficiently prove this: that no Rule was so generally widespread and popular at that time, at least in Italy. But it is even more surprising that she is said to be among the first who are read to have lived in a monastery — unless he is speaking only of Augustinian nuns. For St. Eustochium, to omit countless others, was much older than she; older still were Brigid in Ireland and Geneviève in Gaul. Nor would that argument have any force even if we granted that the Rule of St. Augustine was the most widely known. For Virgins who embraced the cenobitic life usually received constitutions written for them by Bishops, or by Abbots celebrated for virtue and wisdom, by which their convents would be formed to perfection. Thus, at the very time when Matrona seems to have built her convent near the church of St. Priscus, St. Caesarius, Bishop of Arles, prescribed a Rule for the monastery of his sister St. Caesaria, whom we presented on the occasion of her birthday, January 12.
[32] Luis dos Anjos is followed in his Lusitanian monastic chronology by António da Purificação, some assert who writes that St. Matrona belonged to his Order, that is, the Hermits of St. Augustine, and was crowned with martyrdom around the year 540, together with all the other Virgins of the same monastery. Philip Elsius in his Augustinian Encomiasticon likewise ascribes her to the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, and states she was slaughtered around the year 560 for the Catholic faith with twelve Lusitanian nuns, and that some of her relics are preserved at Barcelona. These things he recites in the very words of the author from the Alphabetum Augustinianum of Thomas de Herrera. Indeed, Herrera believes we should assent to the conjecture of Baronius, which we reported above in number 10, and then adds: on a weak foundation "But let us grant that the Acts of the Lusitanian Matrona hold together; whence will the Augustinian monachate hold together?" He then adduces the reasons, already cited above, of Luis dos Anjos, whom he calls the first author of this claim. And he adds: "But we judge these foundations too weak for so great a structure, and we desire the treasury of Augustinian glory to be enriched with at least more probable claims." He does not therefore absolutely adopt her into his family, though Cardoso in his Commentary, letter c, page 185, column 1, seems to have so interpreted him.