ON ST. DOMNINA OF ANAZARBUS, MARTYR, IN CILICIA,
From the Greek Menologies.
UNDER DIOCLETIAN.
CommentaryDomnina, M., at Anazarbus in Cilicia (S.)
BY J. B.
Female Saints bearing the name of St. Domnina, several in number, The Saint is distinguished from her namesakes, inscribed in the Fasti of the church both Western and Eastern, either for blood shed for the name of Christ or for the remarkable holiness of their life, have adorned the female sex: among these were St. Domnina, who, having won the palm of martyrdom together with some holy virgins at Terni in Italy, has been inscribed in the sacred Fasti at the 14th day of April and brought into our Work. Another, likewise inserted into our Work at the 1st day of March, although she was indeed not crowned with martyrdom, certainly made Syria illustrious by the holiness of her life. A third fell for the faith at Antioch and is venerated on the 10th of July: a fourth, St. Domnina, suffered martyrdom together with SS. Bernice and Prosdoce in Syria, concerning whom consult our Work at the 4th day of October: and a fifth, venerated on the 23rd day of August: and this one, indeed, is said to have been tortured likewise in Cilicia, under the same prefect Lysias, and with almost the same punishments as St. Domnina, of whom we are speaking here; yet since that one breathed out her soul among the torments at Aegae together with others, and her body was thrown into the sea, while ours died in prison at Anazarbus, as will be said a little later, and indeed underwent martyrdom without any companion, as appears, the one is to be distinguished from the other: while Domna, mentioned in the Martyrology distinguished with the name of St. Jerome in d'Achery at the 19th day of October, is announced at Pozzuoli.
[2] Further, St. Domnina, of whom we speak here, taken from the Menologies of the Greeks, as much in the Latin Fasti, Galesini was the first to bring into the Latin Fasti, whom those who emended the Roman Martyrology by order of Gregory XIII afterwards followed, in these words: In Lysia, of St. Domnina the martyr: who, having been seized by Greek lictors, is set before the judgment of the prefect: before whom, having confessed the name of Jesus Christ with the greatest freedom of mind and voice, she is most cruelly beaten: afterwards, thrust into prison, an examination having again been applied, she is most sharply flogged with staves; then the joints of her limbs are dislocated with forceps, her feet are burned with glowing awls. Afflicted with these torments, shut up again in prison, while she was praying and giving thanks to God, for whom she had undergone martyrdom, she gave up her spirit. The Roman Martyrology at once contracts and corrects Galesini (although unhappily) thus: In Lycia (for in Galesini Lysia is wrongly read) of St. Domnina the martyr under the emperor Diocletian.
[3] What Galesini wrote does not differ much from the Basilian Menology: as in the Greeks, mention is made, and it, as it was put into Latin by Annibale Albani, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, has thus at the 12th day of October: Domnina, martyr of Christ, born in the city of Anazarbus under the emperor Diocletian, because she was a Christian, was seized by Greek lictors (παρά δημίων ἑλλήνων, that is, in the manner usual with ecclesiastical writers, by heathen lictors) and set before the tribunal of the governor Lysias. And when she freely professed before all the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, affirming that he was the true God and the Maker of all things; and showing that the false gods of the Greeks (or rather of the heathen) were stones and wood and rotten matter, she is most cruelly beaten, and her feet are burned with glowing awls: then she is cast into prison. But, subjected again to examination, she is most sharply flogged with staves: besides this, the several joints of her limbs are dislocated with forceps, and she is shut up again in custody: in which, while she was praying and giving thanks to God, for whom also she was undergoing martyrdom, she gave up her blessed spirit: and her relics were honourably laid in a tomb.
[4] the arena of the martyrdom It is clear from this that St. Domnina contended for the faith not in Lysia, as Galesini writes, but under Lysias the prefect: but neither did she suffer in Lycia, as the Roman Martyrology has it, of which the Basilian Menology says nothing: I suspect, therefore, that some faulty copy of the Greek Menology lit the way for the emenders of the Roman Martyrology when they wrote that St. Domnina underwent martyrdom in Lycia; and I believe this the more readily because a similar error crept into the Acts of SS. Claudius, Asterius, etc., in which Lysias, as Ruinart rightly warned, is called prefect of Lycia, who was over Cilicia, as becomes clear from the city of Aegae mentioned in the same place. Nor indeed are these the only ones who suffered martyrdom in that province under the same Lysias, prefect of Cilicia: but there too the aged Marinus, himself also a native of Anazarbus, experienced his savagery; SS. Cosmas and Damian experienced it, SS. Zenobius and Zenobia experienced it; so that even from this it comes out sufficiently probable that St. Domnina won the palm of martyrdom nowhere else than in Cilicia. For the rest, that Anazarbus, which is a city of Cilicia, the native place of St. Domnina according to the Basilian Menology, was also the witness of her contest for the faith, the Great Menaea of the Greeks expressly have, Maximus Margunius, bishop of Cythera, agreeing with them.
[5] Anazarbus, They prefix, according to custom, to the eulogy of St. Domnina these two little verses:
Μέλη Δομνίνα καίπερ ἐξαρθρουμένη Ούκ ἦν ἀληθῆ πίστιν ἐξαρνουμένη
Though the torturer dislocated Domnina's joints; Yet she did not deny the true faith.
Then they proceed thus: Ἅυτη ἠγωνίσατο ἐπὶ Διοκλετιανοῦ τοῦ βασιλέως, καὶ παραστᾶσα Λυσία τῷ ἡγεμόνι, ἐν τῇ Ἀναζαρβαίων πολει, τύπτεται ἐν πρώτοις βουνεύροιστὠ μοῖς. Καὶ σιδήροις πυρωθεῖσι τοὺς πόδας καταφλέγεται. Εἶθ᾽ οὕτως θλᾶται ρἅβδοις, καὶ ἐξαρθροῦται τὰς ἁρμονίας, καὶ τῇ εἰρκτῇ ἀποῤῥιφεῖσα, τὴν ψυχὴν τῷ Θεῷ παρατίθησιν. She contended in the reign of Diocletian, and, brought before Lysias the prefect in the city of the Anazarbenes, is first beaten with raw ox-sinews, and her feet are burned with glowing iron. Then she is bruised with rods, is racked by the twisting of her limbs, and, thrust back into prison, gave up her spirit to God. So much the Menaea about the martyrdom of St. Domnina. The Basilian Menology adds that she was honourably buried; but brings forward nothing from which you may discern the place of burial, although one may conjecture that this was done at Anazarbus or in its neighbourhood. The Menaea, in the title prefixed to her eulogy, honour her with the appellation καλλινίκου, that is, of glorious victress; which is an argument that she was celebrated among the Greeks, and it is not at all to be wondered at if her cult was also spread from them to the Muscovites, as the Slavo-Russian Menology, rendered into Latin by the lord Johan Gabriel, Baron of Sparwenfeld, indicates, which at the 12th day of October has this about her and at the same time about St. Anastasia: Likewise of SS. MM. Domnina and the virgin Anastasia, of whom the former suffered under Diocletian, the latter under Decius.
[6] but the year is uncertain. That she suffered martyrdom under Diocletian, the documents both Greek and Latin agreeing on it, it appears there should be no doubt at all. Baronius in the Annals at the year 305, num. 17, mentions St. Domnina briefly in this manner: In Lycia (he would more rightly have said, in Cilicia) the martyrdom of Domnina, a distinguished woman, was celebrated. But since nothing occurs anywhere from which it may be solidly determined in what year of his reign this took place, I have preferred to bind it generally to the reign of Diocletian rather than rashly to this or that year singly. Lysias, under whom St. Domnina suffered, having been sent into Cilicia immediately after Diocletian was raised to the empire, as the Acts of SS. Zenobius and Zenobia testify, could indeed persecute the Christians there for a long time, and in fact did persecute them for a long time, as Baronius judges at the year 285, num. 14: but he brings forward nothing which compels us to admit that Lysias continued his prefecture until the year 305; especially since others too in the same Cilicia, under the same Diocletian, but under other prefects, attained the palm of martyrdom; of whose number are SS. Tarachus, Probus and Andronicus, who under Numerianus Maximus, and St. Boniface, who under Simplicius, prefects of Cilicia, ended the course of life by martyrdom, the former indeed, as is more probable, about the beginning of the 4th century, but the latter about the end of the 3rd century.