ON SS. FYNCANA AND FINDOCHA, VIRGINS, IN IRELAND,
From the Sacred Calendars.
ABOUT THE YEAR 526 OR 716.
CommentaryFyncana, virgin, in Ireland. (S.)
Findocha, virgin, in Ireland. (S.)
BY J. B. F.
Concerning SS. Fycana or Fincana and Findocha, of whom the former is announced on the 21st day of August, These Saints, although by some the latter on the 31st of May, in the Scottish Menology of Camerarius, as was indicated in our Work among the Passed Over at the said days, there is no agreement among the authors who commemorate them in their Sacred Calendars on this day; for some announce Fyncana not with Findocha but with Otha; others suppose that Fyncana and Findocha are synonymous. And first of all Dempster, in book 6 of the Ecclesiastical History of the Nation of the Scots, celebrates St. Fyncana, whom he calls Fintana, with St. Otha on this day thus: "St. Fintana, virgin, having put on the nun's habit under king Conran, lived most continently in the same convent with St. Otha, and on the same day merited commemoration in a common sacred building too. Her Acts have perished. She flourished in the year DXXVI." Then on the same day he has the following about St. Findocha: "St. Findocha, a virgin of great fame for holiness, is said to have flourished under king Conran, and I do not know whether she is not one of the daughters of St. Donevald, if the reckoning of certain people is true. She was living in the year DXXVI." But if this Saint was the daughter of St. Donevald, of whom it was treated in our Work at the 15th of July, she flourished not in the year 526 but in the 8th century, at which time the writers of Ireland relate that St. Donevald lived. Chastelain, in the Universal Martyrology, makes no mention of St. Otha, and commemorates our Saints separately, of whom he names the first Frinseca and the second Frudocha, in the following French words, here rendered into Latin: "At Athrym in Leinster, a province of Ireland, of St. Frinseca, virgin, whose relics are honored in the same place with the relics of seventeen Saints, among whom three are called Aed." Then: "In Scotland, of St. Frudocha, virgin."
[2] Ferrari, in the General Catalogue of the Saints who are wanting in the Roman Martyrology, are said to be synonymous, announces St. Fyncana with St. Otha, nowhere celebrating the memory of St. Findocha, in these few words: "In Scotland, of the holy virgins Fintana and Otha." Arthur du Monstier makes the same announcement in his Gynaeceum; but in the Notes he weaves the following eulogy for them, in which he asserts, with Hector Boece, Gonon and Leslie, that Fintana, whom he does not distinguish from Findocha, and Otha were two daughters of St. Donevald. "They had as father," he says, "St. Donevald, a Scottish hermit; and as they lived a most austere life, barley bread was their food and water their drink; and only once a day were they refreshed with scanty food; given almost to perpetual prayer, or to husbandry, by which they might sustain their meagre life, they thus lived most holily in the solitude of Ogilvy together with their father. But when he had died, thinking it not safe to inhabit the solitude without a guardian of chastity, going to Garnard, king of the Picts, they seek a place of dwelling, so that, separated from the company of men, they might more freely serve Christ, to whom they had consecrated their virginity from a tender age. The king, assenting to the pious requests of the Virgins, freely bestowed on them the house of Abernethy with an oratory, and revenues from the nearby fields for their expenses; and there, having entered the monastery, after a religious life most pleasing to God had been completed, they rested in a blessed end, and were buried at the root of an immense oak. The place is still shown to the Christian people flocking there for the sake of religion, held in much veneration."
[3] yet on the authority of the Aberdeen Breviary, And at the end of the said eulogy he relates that Fintana is sometimes named Fincana, Frinseca and Findocha, and Otha Mazota, and that they flourished about the year 716 of our restored Salvation. It is true that Boece, when he writes in the book of the Scottish History that St. Donevald lived most holily with nine daughters, calls the two elder of them Mazota and Fintana; but it does not follow from this that Fyncana and Findocha are one and the same virgin, and that Otha from Mazota, who in the Aberdeen Breviary is prescribed to be celebrated on the 23rd of December, not
is different. Then, it is not established that the two elder daughters of St. Donevald were called Mazota and Fintana; Boece and Arthur du Monstier do indeed write this, but they bring forward no documents which make us more certain about this matter. If in fact these two elder daughters of St. Donevald were named Mazota and Fintana, why do other Scottish or Irish writers, when they discourse about St. Donevald and his daughters, name none of them? Why does Dempster himself, who, as we saw above at num. 1, doubts whether Findocha is not one of the daughters of St. Donevald, not name them in the same Work when he composes the eulogy of St. Donevald and his daughters at the 15th of July?
[4] we believe were different and once enjoyed cult in that church, Since these things are so, we do not adhere to the praised authors, but, supported by the authority of the Aberdeen Breviary, in which an Ecclesiastical Office of Fyncana and Findocha is read to have been formerly in use in that church on the XIIIth of October, we believe that these Saints are by no means synonymous, but different. On the same day (the XIIIth of October) the said Breviary carries, of the holy virgins Fyncana and Findoca, under king Conran, in the year 526 or 716, nine Lessons, all from the Common of many Virgins, with this Prayer: "Author of virginity, Lord Jesus Christ, preserve the chastity of our mind and body, and by the intercession and merits of thy holy virgins Findoca and Fyncana may we be joined to their holy fellowship in heaven. Through our Lord," etc. Since from these words of the said Breviary it is established that veneration was at one time shown to our Saints, we seem to have foundation enough to grant them a place in our Work; but sufficient documents are lacking for us to say, with Boece and Arthur du Monstier, that they had St. Donevald as their father. But as regards Otha, whom we see commemorated on this day by Dempster, Ferrari and Arthur du Monstier, and whom the praised Arthur contends is one and the same as Mazota, this matter can be inquired into on the 23rd of December, on which day St. Mazota was formerly venerated in the church of Aberdeen, as we have said. I should like it noted meanwhile that up to now I am not sufficiently certain about her cult to assign her a place in our Work; accordingly, if it shall then have been proved that she is to be distinguished from Mazota, she will have to be put among the Passed Over.