ON ST. IRENE OF SANTARÉM, VIRGIN, NUN, AND MARTYR, AT SCALABIS, IN LUSITANIA,
IN THE YEAR DCLIII.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Irene, virgin and martyr in Lusitania (S.)
J. V. H.
Sole §. The name of Scalabis changed on account of the Saint; the memory of the Saint in the sacred calendars; her monastic profession.
Scalabis, today Santarém. Scalabis, says Luis Nunes in his description of Spain Hispania illustrata, vol. IV, p. 418., is a city not inglorious in ancient times, since, on the testimony of Pliny, it was numbered among the three conventus of Lusitania. The cause of the change of name Vasaeus reports in his Chronicle: for when in the year of the Lord 653 St. Irene, in the town of Tomar, would not prostitute to the lust of suitors her chastity vowed to God, she was killed by them, and her body, thrown by the assassins into the streams of the Nabanis, was carried down the Tagus with the current to Scalabis, and there buried with great honour: the city, leaving its ancient name, began to be called of St. Irene, and in the lapse of time this was corrupted into Santaren. On this day, therefore, the Roman Martyrology, with Usuard and Ado and their Auctaria, announces our Saint in these words: In Lusitania, of St. Irene, Virgin and Martyr. The Spanish Martyrology of Juan Tamayo has a little more, but not accurate enough, at this day: At Navantium, a town of Lusitania, of St. Irene, Virgin and Martyr, who, when she was slain by a certain sacrilegious count for the honour of chastity due to the heavenly bridegroom, merited, a celebrated contestant, the palm of martyrdom. Her sacred body, sunk in the bed of the river Tagus, glides down as far as the city of Scalabis, where, drawn out by the hands of Angels and laid in a tomb wrought by them, it is honoured there by the veneration of the inhabitants.
[2] The praise of St. Irene in the sacred calendars The Auctarium of the Roman Martyrology, published in Portuguese about the middle of the century just past, has more, which must not be omitted here: In the town of Santarém, of St. Irene, Virgin and Martyr, who, being of a most noble Portuguese family and brought up from tender age in every virtue, suffered many labours and greater ignominies for the defence of her virginity: but she offered all these to Christ her bridegroom, whom, although men falsely thought otherwise, she loved alone. At length, standing in prayer, at the order of the son of a certain chief man, whose life the Saint had prodigiously preserved, she was slain by the edge of the sword. Her body was thrown headlong into the river Nabantia: but
God revealing the whole course of the matter to her uncle, the abbot Silius, and indicating the place where the Angels had given the body a glorious burial, the abbot Silius went forth with the secular and regular clergy and a great multitude of the people, and, following the bank of the river as far as the Tagus in the borders of the town of Scalabis, they saw there a tomb of most precious marble in which the body of the Saint was laid up. And wishing to take it up, they could not move it from the place: whence, in place of Relics, they carried away with them her hair and part of her garment. A short time after, the Tagus covered the sepulchre, the waters running together from both sides, which before had prodigiously divided themselves to reveal this treasure. Often afterwards the sepulchre appeared out of the waters, and St. Elizabeth the queen saw it. Next to the same place there is seen a rock, either grown out naturally or placed there by God as author in sign of so great a miracle. The town, however, hitherto called Scalabis, derived its name from St. Irene, and today is called Sanctarem. To the Spaniards and Portuguese St. Irene is called Iria or Eyria, and here and there among certain Martyrologists she is called Irenaea.
[3] her Acts As regards the Acts of St. Irene, we have none other than those which Enrique Florez excerpted from the old Breviary of Évora in España sagrada Florez, España Sagrada, vol. XIV, p. 389.: but as to their genuineness all who have written on Spanish or Portuguese affairs agree. Juan de Mariana Historia de España, vol. II, p. 315, Valencia edition 1785., Diego Saavedra Corona Gothica, vol. I, p. 365., Antonio de Heredia Vidas de Santos de la Religión de S. Benito, III, October, p. 119., Alonso de Villegas Flos Sanctorum, fol. 407 verso, Saragossa edition 1583., Pedro Ribadeneira Flos Sanctorum under the 20th of October., François Giry Vies des Saints, 20 October., Gabriel Bucelin, Hugues Ménard Martyrologium Benedictinum, 20 October., Luigi Torelli Secoli Agostiniani, vol. II, p. 660. and very many others. All these agree well enough as regards the circumstances of her life and martyrdom. But Francisco Mendoza, cited by Tamayo under this day, departs very much from the narrative of the others: for he does not touch by a single word upon the healing of the suitor Britinaldus, he brings forward nothing about the promise made of not marrying another, about the unworthy manner in which the reputation of her virginal chastity was shaken: but everything is so presented as though the suitor, driven by blind fury, had himself slain the Virgin who resisted him, whereas we have it from the Acts that Britinaldus did it through a certain assassin, not indeed because he had been unable to satisfy his lust, but because he suspected that St. Irene had broken the faith once given. From an example of this kind it is clear that simpler Acts are not straightway also truer and older, since the praised Mendoza closed his life in the year 1626, when many had already written a more genuine Life of St. Irene: this alone can in some way excuse the writer, namely that the Viridarium of sacred and profane learning was worked out in verse style, and so clung more to poetry than to truth Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana nova, vol. I, p. 446..
[4] altered by Fr. Mendoza. Nor does the praised Mendoza set forth more truly the kind of life assumed by the holy Virgin, when he sings that her heart was softened by no blandishments of her parents striving to retain her in the world:
These wiles, lying hid beneath a father's love, Irene cautiously flees: no later she seeks secret caves, And binds her girlish limbs to severe laws.
As though, namely, St. Irene had followed the anchoretic life: whereas from the Life to be given below, number 2, it is established that the Saint Irene lived below the town above the Nabanis with most chaste virgins, two of whom were sisters of her father: and it is related afterwards that the Saint was accustomed to go out from that cloister once a year, on the feast of Blessed Peter, with the other Virgins, for the sake of prayer, to the church of the Apostle himself. Which words indeed sufficiently indicate that St. Irene dwelt not in a desert but in some cenobium of Virgins, of which very many already existed at that time in Spain and Lusitania, as the much older Spanish councils luminously show. For Pope Siricius treats of Spanish monks, to Himerius of Tarragona in the year 385, chapters VI and XIII D'Aguirre, Concilia Hispaniae, vol. III, pp. 14 and 16, Rome edition 1753., and the council of Saragossa of the year 540, canon VIII Ibid., p. 166.: for the rest, the connection between the Churches of Africa and of the Spains was too close for the monastic institute, so much propagated by St. Augustine, not to be extended to the Spains.
[5] The antiquity of the monastic state But here Antonio de Siles meets us, a member of the historical academy of Madrid, who in his dissertation on Spanish Monasticism before the Saracen times says D'Aguirre, Concilia Hispaniae, vol. III, p. 375. that no cenobium properly so called existed in Spain until the beginning of the 6th century, but that the monks followed the anchoretic or solitary life. He supports his opinion, further, with two arguments, which in my judgment by no means prove the matter. Namely, no mention is made in the canons of the councils of the 4th and 5th centuries of abbots or superiors, and so nowhere is the form of a true cenobium presented to us: then those very things which Siricius reproaches the monks of the 4th century with, in the letter to Himerius of Tarragona, chapter VI Memorias de la Real academia de la Historia, vol. VII, p. 487., are such that they can in no way stand with the cenobitic life. And as regards the former argument, that is, the silence about abbots or superiors, it is merely negative, and accordingly not to be made much of, unless it is supported from elsewhere. And certainly the praised Ant. de Siles himself willingly admits, to the glory of his nation, that the monastic institute was carried over into Spain with the greatest promptitude Labbe, vol. II of the Councils, col. 1019.: from Italy, then, where in the 4th century cenobia in the strict sense were already flourishing Memorias, vol. VII, p. 481., asceteria of monks of both sexes could easily, nay must, have migrated into the Spains; unless, however, someone prefers to derive the Spanish cenobites from Africa. The negative argument, therefore, collapses, since it is weakened by a contrary reason. And it collapses also because Siricius, in the place cited, concerning monks of both sexes sunk in lasciviousness, commands that these unchaste and detestable persons be eliminated from the assembly of the monasteries and the gatherings of the churches. Therefore there were already then in the Spains assemblies of monasteries; therefore there were also superiors who directed communities of this kind.
[6] against certain moderns, The praised Antonio strives to avert such a conclusion by saying with Juan Francisco Masdeu [St. Ambrose, On Virgins, book I, chapter XI, Works, vol. V, p. 23, and epistle LXIII, no. 82, Works, vol. VI, p. 216, Venice edition 1781.] that Siricius was ignorant of the state of monastic affairs in Spain, just as he was ignorant of the constitution of the metropolitan sees; but this is asserted gratuitously: for although, according to the discipline then in force, which we do not inquire into here, the senior bishop obtained the primacy, it does not follow from this that there was no metropolitan division of the bishoprics among the various provinces of the Spains; for so in Africa the dignity of primate was taken not from the pre-eminence of some see, if you except that of Carthage, but from the earlier ordination of the bishops, yet it was nevertheless divided into various provinces, over each of which the senior bishop was set, to whom perhaps it belonged in the Spains to dispense in graver irregularities, such as was bigamy: and in such a way Siricius quite rightly made mention, chapter VIII Historia Crítica de España, vol. VIII, p. 253., of metropolitan bishops, without having to be accused of ignorance. Nor does Antonio stop here, because he rightly understood that ignorance of one thing does not induce ignorance of another: he thinks, therefore, that in the assembly of the monasteries nothing else is to be sought than a simple agglomeration of cells and huts, without the various monks being connected among themselves by any bond of community, and so of subordination Labbe, vol. II, col. 1020.: but a similar interpretation is contrary to the common tenor of the words, nor to be admitted unless most certain monuments of history altogether require an interpretation of this kind; otherwise we should seem not so much to accommodate history to genuine monuments as to twist these to a preconceived opinion.
[7] relying on negative arguments alone, is defended; But not content with these arguments, being negative, Antonio de Siles brings forward also a positive one: namely that the luxurious life of the monks, such as is presented by Siricius, cannot stand with claustral discipline and the vigilance of superiors. We willingly admit that in later centuries many things were decreed to keep monastic discipline whole and sound, but on account of canons of this kind we do not believe that cenobia first began at the time when those laws were being drawn up, but rather that laws were first passed when graver abuses had already grown up in the cenobia: and so monasteries had already existed for a longer time. For the rest, that crimes of this kind arise even when abbots preside over the assemblies of monks, which could be declared by many monuments collated, the fourth council of Toledo shows, celebrated in the year of Christ 633 under the presidency of St. Isidore; since in canon LI D'Aguirre, Concilia Hispaniae, vol. III, p. 375. it treats of the institution of abbots and other offices, and yet the following canon, namely LII, decrees against monks going out from the monastery, who not only return to the world but also take wives, that these be assigned to penance in the same monastery from which they went out, and there bewail their crimes, from which they departed. Similar things are decreed in canon LV concerning penitent men and women (that is, monks in the true sense of the name, since it treats of tonsure, of the taking of the habit of nuns, of those who have vowed themselves to Religion): for if they have become laymen, unless, being admonished, they return, let them be condemned before the Church by the sentence of anathema truly as apostates; but if they have been apprehended by the priest, let them be recalled to the worship of Religion, penance having first been done. These things suffice to show that even with a legitimate monastery or cenobium established, crimes of this kind can happen, and so that from these no argument holds against the institution of cenobia. For the rest, since St. Irene lived already in the middle of the 7th century, when, by the agreement of all, cenobia existed, there can be no doubt about her monastic profession.
[8] without its being able to be defined for certain; But from this question arises another more intricate, namely to which monastic Order our Saint is to be ascribed? Luigi Torelli indeed unfolds this at length in the Annals of the Order of St. Augustine Memorias, vol. VII, p. 490., since he demonstrates that the Saint could belong neither to the Cistercians, the Friars Preachers or Minors, as being more recent, nor to the Basilians, inasmuch as they never existed in Lusitania. It remains that we count St. Irene in one or other Order, of St. Benedict or of St. Augustine. The praised Torelli, an Augustinian, indeed fights for his own; but there are even among his fellow members those who seem by no means to approve this opinion. For in the Breviaries compiled for the universal Order no memory of our Saint occurs Torelli, Secoli Agostiniani, vol. II, p. 664., and that
is greater, Tomás de Herrera, in his Augustinian Alphabet, writes this of our Saint, whom he calls Hirena: St. Hirena, Virgin and Martyr (who in choir III of the Triumphal Theatre is ascribed, by I know not what right, to our Blessed), about the year 650, on the 20th day of October, on which her feast is recalled in all Lusitania, passed to her bridegroom. The Augustinian profession of St. Irene seems, therefore, quite doubtful, especially since no trace exists, so far as we know, of the monastery of girls once inhabited by the Saint, from knowledge of which one could perhaps arrive at some sort of cognition of the Order formerly flourishing there.
[9] to which Order the Saint In almost the same way one may think of the Benedictine profession of St. Irene: Hugues Ménard in his Martyrology of the Order of St. Benedict and Antonio de Heredia in the Lives of the Saints of the same Order, written in Spanish [Breviarium Ordinis Eremitarum S. Augustini, Venice 1751; Proper of Windesheim, etc.], certainly proclaim her their own; but among the Benedictines too no mention of her occurs in the Breviaries of the Order, and Jean Mabillon in the Acta Sanctorum of the Order of St. Benedict places her among those Passed Over, the asterisk being omitted by which he marks the genuine nurslings of his institute Vidas de Santos de la Religión de S. Benito, vol. IV, p. 119.. Nor must what Jean Mabillon observes in his Annals, book I, n. 13 Acta SS. Ordinis Benedicti, 2nd century, Index, p. LX., be passed over, namely: as in the East, he says, so in the West, "there were almost as many types and rules as cells and monasteries," says Cassian. For some the will of the abbot was the rule, for others a manner of living confirmed by the usage and tradition of their forebears, on most written laws were imposed. And what comes nearer to the present question, Mabillon admits that it is unknown to him what Rule the Spanish monks observed before Isidore and Fructuosus Compare Berganza, Antigüedades de España, vol. I, p. 17.. St. Isidore died in the year of Christ 636, St. Fructuosus in 665, so that it is doubtful, since Rules of this kind are propagated rather slowly, whether either of them had already then been introduced into the cenobium which St. Irene inhabited. From all of which it becomes manifest that the institute which our Saint followed is altogether uncertain: this one thing we assume as certain, that she was a nun under Selius, her uncle and abbot: for nuns were placed under the care and protection of monks, as is clear from canon XI of the council of Seville of the year 619 De Aguirre, Concilia Hispaniae, vol. III, p. 349..
[10] belonged. We shall publish the Life of St. Irene from the Old Breviary of Évora, as we have already said: certain moderns have worked out particular writings about our Saint, namely Eduardo de Arauto, Canon regular of the Order of Christ and prefect of the royal house of Tomar Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana nova, vol. I, p. 336., Isidoro Barreira, presbyter of the same Order Ibid., p. 828., and Pascoal Ribeiro Coutinho Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana, vol. IV, p. 562., who all wrote in the Portuguese idiom. It would be most useful to us to have one or other of these authors before us, especially that we might draw a fuller notice about the cult of the Saint: but when we were writing these things the condition of the times was such that, affairs being disturbed in all the nations, scarcely anything could have been brought from more distant regions. Wherefore we have given only those things which we were able to collect from the older monuments.
PASSION OF ST. IRENE, VIRGIN AND MARTYR,
From the old Breviary of Évora and Florez, España Sagrada, vol. XIV.
Irene, virgin and martyr in Lusitania (S.)
BHL Number: 4469
FROM THE BREVIARY OF ÉVORA.
Blessed Irene, a nun, At the time when in Lusitania a renowned and most Christian lord, Castinaldus, a nobleman of Cassia a, ruled at Nabantia b, a distinguished town of the conventus of Scalabis c, Irene, a virgin nun, most noble in birth, most beautiful in form, suffered bodily death for the integrity of chastity on the bank of the river Nabanis d, in the six hundred and fifty-third year from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ e, whose faith, already spread far and wide, was firmly held. This virgin was modest, pious, simple, humble, a faster, assiduous in prayer and most devout in every service of God. For Remigius, a most learned and most religious monk, had taught her both letters and manners, under the favour of her noble parents Hermigius and Eugenia, and of the abbot Selius, who was the brother of Eugenia, the mother of the Virgin herself, and lived in the great cenobium of the Blessed Virgin Mary with about fifty monks, in a cenobium by the torrent which is called Effon, because, flowing without a spring and windingly, it goes down into the Nabanis. Above which cenobium, towards the north, in a flat and lofty place, were the palaces of the aforesaid Castinaldus, with a most beautiful town called Nabantia, distant from the river one stone's throw or less.
[2] having first healed prince Britaldus' Below that town, above the Nabanis, the Saint Irene lived with most chaste Virgins, two of whom were sisters of her father, namely Casta and Justa, who were afterwards buried there in separate stone monuments f. And St. Irene was accustomed to go out from that cloister once a year, on the feast of St. Peter, with the other virgins, for the sake of prayer, to the church of the Apostle himself, which had been built with praiseworthy work next to the palaces of Castinaldus and was full of Relics of Saints: coming to which the most noble Castinaldus, with his nobles and household and the inhabitants of the place, heard the divine offices almost daily. This prince, moreover, had an only son, a youth of excellent disposition, Britaldus by name, who, having first heard of the beauty of St. Irene, when he had once seen her in the church, began to be wretchedly tormented with love of her: yet, on account of the fear of God and reverence for the Virgin's parents and for the abbot Selius, he did not dare to disclose the force of his love, but, keeping silent, fell sick after the manner of lovers. His parents, anxious beyond measure about his sickness, sought the help of various physicians from every side. They, bringing forward various causes of the disease, but by no means weighing the true disease, brought no remedy to his sickness.
[3] insane love, When the holy Virgin Irene had learned by divine revelation the cause of this sickness, for the sake of piety and humanity she went to him, and, she alone to him alone, thus addresses him: "My brother, this infirmity is not unto death for you, but that by the mercy of God you may obtain health, if you no longer covet at all those things which your eyes have wickedly coveted." To this he: "I know, he says, that you know by what sickness I am held. So know too that if I die of it, or if, spurning me, you prefer another, I myself or another for me will strike you with the sword, so that you live no more." To which she: "Far be it from me, brother, she says, that I should ever fulfil your wicked will or another's." These things said, and he being consoled, and hands being laid on him with prayer, she returned to her cloister. And he was at once restored to health by the prayers of the holy Virgin Irene. Wherefore his parents, in gratitude to the Virgin Irene, held that college of virgins in greater honour, honouring it more amply with gifts and privileges.
[4] when she had come under suspicion of a crime, After an affair of this kind, two years having passed, Satan entered into Remigius the monk, the teacher of St. Irene, and so sharply parched his inward parts with love of the holy Virgin that, laying aside shame, he addressed her unchastely. And when he had been gravely rebuked by her, filled with diabolical fury and perverse ingenuity, he secretly gave her in drink the juice of a sorcerous herb. By which potion the uncorrupted virgin gradually swelled, like a pregnant woman, and did not escape the mark of infamy. She marvelled, not knowing what had happened to her, yet she commended her modesty and reputation to the Lord. When the son of Castinaldus had heard these things, moved by jealousy, he asked a certain soldier among his friends to kill her and throw her into the river. That soldier, at once lying in wait for her, when by chance after the matin lauds, at the twilight of the day, he had seen her praying on the bank of the river and commending her innocence to God, rushing in, stopped her mouth with cloths, and, her garments being stripped off except for her melota g, pierced her throat with the sword, and threw her, slain, into the river h. At once, however, led by repentance, together with Remigius the monk he went to Rome, and both died under penance i. But the holy body of the Virgin glided down through the Nabanis into the river Ozecharus, and from it into the Tagus, until it came to the mount which is called the fortress of Scalabis k.
[5] she is slain. When morning came, since she had not been found, all thought that out of shame for the deed she had fled with some man whom she had won to herself by debauchery. But God, not wishing them to remain in so sinister a suspicion, revealed to the abbot Selius what had happened. Having learned these things, he, rejoicing greatly, sadness mixed with gladness, divulged the matter, and at once with the monks and nobles and a numerous people came to the aforesaid place. Then, the Tagus being gathered back into itself by the power of God from that immense abyss, there appeared there on one side the ground as dry earth, where the Virgin's body was found, divinely placed in a most fitting sepulchre. And since it could not be moved from that place, they understood that it had pleased God that she be buried there. Honourably, therefore, and with great praises they buried the most holy body there, taking Relics of the hair and of the melota. And when they had gone out of the river-bed, the Tagus, its waters spread out above, returned to its bound to the great admiration of all. And the abbot returned with the Relics of the most holy body to the cenobium, where many blind, lame, lepers and those afflicted with various diseases were healed by the touch of the Holy Relics, to the praise of Christ, to whom be honour and glory for ages of ages. Amen.