medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (30. January) is also the feast day of:
Today (30. January) is also the feast day of:
Peregrin (Peregrinos, Peregrinus, Pellegrino) of Triocala (1st cent., supposedly). If any faith is to be placed in his conflicting and somewhat inventive Latin and Greek Passiones (BHL 4909, BHG 1030), the actual Peregrinus may have been an early martyr of Agrigento (Sicily), put to death during the Valerianic persecution. But these testimonies pale in comparison to the legend of P. of Triocala, venerated at Caltabellotta (not far from Agrigento) since at least the 11th or 12th century (the 17th-century hermitage bearing his name is built over the remains of a structure thought to be of the Norman period).
According to this legend, preserved in an 18th-century Greek manuscript whose text offers slightly varying accounts of unknown provenance, P. was called from Leukas in Greece by St. Peter to preach in Sicily. Arriving at Triocala (generally assumed to be the pre-Arab-period predecessor of Caltabellotta, though the T. of the legend has also been interpreted as the Etnean town of Randazzo), P. immediately demonstrated his power by turning into stone the bread of a woman who had claimed not to have any to give him and soon rescued a local boy from the clutches of a dragon whose lair was in a cave above the town. The dragon, recognizing P.'s superiority, fled to its cave, roaring terribly; P. pursued the beast, fixed its jaws open with his staff, and caused it to disappear into an abyss opening within the cave itself. The townspeople swiftly accepted Christianity from P., who himself became a hermit, settling in a cave above the one the dragon had used and dying peacefully at!
threescore years and ten.
P. has a secondary feast on the third Sunday in August (previously, 18 August) honoring him as Caltabellotta's patron. He also has a modern cult at Leukas, to which we are indebted for the preservation of his legend. A photograph of the manuscript's first text page and an Italian translation of the whole are at:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/3137/
There are discussions by Agostino Amore in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, vol. 10 (1968), cols. 459-60, s. v. "Pellegrino, santo, martire di Agrigento(?)", with bibliography, and by Raimondo Lentini at the _Santi Beati_ site:
http://www.santiebeati.it/
, s. v. "San Pellegrino, Vescovo di Triocala".
For a discussion of the manuscript of P.'s legend see Angela Daneu-Lattanzi, "Un manoscritto del secolo XVIII contenente la Vita di s. Pellegrino vescovo di Triocala," _Archivio storico siciliano_, 3a serie, 14 (1963), 17-66.
Best,
John Dillon
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