medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today, March 16, is the feast day of:
Aninas, hermit (date unknown) This hermit, called variously Aninas and
Ananias, lived in the flat deserts of the Euphrates, in a cave, with two
lions, out of the foot of one of which he had drawn a thorn which hurt it.
Julian of Anazarbus/-of Antioch/-of Cilicia/-of Tarsus (d. early 4th
century) is said to have been a native of Anazarbus (today's Anavarza in
Turkey's Adana Province) who came from a family of senatorial rank and whose
mother raised him as a Christian. Arrested during the Great Persecution, he
steadfastly refused to apostatize and for a year was displayed as a prisoner
in several cities of Cilicia before being martyred by being tied up in a bag
also containing sand (for weight), scorpions, and poisonous snakes (for
certain death) that was then thrown into the sea. (This is a version of the
punishment in Roman law for parricide. Two of the kings of Sicily (Roger II,
Henry V) are said to have employed it on captured rebels.)
In this tradition, Julian's body is said to first have been miraculously
carried by currents to Alexandria (if the origin of this is Syrian, perhaps
Alexandretta is meant). Later, relics said to be his were translated to
Antioch on the Orontes where a martyrial church was erected to house them
and where by the late fourth century he certainly had an active cult. He
appears in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology under February 14 as well as
under today. The later fourth-century Syriac Martyrology, which draws on
sources also used by the (ps.-)HM, is silent about him. We know about Julian
from two legendary Passiones (BHG 966 and 967e), two encomia - one in Greek,
one in Syriac - by bishops of Antioch (the Greek one, BHG 967, is by St.
John Chrysostom), and from Byzantine synaxary accounts.
A Julian (not certainly this one) as depicted in a late twelfth- or early
thirteenth-century fresco in the santuario di Maria SS. Regina (a.k.a. Santa
Maria d'Anglona) at Tursi (MT) in Basilicata: http://tinyurl.com/yahec8d
Finnian Lobhar, abbot (c. 560?) - as a boy, he prayed that another boy with
leprosy would be cured; it was revealed to him that his prayer would be
answered only if the leprosy moved from the other boy to himself; Finnian
accepted, and became afflicted ('Lobhar' means 'Leper').
Abraham Kidunaia (6th century) The son of wealthy parents in Edessa, He
agreed to marry to make his parents happy, but at the end of the seven-day
wedding feast he ran away to be a monk in the desert, walling himself up in
a cell, where he stayed for the next fifty years. The bishop of Edessa
eventually talked him into becoming a missionary to the non-Christian
community of Beth-Kiduna nearby. Abraham went to town, built a church, and
then destroyed every cult statue he could lay hands on. He got beaten up and
driven out, came back and preached some more, etc. Eventually he did indeed
convert the town, after which he returned to his hermitage. Ephraem the
Syrian praised Abraham in hymns, and there is also a 6th-century vita of
Abraham.
This is the hermit Abraham who is supposed to have raised his niece Mary
until she was about 20, only to have her leave the hermitage and become a
prostitute - until Abraham went after her disguised as one of her customers
and brought her back to a life of penance. But the story seems to be a
fiction.
Mary the Penitent (d. mid-4th cent.) According to tradition, Mary lived an
extremely worldly life until converted by her uncle Abraham of Chiduna. She
then lived with Abraham as a hermit and penitent. Not to be confused with
Mary the Egyptian, whose feast day is on 2. April.
Eusebia/Eusoye/Isoie of Hamay (d. c680) was the eldest daughter of St.
Adalbald of Douai and St. Richtrudis. She had been placed in the abbey of
Hamay (near Douai Belgium) at a young age to be raised by her saintly
grandmother, and became abbess herself at age 12.
Boniface Quiritine/Alban Quiritine/Kiritine (7th century), surnamed
Boniface, is fabulously said to have been of Israelite race, and a
descendant of Radia, sister of the apostles Peter and Andrew. All that is
known of him is that he was bishop of Ross, in Scotland, and that he
laboured to suppress the Celtic ritual and to establish roman uniformity,
doing in Scotland the work accomplished by S. Wilfrid in Northumbria.
Torello of Poppi (d. 1282 or 1232) Torello was a dissolute young man of
Poppi in the Casentino region of Tuscany who became a hermit in the
vicinity, who lived a very austere life blessed by various miracles, and who
after his death at age eighty continued to produce many more for the benefit
of his fellow townspeople. Perhaps that doesn't sound so engaging, but the
rooster who flew onto the young Torello's arm and crowed three times to
recall him from the sinful life into which he had fallen, the wolf who upon
Torello's command obligingly released from its jaws the young boy it had
been carrying away, and many other details lift this Life above the
ordinary.
He has been claimed both by the Vallombrosans, whose monastery at very
nearby Strumi is evidently the one at Puppi where in the Life Torello is
said to have made his confession before going off to be a hermit, and by the
Franciscans, with whom he has no known connection but whose very early
members practiced a lifestyle similar to that recorded for him. The
monastery of La Verna, where Francis received his stigmata, is also in the
Casentino and is in fact mentioned in the Life. So perhaps the early Lives
of Francis had something to do with the way Torello is presented in his. But
the Vallombrosans were right there at Poppi: they got Torello's body after
his death and his remains are still kept in the crypt of their abbey church
of San Fedele at Strumi. Torello is Poppi's patron "saint"; read the
postmortem miracles (especially those about protecting people of Poppi from
wolves - he has Peter of Trevi beaten all hollow in this department) and you
can see why.
Benedicta of Assisi (Bl.; d. 1260) According to the traditions of her order,
Benedicta was a native of Assisi who in 1253 succeeded St. Clare as abbess
of her monastery there, St. Damian's. It is thought that she is the
Benedicta recorded as abbess of the Damianite house at Siena in 1227 and of
that at Vallegloria from 1240 to 1248. She is said to have been a prudent
person and an example to others in her community. Benedicta, who oversaw the
move of the sisters at Assisi from St. Damian's to their new monastery next
to the church of St. George in 1260, will have had some role in the initial
construction of the Basilica of St. Clare in 1257.
Benedicta, who has yet to grace the pages of the RM, is recorded visually
in her donor's portrait (facing that of St. Clare) on the lower crossbar of
the painted crucifix above the main altar in the Basilica of St. Clare (not
to be confused with the Crucifix of San Damiano, also housed in this church
and shown on the page last linked to, this is called the Crucifix of Abbess
Benedicta): http://tinyurl.com/c9t9uh , http://tinyurl.com/33hky3
happy reading,
Terri Morgan
--
Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in
school. ~Albert Einstein
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