Today, 22 November, is the feast of ...
* Philemon and Apphia, martyrs (first century)
- apostle Paul addresses one of his epistles to Philemon;
in it is mentioned 'our dearest sister' Apphia; according
to legends, they were captured by a pagan governor,
scourged, then buried in a pit up to the waist, when they
were stoned to death
* Cecilia, virgin and martyr (?)
- of patrician birth, she converted her betrothed husband
and his brother to Christianity; martyred by being
suffocated with the steam of a hot bath in her own mansion
(later converted into a church); perhaps martyred during
reign of Septimus Severus (193-222); named in the canon of
the Mass; at a translation of her remains in 1599, her body
was seen to be complete and incorrupt (although in an
earlier translation, her head had been enshrined
separately); patron of music and musicians
Last year Julia Bolton Holloway added the following to the various
details related to the martyrdom of Cecilia:
There were three sword wounds to her neck and she went on preaching.
Chaucer mentions this, `Thre strokes in the nekke he smoot hir tho,/ The
tormentour, but fo no maner chaunce/ He myghte noght smyte al hir nekke
atwo;/ And for there was that tyme an ordinaunce/ That no man sholde doon
man swich penaunce/ The ferthe strook to smyten, softe or soore, This
tormentour ne dorste do namoore' (shades of `Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight'!), after which she preached for three days, her blood being mopped
up by sheets, with Urban I's blessing, before dying, and Julian in the
Long Text similarly wanted three wounds, in the Short Text citing St
Cecilia's (the Amherst Manuscript engrossing the words for emphasis).
Wyclif cited Cecilia preaching in her own house which became her church.
Adam Easton, Norwich Benedictine and Julian's contemporary, learned in
Hebrew, which he taught at Oxford, and owning the complete works of
Pseudo-Dionysius, then preached to the laity in Norwich, bringing his
books with him, was Wyclif's opponent, became Cardinal, his titular
basilica being Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, where he is buried in a fine
marble tomb near St Cecilia's, his having on it his arms surmounted by the
Cardinal's hat with tassels and those of England. He knew both Birgitta of
Sweden and Catherine of Siena. He earlier defended Pope Urban VI. When he
defended Birgitta's `Revelationes', and her canonization, he cited
Philip's four daughters who were prophets, St Cecilia, etc., as examples
of saintly but preaching women. The detail about Cecilia preaching is not
in the Golden Legend. Though it is there `sword' and `swordsman', is it
not (I only checked a translation)? Julian has it, `I harde Aman telle of
halye kyrke of the Storye of. Saynte Ce=/cylle [engrossed, rubricated,
underlined]. In the whilke schewynge. I vndyrstode that sche hadde thre
woundys with ASwerde. In the nekke withe the whilke sche py=/ned to the
dede. By the styrrynge of this. I conseyved amyghty/desyre Prayande oure
lorde god that he wolde grawnte me thre woundys in my
lyfe tyme . . . . ' (Amherst, fol. 97 verso, lines 16-21). Nor is Pope
Urban I the right one for her dates. But apparantly the ruins of the
bathroom (hypocaust) can still be seen at Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.
It's interesting, the reader response by Christina of Markyate, Chaucer's
Second Nun and Julian to the Legend of St Cecilia.
*************
Carolyn Muessig
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