SS. MARTHA AND SAULA, VIRGINS AND MARTYRS - 20 OCTOBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN OCTOBER

Saints celebrated on the 20th of October

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

SAINTS MARTHA AND SAULA, VIRGINS AND MARTYRS 

Saints Martha and Saula were among the company of virgin martyrs surrounding St Ursula. "The history of these celebrated virgins of Cologne rests on ten lines, and these are open to question. This legend, with its countless variants and increasingly fabulous developments, would fill more than a hundred pages. Various characteristics of it were already regarded with suspicion by certain medieval writers... Briefly, for the solid reconstruction of the true history of the virgin martyrs, there is only the inscription of Clematius and some details furnished by ancient liturgical books. Unfortunately, these latter are very meager, and the inscription is in part extremely obscure. This document, carved on a stone which may be seen in the choir of the Church of St Ursula at Cologne, is couched in the following terms:

DIVINIS FLAMMEIS VISIONIB. FREQVENTER ADMONIT. ET VIRTVTIS MAGNÆ MAIIESTATIS MARTYRII CAELESTIVM VIRGIN IMMINENTIVM EX PARTIB. ORIENTIS EXSIBITVS PRO VOTO CLEMATIVS V. C. DEPROPRIO IN LOCO SVO HANC BASILICA VOTO QVOD DEBEBAT A FVNDAMENTIS RESTITVIT SI QVIS AVTEM SVPER TANTAM MAIIESTATEM HVIIVS BASILICÆ VBI SANCTAE VIRGINES PRO NOMINE. XPI. SANGVINEM SVVM FVDERVNT CORPVS ALICVIIVS DEPOSVERIT EXCEPTIS VIRCINIB. SCIAT SE SEMPITERNIS TARTARI IGNIB. PVNIENDVM

Its authenticity, which is accepted beyond the shadow of a doubt by the most eminent epigraphists... belongs indisputably to the fifth century at the latest, and very probably to the fourth... Many attempts have been made to interpret it, none of them satisfactory, but at least the following import may be gathered: A certain Clematius, a man of senatorial rank, who seems to have lived in the Orient before going to Cologne, was led by frequent visions to rebuild in this city, on land belonging to him, a basilica which had fallen into ruins, in honour of virgins who had suffered martyrdom on that spot. 

This brief text is very important, for it testifies to the existence of a previous basilica, dating perhaps from the beginning of the fourth century, if not from the pre-Constantinian period. For the authentic cult and hence for the actual existence of the virgin martyrs, it is a guarantee of great value, but it must be added that the exact date of the inscription is unknown, and the information it gives is very vague. It does not indicate the number of the virgins, their names, or the period of their martyrdom. Nor does any other document supply any probable details on the last point. 

Our ignorance on the first two is lessened to a certain extent by the mention on October 21 in various liturgical texts (martyrologies, calendars, litanies) of virgins of Cologne, now five, now eight, now eleven, for example: Ursula, Sencia, Gregoria, Pinnosa, Martha, Saula, Britula, Saturnina, Rabacia, Saturia, and Palladia. Without doubt none of these documents is prior to the ninth century, but they are independent of the legend, which already began to circulate, and their evidence must not be entirely overlooked. It is noteworthy that in only one of these lists Ursula ranks first.

After the inscription of Clematius there is a gap of nearly five hundred years in our documents, for no trace of the martyrs is found again until the ninth century. The oldest written text, "Sermo in natali sanctarum Coloniensium virginum", which seems to date from this period, serves to prove that there was at Cologne no precise tradition relating to the virgin martyrs. According to this, they were several thousand in number, and suffered persecution during the reign of Diocletian and Maximian. The names of only a few of them were known, and of these the writer gives only one, that of Pinnosa, who was then regarded as the most important of the number. 

Some persons, probably in accordance with an interpretation, certainly questionable, of the inscription of Clematius, considered them as coming from the East, and connected them with the martyrs of the Theban Legion; others held them to be natives of Great Britain, and this was the opinion shared by the authors of the "Sermo". Apparently some time after the "Sermo" we find the martyrology of Wandalbert of Prum, compiled about 850, which speaks of several thousand virgins. 

"MARTHA AND SAULA AND SEVERAL OTHERS"

On the other hand Usuard, in his martyrology dating from about 875, mentions only "Martha and Saula with several others". But as early as the end of the ninth century or the beginning of the tenth, the phrase "the eleven thousand virgins" is admitted without dispute. How was this number reached? All sorts of explanations have been offered, some more ingenious than others. The chief and rather gratuitous suppositions have been various errors of reading or interpretation, e.g., "Ursula and her eleven thousand companions" comes from the two names Ursula and Undecimillia (Sirmond), or from Ursula and Ximillia (Leibniz), or from the abbreviation XI. M. V. (undecim martyres virgines), misinterpreted as undecim millia virginum, etc. It has been conjectured, and this is less arbitrary, that it is the combination of the eleven virgins mentioned in the ancient liturgical books with the figure of several thousand (millia) given by Wandalbert. However it may be, this number is henceforth accepted, as is also the British origin of the saints, while Ursula is substituted for Pinnosa and takes the foremost place among the virgins of Cologne.

The experiences of Ursula and her eleven thousand companions became the subject of a pious romance which acquired considerable celebrity. 

Besides the subsequent revisions of this story there are two ancient versions, both originating at Cologne. One of these (Fuit tempore pervetusto) dates from the second half of the ninth century (969-76), and was only rarely copied during the Middle Ages. The other (Regnante Domino), also compiled in the ninth century, had a wide circulation, but adds little of importance to the first. The author of the latter, probably in order to win more credence for his account, claims to have received it from one who in turn heard it from the lips of St Dunstan of Canterbury, but the serious anachronisms which he commits in saying this place it under suspicion. 

This legendary account is well known: Ursula, the daughter of a Christian king of Great Britain, was asked in marriage by the son of a great pagan king. Desiring to remain a virgin, she obtained a delay of three years. At her request she was given as companions ten young women of noble birth, and she and each of the ten were accompanied by a thousand virgins, and the whole company, embarking in eleven ships sailed for three years. When the appointed time was come, and Ursula's betrothed was about to claim her, a gale of wind carried the eleven thousand virgins far from the shores of England, and they went first by water to Cologne and thence to Basle, then by land from Basle to Rome. They finally returned to Cologne, where they were slain by the Huns in hatred of the Faith.

The literary origin of this romance is not easy to determine. Apart from the inscription of Clematius, transcribed in the Passion "Fuit tempore" and paraphrased in the "Regnante Domino" Passion and the "Sermo in natali", the writers seem to have been aware of a Gallic legend of which a late version is found in Geoffrey of Monmouth: the usurper Maximus (as Geoffrey calls the Emperor Maximian), having conquered British Armorica, sent there from Great Britain 100,000 colonists and 30,000 soldiers, and committed the government of Armorica to his former enemy, now his friend, the Breton prince, Conanus Meriadocus. The latter decided to bring women from Great Britain to marry them to his subjects, to which end he appealed to Dionotus, King of Cornwall, who sent him his daughter Ursula, accompanied by 11,000 noble virgins and 60,000 other young women. 

As the fleet which carried them sailed towards Armorica, a violent storm destroyed some of the ships and drove the rest of them to barbarian islands in Germany, where the virgins were slain by the Huns and the Picts...

Although the history of these saints of Cologne is obscure and very short, their cult was very widespread, and it would require a volume to relate in detail its many and remarkable manifestations. To mention only two characteristics, since the twelfth century a large number of relics have been sent from Cologne, not only to neighbouring countries but throughout Western Christendom, and even India and China. The legend of the Eleven Thousand Virgins has inspired a host of works of art, several of them of the highest merit, the most famous being the paintings of the old masters of Cologne, those of Memling at Bruges, and of Carpaccio at Venice.

The Order of Ursulines, founded in 1535 by St. Angela de Merici, and especially devoted to the education of young girls, has also helped to spread throughout the world the name and the cult of St Ursula.

(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913 - 🎨 Seaport With the Embarkation of Saint Ursula and Virgin Companions, by Claude Lorrain, 1641)