20
July. 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Margaret, Martyr.
Margaret,
Virgin and Martyr, said to have been martyred at Antioch in
Pisidia (A.D. 278); commemorated as a "Great Martyr" by the Greek
Church on July 17th. Nothing is really known about her; but, being usually
represented as trampling on or piercing a dragon, she was obviously taken as a
type of the power of faith in the weak to confound the strong. -- July 20th.
Margaret the Virgin-Martyr, known as Margaret of Antioch
(in Pisidia) in the West, and as and Saint Marina the
Great-Martyr (Greek: Ἁγία Μαρίνα)
in the East, is celebrated as a saint by the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches on July 20 and
on July 17 in the Orthodox Church. Her historical
existence has been questioned. She was declared apocryphal by Pope Gelasius I in 494, but
devotion to her revived in the West with the Crusades. She was reputed to have promised very powerful indulgences to those who wrote or read her life, or invoked her intercessions; these no doubt helped the spread of
her cultus.[2]
Contents
Narrative
According to the version of the story
in Golden Legend, she was a native of Antioch, and she was the daughter
of a pagan priest named Aedesius. Her
mother having died soon after her birth, Margaret was nursed by a pious woman
five or six leagues from Antioch. Having embraced Christianity and consecrated
her virginity to God, she was disowned by her father, adopted by her
nurse and lived in the country keeping sheep with her foster mother (in what is
now Turkey).[3] Olybrius, Governor
of the Roman Diocese of the East, asked to marry her but with the price of her renunciation of Christianity. Upon her refusal
she was cruelly tortured, during which various
miraculous incidents occurred. One of these involved being swallowed by Satan in the shape of a dragon, from which she escaped alive when the cross she carried irritated the dragon's innards. The Golden Legend, in
an atypical passage of skepticism, describes this last incident as
"apocryphal and not to be taken seriously" (trans. Ryan, 1.369). She
was put to death in A.D. 304.
Saint Margaret, as Saint Marina, with
associations to the sea, 'may in turn point to an older goddess tradition',
reflecting the pagan divinity Aphrodite.[4]
Veneration
The Eastern Orthodox Church knows Margaret as Saint Marina, and celebrates her feast
day on July 17. She has been identified with Saint Pelagia. "Marina" being the Latin
equivalent of the Greek name "Pelagia" who, according to a legend,
was also called Margarita. We possess no historical documents on St. Margaret
as distinct from St. Pelagia. The Greek Marina came from Antioch, Pisidia (as opposed to Antioch of Syria), but this distinction was lost in the West.
The cultus of Saint Margaret became very widespread in England, where more than 250
churches are dedicated to her, most famously, St. Margaret's,
Westminster, the parish church[5] of the British Houses of Parliament in London. Some consider her a patron saint of pregnancy. In art, she is usually pictured escaping from, or standing above, a
dragon.
She is recognized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, being listed as such in the Roman Martyrology for July 20.[6] She was also
included from the twelfth to the twentieth century among the saints to be
commemorated wherever the Roman Rite was celebrated,[7] but was then
removed from that list because of the entirely fabulous character of the stories told of her.[8] Margaret is one of
the Fourteen Holy Helpers, and is one of the saints who spoke to Joan of Arc.
Images
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Saint Margaret and the Dragon, alabaster with
traces of gilding, Toulouse (ca 1475). (Metropolitan Museum of Art).
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Reliquary Bust of Saint Margaret of Antioch.
Attributed to Nikolaus Gerhaert (active in Germany, 1462 -
73).
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|
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Margaret the Virgin on a painting in the Novacella Abbey,
Neustift, South Tyrol, Italy.
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Saint Margaret attracts the attention of the Roman prefect, by Jean
Fouquet, (from an illuminated manuscript).
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Notes
1. Jump up ^ Mary Clayton; Hugh Magennis (15 September 1994). The Old English Lives of St. Margaret. Cambridge
University Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-521-43382-2.
2. Jump up ^ "Margaret of Antioch" The Oxford
Dictionary of Saints. David Hugh Farmer. Oxford University Press 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford
University Press. Accessed 16 June 2007
3. Jump up ^ MacRory, Joseph. "St. Margaret." The
Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 1 Mar.
2013
4. Jump up ^ Gábor Klaniczay; Éva Pócs; Eszter Csonka-Takacs
(2006). Christian Demonology and Popular Mythology. Central European
University Press. p. 124. ISBN 978-963-7326-76-9.
5. Jump up ^ Westminster Abbey. "St. Margaret's, Westminster Parish
details". Archived from the original on 2008-03-05.
Retrieved 2008-05-03.
References
- Acta Sanctorum, July, v. 24—45
- Bibliotheca hagiographica. La/ma (Brussels, 1899), n. 5303—53r3
- Frances Arnold-Forster, Studies in Church Dedications (London, 1899), i. 131—133 and iii. 19.
External links
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- Saint Margaret and the Dragon links
- Middle English life of St. Margaret of Antioch, edited with notes by Sherry L. Reames
- Book of the Passion of Saint Margaret the Virgin, with the Life of Saint Agnes, and Prayers to Jesus Christ and to the Virgin Mary (English) (Latin) (Italian)
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