ON ST. BASILISSA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR AT NICOMEDIA IN BITHYNIA, AT NICOMEDIA IN BITHYNIA.
Under Diocletian.
The cult, the eulogies, the Acts.
Basilissa, V. & M., at Nicomedia in Bithynia (St.)
BY J. P.
This tender Virgin and martyr, bearing a manly spirit beyond her sex and her age, She is venerated spread abroad the fame of her name among Greeks and Latins. The Menology of the Greeks, which Cardinal Sirletus rendered into Latin, records her thus: On the same day (III of September) the birthday of St. Basilissa, who, while Alexander was governor in the city of Nicomedia, being thrown to wild beasts, and having endured other torments, was crowned with martyrdom. The great printed Menaea: On the same day St. Basilissa, thrown to wild beasts and unharmed, is consummated. To which are added two little verses, which from the Greek sound thus in Latin:
Ὀφθεῖσα Βασίλισσα φρυκτη θηρίοις, Φρυκτῷ παρέστη Παμβασιλέως θρόνῳ.
That is:
Basilissa, seen terrible to the savage beasts, stood before the awful throne of the King of all.
Little or no charm has the poet's allusion, who looks to the proper name of our Virgin, and to the appellative βασίλισσα, which means a queen, and also to the name παμβασιλεὺς, by which is signified the king of all, or God. Nor of better quality is the adjective φρικτὸς, that is, dreadful, etc., twice repeated in the Greek.
[2] The Menology of the emperor Basil also announces the contest of the holy virgin and martyr Basilissa, among the Greeks with a summary of her martyrdom added, which, translated from the Greek, is read thus in the edition of those sacred Calendars which came out at Urbino in the year 1727 by the zeal and labor of the most Eminent Cardinal Annibale Albani: Basilissa was a martyr in the times of Diocletian. And since she had her dwelling near the city of Nicomedia, and was in the ninth year of her age, being denounced as a Christian, she is set before Alexander the governor, and, having professed Christ with a confident spirit, first indeed she is beaten with blows of the fist; then, stripped, she is struck with rods, and her ankles are pierced. Soon, with her head inverted, she is hung upon a beam, bound with chains, and tormented with the smoke of pitch, sulphur, and lead. After this, cast into the fire, and thrown to two lions, when she had suffered no harm, she persuaded the governor to believe in Christ. And he indeed, passing his life rightly, departed in peace. But she, having gone out of the city, when she thirsted, prayed, and by waters flowing from the earth drove away her thirst. Then, standing upon a rock and praying, she made an end of living: and buried there, she wondrously grants cures to all the faithful day by day through the waters bursting forth from the earth. Similar things are recorded in the Ms. Synaxary of Sirmond, to which this clause is appended: Γίνεται δὲ ἡ δι᾽ ἔτους αὐτῆς σύναξις ἐν τῇ μονῇ τῆς Μαρίας πλησίον τοῦ τείχους τῶν Βλαχερνῶν. That is: Her solemnity is kept yearly in the monastery of Mary near the wall of Blachernae at Constantinople.*
[3] The yearly memorial of this Saint is marked among the Latins also. & the Latins. Galesinius has it; to whom add the Roman Martyrology of Baronius in these words: At Nicomedia, the passion of St. Basilissa, virgin and martyr, who, being nine years old, when in the persecution of Diocletian under Alexander the governor she had overcome by divine power stripes, fires, and beasts, rendered up her spirit to God in prayer. The aforesaid Baronius makes mention of her also in his Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 309, num. 36, treating of the martyrs who suffered in Diocletian's persecution. I know of no memorial of this holy Basilissa being kept in the Latin Martyrologies before Galesinius, who, as he indicates in his notes, rendered her martyrdom from the Greek. After him Baronius transferred the same Saint from the Greeks into the Roman Martyrology, citing in his notes for her and for her passion the Menology which he was accustomed to use, that is to say, the Sirletian. From these things therefore we gather that the cult of this St. Basilissa was carried over from the Greeks to the Latins.
[4] Her Acts, such as they are, The year of the martyrdom we do not know; that it happened under Diocletian is affirmed by Galesinius, Baronius, and the Basilian Menology, but not by the great Menaea, which name no emperor. The wrestling-ground of the martyrdom is recorded to have been Nicomedia. The things concerning the Acts which have been transmitted to posterity consist almost entirely of torments, as we have already seen; to which the said Menaea, narrating them a little more fully, add miracles. But these two things are more easily believed when they are supported by suitable authority, since in apocryphal Acts similar things not seldom occur. I now subjoin the Saint's Acts from the great printed Menaea, which, rendered into Latin, sound thus: The persecution raging under Alexander, governor of Nicomedia, Basilissa, being accused, is set before him: and when he saw her constant in the Christian profession, he orders her face to be beaten.
[5] we give He ordered the Martyr, meanwhile giving thanks to God, to be stripped over her whole body and beaten with rods: and amid this torment, when she still rendered ampler thanks to God, the governor, seeing her fortitude and constancy, driven into a fury, orders her to be beaten more atrociously; and so they beat her over the whole body that the whole was one wound. Then he also flayed the soles of her feet: and while she again cried out: O my God, I give thanks to thee, the governor ordered her ankles to be pierced: and this done, they fastened hooks in her, and with chains, her head inverted, hung her up, and beneath her kindled a pyre, and heaped on pitch, sulphur, bitumen and lead, that by the force of the torments and the stench of the smoke she might expire as soon as possible.
[6] from the Menaea But when the Saint amid these torments gave thanks to God, no otherwise than as if she were amid the delights of paradise; and the governor saw that the tortures were reckoned by her as sport, he sees to it that a furnace be kindled, and the Martyr be put into it. And when the flame was already pouring forth, the Martyr signed herself with the cross, and, entering into the midst of the fire, remained in it for many hours unharmed, while all stood astounded at this spectacle. Then indeed the governor let loose upon her, when she had been led out of the furnace, two huge lions: which likewise did not harm the Saint at her prayer. All which things being witnessed, the governor, astonished and stricken with compunction over the judgments of God, cast himself at the Saint's feet, saying: Have mercy on me, Handmaid of the heavenly King, God, and pardon me all the evils that I have brought upon thee, and make me a soldier in the pay of thy King, if, as thou sayest, he receives sinners.
[7] Then the Saint, thanks having been given to almighty God, instructed the governor in the Christian faith, printed. and led him into the church to Antony the bishop to be baptized. After this, cast down again at the Saint's feet, Handmaid of God, he said, pray for me, that God may pardon me what I have sinned against thee, and that I may end this present life in the confession of the true faith. The Saint therefore praying for him, Alexander, glorifying and blessing the Lord, rendered up his spirit to God. Then the Saint, his funeral being cared for, withdrew with the bishop about the third milestone from the city; and when she had found a rock, she stood upon it, and, prayers being poured forth, a fountain leaped up: and when she had drunk of it, and given thanks to God, having gone forward a little from there, Lord, she said, receive my spirit in peace. Having thus spoken, her knees set upon the ground, exulting with joy and blessing God, she set out to the Lord. And when Antony the prelate learned this, he paid her the due rites, building a monument beside the rock, from which the water going forth at the Saint's prayers confers healings unto this present day.
[8] A conjecture concerning the bishop Antony named above. Among the bishops of the metropolitan church of Nicomedia no Antony appears who could bear upon this, in Michael le Quien's posthumous Work entitled Oriens Christianus, vol. 1: for the election of the Antony who is there found at column 594 is fastened to the year of Christ 1035. What if that Antony above was thrust into the Menaea in place of Anthimus, who has his place among the said prelates at col. 583, and was already sitting, as is there read, before Diocletian's edict against all Christians was promulgated: seeing that Eusebius relates that he underwent martyrdom and was beheaded in the very beginnings of the Diocletianic persecution, that is, in the year of Christ CCCIV, bk. 8, ch. 6. Wherefore the martyrdom of Anthimus is rightly assigned in the Paschal Chronicle to the XIX year of Diocletian. That prelate is treated by us at the XXVII day of April, on which he stands in the Roman Martyrology; but there we fastened his martyrdom to the year CCCII.
Annotatatalosque*.