[Χμας repost]
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oday is St. Lucy’s day. Standard reference sources say that
all we know of Lucy is that she lived in Syracuse and was martyred during the
Diocletian persecutions of 304 CE. So the Britannica,
so the Catholic Encyclopedia, so Wikipedia. I have no idea on what they
base this claim. There’s supposed to be a late fourth-century (CE) inscription
in Syracuse supporting this, but I haven’t been able to get the text of it
anywhere, and it appears that all it says is that her feast day was 13 December
even back then. Even this minimal claim seems to be a considerable
overstatement, unless there is something more substantial than her name
appearing in ancient lists of martyred Christians.
Where evidence is lacking legend rushes in. And so it is with
Lucy. Thus we read in Pedro de Ribadeneyra’s Lives of Saints with Other Feasts of the Year According to the Roman
Calendar (Ioachim Carlier, 1669) “The glorious Virgin and Martyr Saint
Lucy, was born of honorable, and rich parents in the city Syracosa in Sicily. She
was a Christian from her Infancy, and much inclined to all things of vertue and
piety especially to conserue the purity of her soul, and to offer to God the
flower of her Virginity.”
These things—her parents being rich and honorable, for
example—aren’t really data, so much as the stage-machinery necessary to make
the legend work. Or, to look at things the other way round, they are details
deducible from the subsequent course of events. And the setup continues: “Her
father being dead, her mother, who was called Eutychia, against the will of the
damzel, promised to marry her to a yong Gentleman of prime quality, although a
Pagan; but she went on deferring it, and seeking occasion to hinder it from
taking effect.”
The version of Christianity that won out made a big thing of
virginity. It was a way for showing contempt for the flesh—for the physical
world. (Other versions seem to have shown their contempt for the flesh by
indulging it, to judge from the condemnation of both pagan and Christian
sources, but we have to infer their beliefs from the invective of their
opponents. Sorry about that, Carpocrates.) In ordinary terms, easily graspable
by most present-day Christians, Lucy’s father had left her money and/or
property so she could make a good marriage and live the rest of her life in
reasonable comfort. Eutychia looked around for just such a good match, and
promised her to a likely young guy with good prospects.
This is the way things have been done for generations. I don’t
say they’re right, but they are how our forebears managed their affairs.
Marriage was an alliance between families, arranged by the parents, and
essentially a financial transaction. At least that’s how it was until some wise
guys decided to redefine marriage a few hundred years back. Literature from Romeo and Juliet to Love and Friendship to Fiddler
on the Roof derived conflict from the effects of this redefinition.
Lucy was faced with a familiar dilemma—familial duty vs. love,
with the twist being that this love was not carnal, but the spiritual love of
her lord and savior. She needed a way out. “And our Lord presented her with a
very fit one,” according to de Ribadeneyra, “by sending her mother Eutychia a
long and troublesom flux of blood, which lasted her four years, without finding
any remedy in Physitians and medecins.” Good move, Jesus. Afflict the mother
with something incurable—there’s a miracle for you. A very Christlike thing to
do.
“Then it happened,” (and now we’re switching to St. Ælfric’s
account, as translated by W. W. Skeat) “at the mass, that the gospel was read
how the woman was healed, that had a flux of blood, when she touched the
Saviour’s robe.” Lucy seized her chance. “Then said Lucy, full of faith, to her
mother, ‘'If thou believest, mother, this well-known gospel, believe that
Agatha has merited something from Christ, since she suffered for His name that
she might ever behold Him in her presence, in eternal bliss. Touch now her
tomb, and thou shalt soon be whole.’”
This plan they carried out, and Lucy was assured by St. Agatha
that her mother was now healed. (Agatha of course had long since died, but
dreams were apparently considered valid methods communication in this world.)
Lucy seized on this fortunate occurrence to promote her scheme. “Mother,” she
said (and these speeches come from the Caxton-Elliot translation of The Golden Legend), “ye be guerished and
all whole; I pray you for her sake by whose prayers ye be healed, that ye never
make mention to me for to take an husband ne spouse, but all that good that ye
would give me with a man, I pray you that ye will give it to me for to do alms
withal that I may come to my saviour Jesu Christ.”
Eutychia replied, “Fair daughter, thy patrimony, which I have
received this nine years, sith thy father died, I have nothing aminished, but I
have multiplied and increased it; but abide till I am departed out of this
world, and then forthon do as it shall please thee.”
“Sweet mother, hear my counsel: he is not beloved of God, that
for his love giveth that which he may not use himself, but if thou wilt find
God debonair to thee, give for him that which thou mayest dispend, for after
thy death thou mayest in no wise use thy goods. That which thou givest when
thou shalt die, thou givest it because thou mayest not bear it with thee. Give
then for God's sake whiles thou livest: and as to such good as thou oughtest to
give to me with an husband or spouse, begin to give all that to your people for
the love of Jesu Christ.”
Apparently this now sounded like a good idea to Eutychia, or
maybe Lucy just kept at her until she was fresh out of reason, but however it
went Eutychia started selling off the jewels and land left for Lucy’s benefit,
and Lucy had the pleasure of distributing necessities to the poor. One
apparently quite recent account has it that when taking food down in the
catacombs for the persecuted Christians hiding there she would wear a wreath
with candles on it around her head to find her way—presumably a retrojection of
the modern practice into the ancient story. They gave to the “poor and to
strangers, to widows and exiles, and wise servants of God” (according to
Ælfric), a form of wealth redistribution that would have infuriated de Sade,
his disciple Ayn Rand, and the mad tea partiers alike. The old accounts say
nothing of what tests they administered to the recipients—did they have them
pee into a cup, or what?—but those widows and wise servants of God must have
been living it up on Lucy’s inheritance.
In time word came to the ears of the guy Lucy was supposed to
marry. He went (according to The Golden
Legend) to Lucy’s nurse to try to find out what the hell was going on. She
told him they were selling off their stuff because they’d come up with
something “which had a more fairer and nobler heritage than his was, the which
they would buy tofore ere they should assemble by marriage.” The guy helped
them out, but “when he understood that she gave all for God's love … he felt
himself deceived” and turned her in to the authorities.
Dragged before the Governor, Paschasius, Lucy defended herself
as best she could. Sabine Baring-Gould observes “The Acts contain the
particulars of a long discussion between the judge and the virgin, which bears
a family resemblance to all other such discussions, and which, if genuine,
would oblige the reader to believe that all early Christian martyrs were
imbecile, and all their judges fools.” Ælfric observes “Then was Paschasius
wroth, and they spake much, until he promised her a beating if she would not be
silent.” Not content with that he moved on to threatening rape, and then to
attempting to burn her alive, without success. Lucy simply refused to either be
raped or set on fire. Baffled by her noncooperation Paschasius finally simply
ordered a soldier to cut her throat, which for some reason worked when the other
expedients failed.
And so passed Lucy of Syracuse on the 13 day of December.
Sabine Baring-Gould observes, “It is not improbable that a virgin Lucy did
suffer at Syracuse, and died by the sword, but the Acts are worthless.” A
couple of centuries before Pedro de Ribadeneyra felt a bit more confident,
saying “the story of her life and Martyrdom is taken out of very ancient, and
authentical books,” though he notes that he does not know why she is “commonly
painted with her eyes in a dish, which she holds in her hands”, nor does the
story recount “that she plucked out her eyes to deliuer herself from a
lasciuious yong man who persecuted her, as some do write.” Personally I’m not
even that confident that she ever existed. And yet she is still celebrated, even
if none of his really have the faintest idea why. There’s glory for you, of a
sort.
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