Saint Martha

After this first encounter, Saint John, in his Gospel, reports a second one where, on one hand, the love of Jesus Christ for Saint Martha, and on the other, the eminent virtue of this holy woman, appeared with great brilliance. This occurred on the occasion of the illness and death of her brother L azarus Lazare Brother of Martha, raised from the dead by Christ at Bethany. , which took place in her house in Beth Béthanie Place of residence and the first burial site of Lazarus in Judea. any. Martha showed her trust in Jesus Christ, her resignation to the will of God, and her invincible patience when, seeing this dear brother ill, she was content to send word to Our Lord of the situation, without asking Him to heal him, nor to come see him, nor to give her any consolation herself. She showed her respect and devotion for this divine Master when, learning that He was approaching Bethany, she immediately left the most notable among the Jews, who had come to console her, to go and meet Him, and even went outside the gates of the town to pay Him greater honor. She showed the greatness of her faith when she protested that she believed: firstly, that if Our Lord had been present, her brother would not have died; secondly, that he would rise again on the last day, that is to say, at the time of the end of the ages; thirdly, that Our Lord was the Son of the living God, that His Father had sent Him into the world to be its Savior and Redeemer; and that, as He was the resurrection and the life, He had the power to resurrect her brother then and there, even though he had been dead for four days.

A confession that appears no less elevated or generous than the one the Eternal Father inspired in Saint Peter, and which earned that Apostle the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Thus, Our Lord, "who loved Martha," as Saint John says, *diligebat Martham*, had regard for her desires; and, having gone to the tomb of Lazarus, He brought him out alive from the bosom of death. The tears of Magdalene undoubtedly contributed to this great miracle; but the faith of Martha contributed no less, especially since it was Martha who warned Magdalene of the coming of their Master, and who brought her to Him, so that they might more easily obtain together what one alone did not deem herself worthy to obtain.

After this, we have only one more word about our Saint in the Gospel: Our Lord having one day been invited to supper in Bethany, Martha was the one who served at the table: *Martha ministrabat*: which shows that this excellent woman had a particular inclination for these tasks, which appear humiliating in the eyes of men, and took regular pleasure in serving others. Baronius, in the year 34 of his *Annales*, writes that she was among those pious women who followed Jesus Christ to Calvary on the day of his Passion, and who, having gone to his tomb on the third day, had the happiness of seeing him in the state of his glorious Resurrection. It also seems very probable to us that this good Master visited her sometimes in Bethany during the forty days he remained on earth before his Ascension. But above all, we have noted, according to Saint Luke, that he traveled there and even brought his disciples on the day he wished to ascend to heaven. From this, it is easy to conclude that Martha was present at this final action of his great journey on earth, and that she then received his last external and sensible blessing, along with all the disciples. One may also very reasonably believe that she accompanied the Blessed Virgin in the Upper Room when the Holy Spirit, on the day of Pentecost, descended there in the form of fire, and that he filled all those present, not only with the abundance of his graces but also with his divine person, and that thus she shared in this inestimable favor; or, if she was not there, she certainly received the same gift through the laying on of hands by the Apostles, who then extended it to all the disciples.

It is not necessary to repeat here what happened to her in Judea after the fulfillment of these great mysteries. One may see, in the life of Saint Mary Magdalene, how she was persecuted by the Jews, and how, after having suffered an infinity of hardships and traps, she was finally placed in a vessel without sails, without oars, without a pilot, and without provisions, to perish miserably in the middle of the sea. But God, who had destined her to bring the first rays of the faith into Gaul, preserved her from this shipwreck, which appeared inevitable, and happily brought her to the port of Marseille; there, having been received by the inhabitants with kindness, she worked for some time on their conversion. Afterward, she went to Aix, to Avignon, and to other surrounding places, where she employed all her power to enlighten these idolatrous lands, corrupted by the vices of paganism, with the lights of the Gospel.

There appeared at that time, on the banks of the Rhône, in the vicinity of the city of Arles, a horrible dragon which, being half land animal and half fish, caused great harm on land and in the river; for, hiding in the water, it would capsize passing vessels to swallow the passengers; and, moreover, it would make forays into the neighboring forest, where it would slaughter and devour all the men it encountered. The inhabitants lived in the most austere penance. Her bed was a bundle of vine shoots; her body wore a belt of horsehair, filled with knots, and a hairshirt that tore her flesh. Herbs and wild fruits were her only food; nevertheless, we see that, in her hermitage, she still found the means to practice hospitality with the gifts that were offered to her. Many Christians were soon formed following her preaching, and the faithful came to bring numerous gifts to her retreat which were used to practice hospitality toward strangers. Historians suggest that the replenishment of the small community's provisions was also done by miraculous means, and that she never experienced difficulty in feeding the faithful who flocked to her solitude; she was assuredly one of the first Christians to have begun this life of mendicancy that Christianity has always glorified, and that many faithful have practiced since and still practice today. Moreover, she did not live alone in this solitude; her other companions shared it; all prayed together and went into all the neighboring places to preach Jesus Christ; thus, all the cities that surround Tarascon claim Saint Martha today as their apostle. It is during this retreat, in what the historians of the time call the desert of Tarascon, that she miraculously caused the death o Tarascon Principal site of the apostolate and burial of Saint Martha. f the monster so famous in history under the name of the Tarasque Tarasque Legendary monster tamed by Saint Martha. .

The sweetness of the solitude in which Saint Martha lived, as well as the ardor of her faith, was bound to draw toward this retreat the new Christians who were born every day to the rays of this apostolate; it is held as certain that Martha gathered a great number of them around her, making them live under the rule of a community that she directed; these companions of Martha, whose daughters, under so many different habits, fill Christendom today, thus inaugurated among Christians the cenobitic life, supported by the vows that are its foundation; the religious men and women of the Holy Spirit even claim to trace their origins back to the institution of Saint Martha, and claim her as their direct founder; although this claim is not sufficiently justified, it is nevertheless worth pausing over; the establishment, by Saint Martha, of the first example of cenobitic life is a fact important enough to be sufficiently discussed; the Hospitaller Knights have a breviary of which an edition from 1553 is possessed; one reads there, in a lesson of the office of Saint Martha, the curious following passage: *Dum autem Magdalena devotioni et contemplationi se totam exponeret, Lazarus quoque plus militia vacaret, Martha prudens et sororis et fratris partes strenue gubernabat, et militibus ac famulis sedule ministrabat.* "While Magdalene was entirely devoted to prayer and contemplation, and Lazarus was occupied more especially with military matters, the prudent Martha actively directed the affairs of her brother and sister, and gave all her care to the soldiers and servants."

The knights commented on this passage with the following tradition, which their Order is said to have preserved: "Lazarus," they said, "had founded in Jerusalem a militia of which he was the leader, which had the mission of protecting pilgrims in their visits to the holy places." They claim that upon arriving in France, Lazarus reconstituted this Order, and that Martha, occupying herself actively with it, provided for the needs of the soldiers.

Be that as it may, the religious men and women of the hospital have always worn the cross of Saint Martha with two branches, and even give, VIES DES SAINTS. — TOME IX. on the origin of this cross, which has always been one of the attributes of the figure of Saint Martha, the following explanation: According to them, the vertical branch of this cross represented the brother, the two arms represented the two sisters; the whole of the cross thus being the symbol of their association; it is certain, moreover, that this saint wore it herself. The oldest bas-reliefs represent her thus, and until the Revolution, there was always kept, in the church of Tarascon, a copper cross with two horizontal arms, which was claimed to have been used by Saint Martha herself; all the inventories of the church treasury mention it, and that of 1487 in these terms: "A brass cross, which it is asserted that Saint Martha had when she took the Tarasque." This institution by Saint Martha of the first community of virgins that Christendom had seen is recorded in the Roman breviary. The Bollandists provide several affirmative testimonies of it.

Saint Maximin Saint Maximin Abbot of the monastery of Micy. , who was the intermediary between Magdalene and Martha, instructed the latter, it is said, in the wonders accomplished by her sister, and filled her with joy. One day he left Aix, moved by divine inspiration, to visit Martha and converse with her; he had no other design than to sanctify himself by the sight of her, and to bring back to the grotto of Magdalene his joy and edification. But God led him. At the same moment, Trophimus, Bishop of Arles, and Eutropius, Bishop of Orange, were also leaving for Tarascon, animated by the simple desire to see the saint; these three bishops thus found themselves gathered, by the hand of God, in the house of Saint Martha. Then, by a common inspiration and fulfilling the mission for which God had gathered them without their knowledge, they consecrated as a church, and dedicated to the Savior, the house of the Saint. It is thus that we have seen the Apostles consecrate, as a church, the houses of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, at Bethany.

It was the second time that Martha saw her dwelling, sanctified by her presence, become the house of God. This memory of ancient times and the solemnity of this day filled her heart and that of her companions with joy; she insistently kept the venerable pontiffs and served them as she had done all her life, as she had so many times served the Savior himself. And this memorable day did not end without a signal miracle having manifested the presence of Jesus Christ in the midst of his friends.

The provisions of the community were never very abundant. Saint Martha fed only on the herbs of the fields, and had only the gifts offered by the faithful to offer her guests. It seems that God had inspired others with the same thought of visiting her, for the historian tells us "that many other people were among the guests, and that the wine ran out." The Saint, knowing the presence of Jesus, orders water to be drawn in the name of Jesus Christ, and the miracle of Cana was renewed. "The bishops having tasted it," says Rabanus Maurus naively, "perceived that it had been changed into an excellent Raban Maur Abbot of Fulda and Archbishop of Mainz, builder of the church of Wigbert. wine." Then they resolved to consecrate, by a feast, the memory of this miracle and of this solemn dedication; they therefore instituted this feast of December 17, which the church celebrated until 1187. Since then, the feast of Saint Martha has been placed on July 29. One may regret the abandonment of the solemnity of December 17, commemorative of a brilliant miracle, and which had been celebrated for eleven centuries; but when the relics of Saint Martha were discovered, hidden during the ravages of the Saracens, a tradition was recalled, a little uncertain since, but alive in the 12th century, which fixed the death of the saint to this date. A great stir had been thrown into the whole country by the discovery of this holy body, several parts of which were still covered with their flesh. The enthusiasm provoked the institution of a new feast, which the churches adopted successively; nevertheless, the church of Tarascon, faithful to all the memories of the apostolate of its patroness, has continued to celebrate both feasts, and has not forgotten the first institution, made by three Apostles gathered under the inspiration of God himself, to be witnesses of a miracle that recalled one of the first accomplished by Our Lord Jesus Christ. Another church, to whom this memory should have been even dearer, preserved this feast of December 17 until its destruction. The church of Bethany, in celebrating the feast of December 17, had joined, in this same solemnity, the memory of the brother and the two sisters, and honored, on the same day, Lazarus, Martha, and Mary Magdalene.

When Martha saw the bishops depart and return to their dioceses, she addressed Maximin, and, filled with thoughts of her dear Magdalene, lost to her for so many years, asked him to be once more the messenger of her memories to her sister; Martha, amidst the fatigues of her apostolate, had forgotten neither Bethany nor Magdalum; and her respect for Magdalene's retreat was always the great sacrifice of her life; thus, feeling by a divine light that the end of her career was approaching, she prayed Maximin to obtain from Magdalene a single visit before her death; she asked to see her once more on this earth, to hold in her arms again this sister, who had always been her daughter, and to bid her a final farewell; Mary sent her sister the most touching testimonies of her affection and promised to satisfy her desire.

The bishops of Aix, Arles, and Orange were not the only ones to visit Saint Martha; the name and works of this saint were known from afar, and the companions of her journey, after having left her on the shores of the Mediterranean, eagerly gathered everything that was told of her.

Saint George and Saint Front therefore met in Tarascon to see their old companion again, to speak with her of days past, and to be edified by the spectacle of such great holiness.

Saint Martha received her old companions with joy. They remained with her until it was possible to return to their dioceses, where a violent persecution had arisen. It was then that she bade Saint Front a solemn farewell and said to him these memorable words: "Bishop of Périgueux, know that ne xt year I s saint Front Bishop of Aquitaine who miraculously attended the funeral of Martha. hall leave this mortal body and abandon this earth; I beg your holiness to come and bury me." The holy bishop promised her, just as Magdalene had promised to visit her sister: "My daughter," he said to her, "I shall attend your funeral myself, if God wills it and I live."

The bishops having departed, the Saint gathered around her the companions of her retreat, and, solemnly announcing to them the end of her apostolate, warned them that her passing would occur at the end of a year. Our Lord, to purify her further and give her the means to merit a more glorious crown, sent her a fever that lasted all year. During this time, she prepared herself to receive her divine Spouse well and to appear before his eyes adorned with all virtues.

Meanwhile, Magdalene, delivered from her mortal prison, had ascended to heaven. Historians recount that Jesus Christ himself came, accompanied by angels, to take his beloved into the heavenly dwelling. It is said that at the same moment, it was granted to Martha to see, from her bed of pain, the choirs of angels leading the soul of her sister to heaven, and that, full of faith and emotion at this sight, she cried out: "My dear sister, why did you not visit me before your death, as you had promised me? Do not forget her to whom your memory is so dear." This apparition is also reported by Vincent of Beauvais, Peter of Natalibus, and others. The companions of her apostolate, full of emotion at the sight of this great miracle, gathered around her never to leave her again, and the faithful flocked from all parts around the bed of the Saint, in expectation of the wonders that were to signal the arrival in heaven of the hostess of Jesus Christ. Multitudes gathered around her dwelling; tents were pitched in the countryside, fires were lit on all sides, and the anxious crowd watched the sky, waiting for the legions of angels who were to descend to receive the blessed soul of their great saint.

The tradition of the miracles that accompanied the death of Saint Martha receives great authority from this circumstance, the gathering of an entire people around her deathbed; the wonders that the historians of the first centuries recount to us, therefore, had as witnesses not three or four privileged faithful, but an entire people.

The details given to us are so precise that one must omit none of them; the faithful camped around this funeral couch took turns near the Saint; and it was not only the virgins, her companions, who had the duty of watching over her; but several others were admitted, for history recounts that on the evening of the seventh day following the apparition of Magdalene's soul, all those who were watching over her, being overcome by sleep, fell asleep for an instant; that evening, Martha had had seven wax torches and three lamps lit; did this number, which tradition has preserved for us, have something symbolic? And if it were only the effect of chance, why would the memory of the populations have so carefully transmitted it to us? Then a great whirlwind of wind arose over the house, as on the day of Pentecost; but it was not God who was arriving, it was the demon who was extinguishing all the lights; the saint, enlightened by divine intelligence, understood it, and arming herself with the sign of the cross, fought the enemy through prayer, after which, waking her sleeping guardians, she asked them to relight the candles and lamps; as they had gone out to seek lights, a supernatural brightness descended from heaven, the room was suddenly illuminated, and Magdalene, Mary Magdalene herself, appearing beside her sister and miraculously relighting what the demon had extinguished, approached Martha and said to her: "Dear sister, I visit you before your death, as you had me asked by the holy pontiff Maximin; but here is the Savior himself who comes to recall you from this valley of misery; come then and do not delay."

We have not wished to change anything in these naive discourses consecrated by the popular memory of so many centuries; the historian who reports them adds that the Savior himself approached the bed of his hostess, and looking at her with a very gentle air, said to her: "Here I am, I, whom you once assisted with your goods with such devotion, I, to whom you have given hospitality so many times with such care, and to whom, since my passion, you have done so much good in the person of my members; it is I myself, at whose feet, prostrated once, you said: I believe that you are the Messiah, Son of the living God; come then, holy hostess of my pilgrimage, come from exile, come receive the crown"; and as Martha strove to rise to follow the Savior: "Wait," he said to her, "I am going to prepare a place for you; I will return again, and I will receive you to myself so that, where I am, you may be yourself with me." Then the Savior disappeared; Mary, "smiling gently at her sister," also disappeared.

The companions of Martha found, upon their return, the room miraculously illuminated, and learned what signal wonder had just occurred in this sacred place. Saint Martha ordered that she be transported outside, into the open air, to satisfy the assembled people and continue her apostolate until her last breath. Time, however rapid it might be, did not advance at her will. They chose, in the middle of the tents, a bushy tree under which they spread straw; on this straw they placed a hairshirt, and traced a cross on it with ash. At sunrise, the servant of Jesus Christ was transported there; then, at her request, they raised before her an image of the crucified Savior. There, after a little rest, casting her eyes on the multitude of the faithful, she asked them to accelerate by their prayers the moment of her deliverance; and while the crowd melted into tears, Martha raising her eyes to heaven: "O my host," she said, "why, O Lord, my Savior, why do you delay so long in coming? When shall I come and appear before your face? Since you spoke to me this morning, my soul has as if melted within me; since that moment, in the desire to possess you, all my limbs have stiffened, my nerves are as if paralyzed, my bones arid and dried to the marrow and all my entrails are consumed. Lord, do not deprive me of my expectation! My God, do not delay! Hasten, Lord!"

While she was meditating thus, it came to her mind that she had seen the Savior expire on the cross, at the ninth hour, and that she had brought from Jerusalem the history of the passion of Jesus Christ in the Hebrew language. She therefore called Saint Parmenas, and asked him to take this writing and read it before her, in order to soften at least the weariness of her waiting. It happened as she had hoped. While she heard read in her own language the sequence of the torments of her Beloved, compassion bringing tears to her eyes, she began to weep, and, forgetting her exile for a moment, she fixed all her attention on the account of the passion, until the moment when, hearing the word of Christ who commits his spirit into the hands of his Father and dies, she herself heaved a great sigh and expired.

It was on the fourth of the calends of August that she thus fell asleep in the Lord, the eighth day after the death of her sister, Saint Magdalene, on the sixth day of the week, at the ninth hour, in the sixty-fifth year of her age.

Her companions who had come with her from the East, and had remained constantly attached to her until this day, after having embalmed her body and wrapped it with honor, deposited it in her own church. These were Saint Parmenas, Germain, Sosthenes, and Epaphras, who had been the companions of Saint Trophimus, bishop of Arles; and also Marcella, her servant, Evodia, and Syntyche. These seven persons consecrated three whole days to her funeral with a multitude of people who had come from all parts, and who sang the praises of God night and day around this holy body, lighting candles in the church, lamps in the houses, and fires in the woods.

On the day of the Sabbath, they prepared an honorable burial for her in her own church which the pontiffs had dedicated; and on the day that we call the Lord's day, at the third hour, everyone was gathered to bury this holy body with dignity, on the eve of the calends of August. And behold, at this same hour, while the pontiff Saint Front, in Périgueux, a city of Aquitaine, was about to celebrate the holy sacrifice, and while waiting for the people, he dozed in his chair, Jesus Christ appeared to him and said: "My son, come and fulfill the promise that you made to attend the funeral of Martha, my hostess." He spoke, and immediately, both in the blink of an eye appeared in Tarascon in the church, holding books in their hands, Jesus Christ at the head and the bishop at the feet of this holy body; they alone placed it in the tomb, to the great astonishment of those who were present there. The funeral accomplished, they left the church; one of the clerics followed them and asked the Lord who he was, and from where he had come. The Lord answered him nothing, but handed him the book he was holding. The cleric returned to the sepulcher, showed the book to all, and read thus on each page: "The memory of Martha, hostess of Jesus Christ, shall be eternal, she shall have nothing to fear from evil tongues." The book contained nothing else.

Meanwhile, in Périgueux, the deacon woke the pontiff, telling him in a low voice that the hour of the sacrifice was passing, and that the people were tired of waiting. "Do not be troubled," said the prelate, addressing the faithful, "and do not be angry at this delay. I have just been rapt in spirit, whether with my body or without my body, I do not know; God knows. I have been transported to Tarascon with the Lord Savior, to bury Martha the most holy, his deceased servant, according to the promise that I had made to her during her life. Therefore, send someone to bring back my ring and my gloves that I placed in the hands of the guardian of the church, when I placed this holy body in the tomb." The people were astonished upon hearing these words. They sent deputies to Tarascon. The inhabitants of that place indicated in a letter, to those of Périgueux, the day and hour of the burial which were unknown to the latter, noting to them that with their pontiff, whom they knew very well, another venerable person had been seen at the funeral; they also reported the circumstance of the book and its content, in order to know if the bishop might have any knowledge of it. Furthermore, they returned the ring that the guardian had received, as well as one of the gloves; but they kept the other as a testimony of such a great miracle.

As we have stated following Rabanus Maurus, who, in the 9th century, faithfully summarized the ancient lives of Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint Martha in a work recently published by E. Faillon, Saint Martha, having converted the people of Tarascon to the faith, settled in that place and had a house of prayer built there, that is to say, an oratory, where she lived until her death and in which she was buried. This is the current crypt of the church of Sainte-Marthe. Rabanus Maurus adds that since the day of Saint Martha's death, countless miracles have occurred in her basilica: the blind, the deaf, the mute, the lame, the paralyzed, the crippled, lepers, the possessed, and others suffering from various ailments have obtained their healing there.

Saint Martha, despite the weakening of faith, does not cease to obtain, even in our days, miraculous healings for those who come to invoke her at her tomb. A child from Beaucaire, ten years old,

Alphonse Bernavon, having been paralyzed in his legs for six months, with the paralysis being complete, urgently requested to be carried to the tomb of Saint Martha. His parents took him there on May 9, 1820; he was lowered into the lower church. At first, he was supported on his knees, and in this state, he made his prayer to Saint Martha so that she might obtain his healing from God; he was then raised to kiss the feet and hands of the Saint, sculpted on the lid of her tomb: he repeated his ardent kisses several times. Immediately, feeling enough strength to support himself, he asked to be stood upright; movement returned to his legs; he walked from the head of the tomb to the foot; encouraged by this first success, he claimed the protection of Saint Martha and gradually achieved a complete recovery, to the point that he climbed, supported by the hand of his mother and a servant purely as a precaution, the twenty-five steps from the lower church to the upper one. The four witnesses to this touching scene shed tears of joy. Since then, the child took very long walks. This event is supported by authentic attestations.

The tomb of Saint Martha still exists today; it still contains the relics of the Saint; but it is no longer visible to pilgrims, having been hidden for nearly two centuries under a large white marble state bed, which represents Saint Martha on her deathbed. However, so as not to entirely deprive the faithful and the curious of the sight of this sarcophagus, the municipal council of Tarascon, at the request of M. Boudon, pastor of Sainte-Marthe, recently had the bas-reliefs molded and had a cast-iron facsimile made, which can be seen in the upper church and which reproduces the original quite accurately. This tomb is a Christian sarcophagus in white marble, which offers on one of its faces the same subjects presented by a large number of tombs of the same style found in the catacombs of Rome. Unfortunately, the heads of the figures that existed on the foreground were all struck off when, in 1633, they wanted to enclose this ancient tomb in the state bed mentioned above; it could only fit at the expense of the heads, which were shaved off, with the exception of a few in the background, which were less prominent than the others. Nevertheless, one can still distinguish very well all the subjects represented on this tomb: they are almost the same as those seen on several ancient sarcophagi found in Rome and engraved in the collections that have been given to the public.

Despite the darkness that the Saracens, by ruining most of the churches and monasteries of Provence, spread over the history of Saint Martha, the inspection of this tomb shows that it dates back to the first centuries of Christianity, and the cult of the Saint is therefore very ancient. Moreover, Rabanus Maurus calls her church a basilica: this word then designated a church served by religious. This historian adds that the accused were forced to purge themselves by oath at the tomb of Saint Martha, and that those who perjured themselves immediately received a terrible punishment from heaven.

After saying that many sick people in general were healed in Tarascon at the tomb of Saint Martha, Rabanus Maurus adds: "Clovis, king of the Franks and Teutons, who, the first of the princes of this nation, made a profession of the Christian faith, struck by the multi tude a Clovis First king of the Franks to convert to Catholicism. nd the greatness of these miracles, came himself to Tarascon, and, hardly had he touched the tomb of this Saint, than he was delivered from a very serious kidney ailment that had tormented him intensely. In testimony of such a great miracle, he gave to God, by an act sealed with his seal, the land situated within a radius of three leagues around the church of Sainte-Marthe, on both sides of the Rhône, with the villages, castles, and woods, a domain that this Saint still possesses to this day, by a perpetual privilege." The privileges granted by Clovis to the church of Sainte-Marthe have been recognized, recalled, and renewed by several of his successors, among others by Louis XI, Charles VIII, Henry II, and Charles IX. Consequently, the city of Tarascon enjoyed until the last century a very independent municipal regime, with privileges respected or confirmed in modern times by Louis XIII and Louis XIV.

She is represented with a sprinkler in her hand, sometimes with a holy water stoup. The sprinkler might well have been, at first, in the hand of Saint Martha, only a broom, an emblem of the active life, in opposition to the contemplative tendencies of Magdalene. In some monuments, Martha tramples underfoot a monster of great ugliness, from which she delivered the land of the Provençals: this is perhaps a way of depicting paganism being broken in Gaul.

Le Sueur represented her complaining to the Lord about not being helped by Mary in the preparations for the meal; all the heads have their own character rendered with sublimity. Jouvenet also painted this subject, and, moreover, Martha at the tomb of Lazarus. This last painting, of a magnificent arrangement and very beautiful color, full of grandeur and religious spirit, was made for the church of the abbey of Sainte-Marthe; it is now in the Louvre Museum.

## CULT AND RELICS.

At the time of the Saracen invasion, the Provençals, to save the holy relics from the profanations of these barbarians, buried them in the earth. Thus the body of Saint Martha was hidden in the lower church where they have always rested and where they are still today. A white marble tablet was added, on which were engraved these words: *Hic Martha jacet*. This tablet, found with the body in 1187, was since kept in the treasury of the church of Sainte-Marthe; it disappeared during the French Revolution.

The body of Saint Martha was found without corruption, a marvel that is still palpable today in the distinguished relic of Saint Martha possessed by the church of Roujan, today in the diocese of Montpellier, and which comes from the monastery of the Canons Regular of Notre-Dame de Cassan, located in the vicinity. It is the left arm and hand of this holy body. This hand, which is thin and small, and this arm are still covered with their skin, except for a part of the arm, from which someone, out of an unregulated devotion, is said to h bras et la main gauche Notable relic preserved in Roujan. ave detached the skin that is missing; but, in this very part where it is thus emaciated, one can still see various cartilages; and furthermore, the fingers of the hand are still accompanied by their nails, all perfectly intact, with the exception of that of the thumb, which was likewise removed by an excess of devotion. This distinguished relic is enclosed in its ancient gilded silver reliquary, in the shape of a Gothic church, where are represented the figure of Saint Martha, who holds the Tarasque tied with her belt, that of Saint Mary Magdalene, her sister, and that of Saint Lazarus, her brother. This relic was offered to the religious of Cassan by an archbishop of Arles. Its preservation is owed to an inhabitant of Roujan, M. Ygounen, a former surgeon of this commune and of the convent of Cassan. He hid this precious relic and gave it in 1819 to the church of Roujan. It was on the occasion of the invention of the relics of Saint Martha that the upper church of Sainte-Marthe of Tarascon was built, which was completed in 1197. It is the birth of the Gothic style. One admires above all in this church the main nave, for the elegance of its cut and the boldness of its pillars.

In 1408, her sacred head was taken from the tomb of the Saint to be placed in a gilded silver shrine, representing the bust of Saint Martha. The ceremony of this translation took place on August 10, with the greatest solemnity. A sweet and truly heavenly odor spread through the church and perfumed the air. King Louis XI replaced this silver shrine with one of gold; this shrine was considered the richest in the kingdom. He made other considerable gifts to Sainte-Marthe and founded a royal Chapter in this church, wearing the same costume as that of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. One can see, in M. Faillon, a multitude of testimonies that other great personages have given of their devotion to Saint Martha.

In the 18th century, the church of Sainte-Marthe was enriched with seventeen paintings by Vien and two by Vanloo. It already possessed works by Mignard and Parrocel. These canvases were respected during the French Revolution. These paintings were spared, but the municipal council had to send the shrine of Saint Martha to the Mint. No one, so great was the alarm, with everyone seeking to save their life, thought to remove the head of the Saint from the shrine, nor another considerable ornament, enclosed in an arm-shaped reliquary: these distinguished relics were lost. The rest of the sacred remains of Saint Martha rested in her tomb. The enemies of religion, after having horribly mutilated the portal of the church, broken all the images of the Saints and even the tombs, resolved to also tear to pieces that of Saint Martha and to annihilate her relics. Three times they descended into the crypt; three times a secret power stopped their sacrilegious hand. A former magistrate, M. Fabre, then had the entrance to the crypt walled up and thus saved the body and the tomb of Saint Martha. In 1805, this tomb was opened, and some bones were removed and placed in a new shrine; one was placed in a gilded wooden reliquary, made in the shape of an arm; these are the holy relics that the faithful have been able to venerate since that time.

In the surroundings of Bethany, pilgrims visit, on a nearby height, the cistern of Saint Martha. It is believed that the house of this holy woman was in the same place.

We have corrected and completed Father Giry, for this life, with the well-known work of M. Faillon: *Monuments inédits sur l'apostolat de sainte Marie-Madeleine, 2 vol. in-4°, Paris, 1858, and a brochure entitled: Sainte Marthe, hôtesse de Jésus-Christ, etc., chez Douniel, Paris, 1868.*