Saint Pelagia of Antioch

Under the empire of Theodosius the Younger (408-450), the most holy patriarch of Antioch, Maximian, assembled a Synod of bishops for certain particular affairs of his province . The blessed Nonnus Le bienheureux Nonne Bishop of Edessa whose preaching converted Pelagia. , who, because of his eminent holiness, had been drawn from his solitary life to be placed on the episcopal see of Edessa Édesse Birthplace of Saint Simeon in Syria. , being among these prelates, was requested by the others to give them a spiritual exhortation. He delivered it at the door of the church of the martyr Saint Julian; while his listeners were hanging on his every word, Pelagia, the foremost and most debauched of the actresses of the city of Antioch, passed by, elegantly dressed, covered in pearls, gold, and precious stones, the brilliance of which dazzled the eyes of everyone, and followed by an infinity of other people who were also very richly adorned, in order to make her procession more pompous. She was a woman of such ravishing beauty that one could not tire of looking at her; the more one looked at her, the more one discovered graces and charms in her bearing and in her face. She always wore such excellent perfumes that she perfumed the places through which she passed. She had her head bare and her breast uncovered with an immodesty that went as far as impudence. In a word, she lacked nothing to attract admirers and seduce hearts the least sensitive to voluptuousness. As soon as the bishops perceived her in this state, they turned their heads to the other side so as not to see her when she passed, lamenting within themselves the loss of this soul. Only the preacher looked at her fixedly and followed her with his eyes as far as he could. After which, addressing his brethren, he said to them, his eyes bathed in tears: "Have you considered the beauty and the ornaments of this creature? Alas! Our Lord will use her to condemn our negligence in the functions of our ministry: for what care does she not take to adorn and adjust herself to please mortal men? She employs all her time in this, it is the entire occupation of her mind, her heart, and her hands. She is always applied to finding new inventions to make herself more and more agreeable, and to make herself loved by those who are today, and who perhaps will no longer be tomorrow. And we, who have a God of infinite majesty, an immortal Spouse whom the angels never cease to contemplate, whose beauty the sun and the moon admire, and who has promised great rewards to those who will serve Him faithfully; we, who are enlightened by these beautiful lights, we neglect the embellishment of our souls; and, through an unbearable cowardice, leave them all languishing and covered with an infinity of stains that make them hideous in the eyes of our heavenly Father." As soon as he had finished speaking, he retired to his room; there, abandoning himself again to groans, he prostrated himself on the ground to ask God for forgiveness for the cowardice with which he had served Him until then: "Forgive, Lord," he said, "this miserable sinner; I confess that the care this woman takes to adorn her body surpasses everything I have done to embellish my soul, although I have so often had the honor of appearing at the altar before your divine Majesty. She has promised that she would spare nothing to please men, and she does not fail in her word; and I, who have promised you so many times to make myself agreeable to your divine Majesty, I waver in my resolutions, and, through a laziness that I now condemn, I have deceived you, and have not had the courage to execute what I had promised you."

The following Sunday, the blessed Nonnus having been requested by the patriarch to give an instruction to the people after the Gospel, he spoke with such vehemence of the horror of sin, the fearful judgment of God, and the reward prepared for those who serve Him during their lives, that he drew tears from all his listeners. Pelagia, by a visible effect of divine mercy upon her, had never entered the church and had not come that day with the intention of converting and leaving her wicked life, but rather to see and be seen. However, she felt so touched by the words of the holy prelate that, after weeping bitterly for her sins like the others, she resolved to expiate them through sincere penance. Having retired to her house, she wrote him this note: "To the holy disciple of Jesus Christ, from the sinner and disciple of the demon. I have heard it said of your God that He descended from the heavens, not to save the just, but sinners; that He humbled Himself to the point of conversing with publicans, and that He did not even disdain to speak with a sinful woman of Samaria. If you are a disciple of such a Master, do not despise a poor sinner who desires to speak to you in order to convert." The bishop received this letter; but, fearing that the demon might use the artifice of this woman to surprise him, he sent her this reply: "Whoever you may be, you are known to God, who penetrates the depths of your heart and your intention; take care not to wish to tempt the frailty of a sinful man, who has the advantage of being the servant of the almighty God; if you have a sincere will to convert, you may come to see me in the presence of the other bishops; for I do not believe I should grant you a private audience, so as not to expose myself to the malice of the demon."

Pelagia had no sooner read these words than she ran to the church of Saint Julian; and there, finding Nonnus with the other assembled bishops, she threw herself at his feet in their presence, kissed them, and watered them with her tears, then, after publicly confessing that her whole life was nothing but sin, she conjured him to imitate the gentleness of Our Lord Jesus Christ and to have the kindness to make her a Christian. The bishop, having obliged her to rise, told her that it was forbidden by the Canons to baptize a public sinner unless she first provided persons who could testify that she was firmly resolved never to return to her wicked life. To this objection, she prostrated herself again on the ground and begged him with admirable fervor not to delay granting the grace she requested, adding that if he refused to wash her promptly in the salutary waters of Baptism, she would hold him responsible at the judgment of God for the salvation of her soul. These words, interrupted by sighs and sobs, which she animated with a lively faith, made the bishops judge that, her penance being genuine, they could relax the ecclesiastical discipline in her favor and confer upon her the first Sacrament of the Church: this is why they sent to the patriarch to ask for deaconesses to whose care she could be entrusted. Romana, who held the first rank among them, was immediately assigned to this function. Having arrived at the holy temple, she still found Pela gia at Romaine Roman virgin baptized by Sylvester. the feet of the bishops, from where she had much difficulty in drawing her away to have her exorcised. Then, the blessed Nonnus asked her for her name; she replied that her parents had named her Pelagia, but that those of Antioch nicknamed her Margaret, because of the great quantity of pearls with which she ordinarily adorned herself in order to please men. She was then exorcised, according to the ceremonies of the Church, then the bishop conferred Baptism upon her and laid his hands upon her to confirm her. Finally, her penance appeared so marvelous that he even judged it appropriate to give her the body of Our Lord Jesus Christ. After which, he left her under the guidance of Romana to be more fully instructed in the mysteries of religion.

This change produced very different effects on people's minds. The servants of God gave thanks to His mercy, while the libertines did not cease to regret the loss of a creature whose charms had pleased them so greatly. The demon himself, who was losing such a beautiful conquest, made a horrible voice heard to complain of the holy bishop, who, not content with having snatched from him thirty thousand Saracens and all the inhabitants of the city of Heliopolis, converted by his preaching, was now taking from him Pelagia, who was his greatest glory. Thus, this spirit of darkness employed all kinds of artifices to try to plunge her back into disorder; but, by the sign of the cross that the holy prelate had commanded her to make every time this spirit of darkness tempted her, she always triumphed over his malice.

Three days after her baptism, she gave Saint Nonnus all her precious garments, her go ld, her sil saint Nonne Bishop of Edessa whose preaching converted Pelagia. ver, her jewels, and everything that had served her vanity, begging him to distribute them to the poor, the widows, and the orphans, without reserving anything for any use, however holy it might be, so that the fruit of her crimes and the riches of a public sinner might become a treasure of justice, to repair the scandal she had given to the people. She also freed all her slaves of both sexes, exhorting them to take advantage of their freedom, not to submit to the servitude of sin and the iniquity of the world, but to serve God and lead a Christian life. On the eighth day, when she was to leave the white robe with which she had been clothed at baptism, she took a rough hairshirt with a poor man's tunic, and, unknown to Romana, her mistress in the faith, she secretly left the city of Antioch and retired to Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives, where she built herself a cell that received sunlight only throu gh a smal Jérusalem Holy city where the Cross was lost and subsequently recovered. l opening. She lived there for three or four years, under the name of Pelagius, in the exercises of a perfect penitence. At the end of that time, a deacon of the blessed Nonnus, named James, came to visit the holy places, and, having inquired, according to the order of his bishop, about the sol itary P Jacques Deacon to Bishop Nonnus and biographer of Saint Pelagia. elagius, he found our penitent in that hermitage. He did not recognize her, because she was so emaciated by austerities that nothing remained of her former beauty. After giving her the recommendations of the holy prelate, he traveled through all the monasteries of Palestine, where he heard Pelagius spoken of as a prodigy of holiness. This high esteem in which he was held gave him the desire to return to his cell to have the consolation of speaking to him once more; but he found him dead. He notified the solitaries, who came immediately to give him burial. They were very astonished to learn that it was a woman, and the news of this wonder, which spread at that very hour in the surrounding places, attracted to her funeral a large number of religious and virgins from the monasteries of Jericho and the Jordan; they came to perform the ceremony with candles and lit lamps, giving glory to God for having given a woman the courage to perform such a harsh penance.

She is represented: 1° in her solitude, praying before a crucifix; 2° receiving instructions from a bishop, then retiring to a convent; 3° with the clothing of a worldly woman, covered in richly embroidered fabrics; 4° after her conversion, dressed in a black costume and with a thoroughly Christian gravity; here her head is surrounded by the halo, an attribute of her holiness.

## CULT AND RELICS.

The cult of Saint Pelagia became famous in the East and in the West. The Greeks marked her feast in their menologion on October 8. The Roman Martyrology and Ussard place it on the same day. It is claimed that her body was brought to France, several centuries after her death, and deposited in the royal and famous Abbey of Jouarre, in the diocese of Meaux, an abbey of which only the church towers and the abbey church remain. But in the old cemetery of the parish church, one can still see, leaning against a chapel, a magnificent crypt designated by the name of *Sainte Chapelle de Jouarre*. One first descends five steps and finds oneself in a forecourt supported by terrace walls; nine other steps lead into the enclosure. The vault is supported by six Corinthian columns, different in design: two are of alabaster, two others of porphyry, and two of jasper. This place served as a church for the first Christians; some even suffered martyrdom there. One sees seven tombs there: one of the founder of the abbey, another of Saint Theodechilde, the first abbess; the others of several Saints; among the latter was undoubtedly that of Saint Pelagia. Every year, the populations flocked to the processions where these venerated reliquaries are carried, which the inhabitants were able to save from the outrages of the Revolution.

However, we read in the *Life of the Saints of the Diocese of Dijon* that around the year 1463, relics of Saint Pelagia, the famous penitent of Antioch, were brought from the East, along with relics of Saint Julian, martyr of Alexandria, and Saint Macarius of Egypt, by the Counts of Armagne, lords of Mont-Saint-Jean, and deposited in the church of this town, in the current deanery of Pontily. Preserved with jealous care and surrounded by pious tributes, they are celebrated every year by an eager gathering of priests and faithful.

See her life written by James, dea con of Heliopolis and report Jacques, diacre d'Héliopolis Deacon to Bishop Nonnus and biographer of Saint Pelagia. ed by Surius; Baillet; the *History of the Church of Anton*; *Life of the Saints of Dijon*, by Abbé Duplus.