Saint Pelagia of Antioch

It happened, however, that some enemies of our holy religion discovered her to the magistrate, and declared to him at the same time that there was no one in the whole province more remarkable for nobility, beauty, and the other qualities that recommend a young girl. Upon this report, the magistrate conceived a violent passion for her, and, finding in the Christianity of which Pelagia was accused a pretext to abduct her, he sent a troop of soldiers for that purpose.

"See," says Saint John Chrysostom, "see this delicate virgin who knew only her modest chamber; suddenly soldiers invade her, soldiers are at her door; they call her to the tribunal. No father near her, no mother at her side; neither nurse, nor servant, nor woman from the neighborhood; not a friend; she was alone in the midst of the executioners. That she could go out and answer these soldiers, these executioners, open her mouth, make her voice heard; that she had the strength to look at them, to maintain a composure, to breathe, what a prodigy, what admirable courage! This virtue did not belong to human nature; there was an excess there that came from God."

"However, the virgin was not inactive of her own accord; everything that depended on her to do, she did; she showed zeal, prudence, generosity, resolution, eagerness, and even impatience. But the success that these excellent dispositions achieved was the effect of God's help and grace from above; so that we must admire her and all together declare her Blessed; blessed, because God was her companion in arms; admire her, because she herself did not lack courage. For who would not be struck with admiration upon learning that, in less than an instant, she conceived, resolved, and accomplished a design full of terror and dread? Neither the horror of the present, nor the rapidity of the moments, nor her abandonment in the midst of snares, nor the circumstance that she was all alone in her house when they seized her—nothing, no, nothing troubled this Blessed one; one would have said that they were friends, acquaintances visiting her, so much did she maintain freedom in all her actions; this tranquility is understandable. Indeed, she was not alone, Jesus was with her, Jesus, her counsel: he was there beside her; it was he who spoke to her heart; it was he who strengthened her soul; it was he who drove away fear. And this protection was entirely just; the virgin martyr had shown herself in advance worthy of such help.

"The demon knew how to invent the means to spread his oracles in crowds on every side; he gave himself out as announcing the future in advance; and he did not foresee, he forgot to prophesy the full extent of the confusion and ridicule he would incur on this day. Who could understand any subject of derision more burlesque than what happened to the demon in this circumstance? He had the virgin caught in his nets, and he loses his prey; he held the young girl, he could not keep her; one would have said it was a shadow, not a virgin, that he had seized. It is that she united, to the simplicity of the dove, the prudence of the serpent; the simple dove let itself be caught, but the serpent, full of prudence, escaped; although she saw herself caught, she did not despair of victory; she did not let her heart or her mind be surprised, although her person was captive; she imagined an expedient, a wise combination, to thwart the thoughtless spirit of the soldiers, and to strike them, so to speak, with stupidity.

"The young girl therefore pretended to have changed her mind; and, so that one would believe her, despite the storm that was rumbling over her, despite the shipwreck that surrounded her with such great perils, she showed a calm and cheerful face. The soldiers, duped by this ruse, deceived by the serenity of the young girl, began to show her some consideration. She had asked them to withdraw for all the time that would be necessary for her to put on the costume of a new bride; the soldiers left her free to move away. Not only did they want to be agreeable to her, but they also promised themselves the compliments of the judge, to whom they would have brought a young girl adorned and dressed. The latter, mistress of what she desired, hastened to put on what is true beauty, that is to say, strength of soul, the rich and firm hope of the resurrection; and immediately she ran up to the roof of her house, and from there threw herself down. Her body, brighter than lightning, in falling, struck the eyes of the demon with a terrible brilliance. For the lightning that rushes from the sky causes us less dread than the phalanxes of the demon felt when they saw this body of the virgin martyr fall, more formidable than thunder. She resolutely accomplished this bold action that the demon did not fear to propose to the Lord himself in the past: If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.

"Who could consider the faith, the greatness of soul of this young girl without being stunned? Thus a young girl, a virgin, has conquered you by her energy, by her courage, O demon! The challenge that you once proposed to the Lord, a young girl, his servant, has turned against yourself, and, running to the top of the roof, from there, she leaped; the judge called her; it is you who suggested all that; she did not obey you, she did not accept a combat full of ruses; she knew well the malice of your thoughts; it is your habit to call virgins before judges, as if to have them beaten with rods, and soon, without effort, to precipitate into the abyss, much more sadly captive, those who did not fear the struggle. If you have no ulterior motive when you call a young girl to combat, in the stadium, measure yourself against her; when she throws herself from the top of a roof, support her in her fall; dare then to confront her; do not recoil before struggles of this kind. Give the flight you wish to your ardor. You have the earth for a battlefield; push henceforth sharply the swords, to deal death; prepare, to kill men, the hard instruments of murder; prepare yourself to break the young girl who falls. All your artifices, however devious, however profound they may be, have been found without any power; the virgin has conquered them; and, what is more remarkable, she did not claim from God what is written: Command your angels, Lord, that I do not strike my body against the stone; but what she asked of him was to command her soul, immediately after her fall, to leave her body.

"Like a doe fallen into the hands of hunters and who escapes, arrives on the summit of an inaccessible mountain, and there, out of their reach, sheltered from their arrows, stops, and, fearing nothing, looks at those who were pursuing her; so did our virgin; she had fallen into the hands of the hunters who were tracking her; her room was like a net where she had been caught, she escapes, not to the summit of a mountain; but she climbs the peaks of heaven itself, and, from these heights, she no longer feared their approach; and seeing them then return empty-handed, she enjoyed the confusion of the infidels.

"Pelagia thus stole her body from the reach of the unchaste; she stripped her soul which rose naked to heaven, abandoning her sacred flesh to the enemies; confused, reduced to impotence, they did not know what to do with these remains. Such are the glorious works of our God, when it pleases him to draw his servants from their anguish, to lead them to serenity, and to confound the enemies, in appearance triumphant, and to take from them all the resources of thought."

"O young girl, a woman by your sex, but of a courage worthy of honor! O virgin, who deserves to be celebrated for a double title, both because you are part of the troop of virgins, and because you have been inscribed in the number of the martyrs! O young girl, chaste to the point of not allowing the libertine gaze of a judge to enjoy the sight of you! She despised life; on our side, let us despise delights. Let us imitate her modesty, her continence, and let us raise trophies of our victories over voluptuousness; let us repress the ardor of our disordered, unbridled desires; let us animate ourselves to piety, let us fortify ourselves in fervor; let us replace, when necessary, humility with boldness; finally, on this earth, let us mortify our members, so that the Lord, taking hold of our humiliated body, may exalt it, and render it worthy of the communication of his own body and of his divine form."

Tillemont informs us that the pe ople flocked in crowds t sainte vierge et Martyre A young virgin and martyr of Antioch who died at fifteen to protect her chastity. o honor this holy virgin and martyr, and that the place of her burial was quite far from Antioch. Her feast was celebrated solemnly in that city on the eve of the translation of Saint Ignatius. She is marked on the 9th of June in the Greek Menaia and in the Roman Martyrolo Saint Jean Chrysostome Predecessor of Tryphon cited as an example of a holy and persecuted bishop. gy.

Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on Saint Pelagia. 11 volumes in-8°, Cale stres prin Ber-le-Duc City that has preserved the saint's relics since the 10th century. ting house, at Bar-le-Duc. — Cf. Balliot; Tillemont.