The Latin Martyrdom of *Eulalia (virgin and martyr of Barcelona, S02047) narrates the trial and death of Eulalia in Barcelona (north-west Hispania) under the praeses Datianus. Written in Hispania (presumably in Barcelona), probably in the 7th c.
E08558
Literary - Hagiographical - Accounts of martyrdom
Passio sanctae Eulaliae (BHL 2693)
Summary:
(1) Passio sanctae Eulaliae, quae passa est in ciuitate Barcinona sub Datiano praeside, die pridie idus februarias. Deo gratias.
'The Martyrdom of saint Eulalia, who was martyred in the city of Barcelona under the governor (praeses) Datianus on the day before the Ides of February. Thanks be to God'
(2) Eulalia is a young noble girl who lives with her parents on an estate near Barcelona and is a devout Christian. She is wise beyond her years and spends her days in a cell singing hymns to God with a group of female companions (socias).
(3) When Eulalia reaches puberty, persecution begins against all those who refuse to sacrifice to the gods. The praeses Datianus arrives in Barcelona and orders all Christians to be tracked down and forced to sacrifice incense to the gods. The city is in turmoil. Eulalia learns of this and says a prayer of thanksgiving to Jesus Christ.
(4) Those who hear Eulalia's prayer are surprised by her enthusiasm. Eulalia does not speak to anyone (neither her parents nor her friends) about her plans. She wakes up before dawn and walks to the city.
(5) Eulalia goes to the forum, where she sees Datianus at the tribunal. She goes to him and delivers him a speech in which she denounces him as a godless judge who does not worship the true God. Datianus asks her who she is and why she is speaking so boldly. She gives her name and states that she is a servant of Jesus Christ and chastises Datianus further; she denounces the pagan cult as the service of the devil and the fallen angels and chastises Datianus for persecuting the Christians.
(6) Datianus orders Eulalia to be arrested and beaten. He then turns to her with the offer to recant her words and obtain mercy on account of her noble status. She rejects this offer and says that she does not recognise Datianus' power and is more afraid of the Lord, who will destroy all godless and lying people in Gehenna. She is proud of her sufferings and wounds, which ennoble her more than her origins.
(7) Datianus becomes more and more furious and orders Eulalia to be tortured by hanging her on an equleus [later called a 'cross' in 9th c.]. Eulalia prays joyfully, while Datianus again suggests that she sacrifice to the gods in order to be allowed to live. She refuses and declares that the Lord will give her the strength to survive any torture.
(8) Datianus orders his soldiers to set fire to Eulalia's sides with torches. She prays with a psalm, whereupon the flames turn from her onto her tormentors. Eulalia sees this and prays to Jesus Christ to accept her into Heaven. As she finishes her prayer, the torches are miraculously extinguished. The torturers fall to the ground and Eulalia dies. Witnesses see a dove fly from her mouth into the sky:
Quod uidentes populi mirati sunt, inter quos christiani laetabantur ciuem in caelestibus meruisse habere patronam.
'The people were astonished when they saw this. Among them were Christians who rejoiced that they deserved to have a compatriot in Heavens as their patron'.
(9) Datianus, angered by his failure, orders Eulalia's body to be left on the cross and guarded so that it can be eaten by the birds. However, a snowfall miraculously covers the martyr and the surprised guards move away from the corpse. Word of the miracle spreads and many people come to see it, including Eulalia's family, who knew nothing of the events up to this point. On the third night, some pious men steal the body, which goes unnoticed by the guards because the thieves wrap the body and embalm it. The holy (sanctus) Felix says to Eulalia: "O mistress, you deserved the palm first", at which she smiles. The people begin to sing a hymn and carry the body in procession to its funeral.
(10) The final doxology.
Text: Yarza Urquiola 2020, 707-711.
Summary and translation: M. Szada
Saint as patron - of a community
MiraclesMiracle at martyrdom and death
Miracle after death
Miracles experienced by the saint
Power over elements (fire, earthquakes, floods, weather)
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesWomen
Family
Relatives of the saint
Pagans
Aristocrats
Crowds
Torturers/Executioners
Officials
Source
The Martyrdom of Eulalia is a short hagiographic text that was probably written in Hispania in Late Antiquity. Its date is not easy to determine. The earliest manuscripts date from the tenth century, some of which represent hagiographic collections that circulated in Hispania in the 10th and 11th centuries and are often referred to in scholarship as the 'Hispanic Passionary' (on the concept and the doubts it may raise see Alberto 2021).The primary reason for dating the Martyrdom to the seventh century is a hymn, possibly written by Quiricius, abbot and bishop of Barcelona in c. 650 (see E05431) which seems to have been written with knowledge of this martyrdom (see the comparison by Fábrega Grau 1958, 63-64). Another reason could be the Confession of Leocadia which mentions Eulalia of Barcelona among the martyrs who died under the praeses Datianus. There are no other apparent echoes of our Martyrdom in the Confession, but it is very probable that the Confession was created on the basis of Martyrdoms that were already in existence (see the discussion in E08525).
Discussion
Although the Martyrdom of Eulalia of Barcelona (PEB) and the Martyrdom of Eulalia of Mérida (PEM) (E08606) are two different texts (the former is much shorter, the name of the praeses is different, and the latter martyrdom is written in a distinctly different voice and with more and often different details), there are also some important similarities, especially in the plot:1) both martyrs have the same name and are young, on the cusp of puberty
2) both Eulalias are described as living ascetically (PEB: prayer with socias in a cell; PEM: Eulalia is a sanctimonialis puella)
3) shortly before their martyrdoms, both Eulalias are on country estates at some distance from the cities
4) both Eulalias willingly come to the forum to confront the praeses and address him with harsh words
5) the first corporal punishment is a lash on the back (a tergo)
6) both Eulalias give long chastising answers to the praeses while being tortured, which arouses the anger of the official and aggravates the torture
8) both Eulalias are tortured on the eculeus; they are hung from it and tortured with flames
9) at the moment of death, a dove is seen coming out of each of their mouths
10) the bodies of the two Eulalias are miraculously covered with snow
11) after death, a man named Felix turns to the martyr and says that she first earned the palm of martyrdom, whereupon she smiles;
12) the bodies of the two Eulalias are secretly taken by Christians to be buried
The element in the PEB that seems to have been taken most clearly from the PEM is a scene with Felix. In the PEM, Felix is a confessor who is first mentioned in chapter 4 as a member of a community near Mérida, where Eulalia stayed before her arrival in the city. At the end, this Felix comes with the presbyter Donatus, who was previously introduced as Eulalia's teacher, to collect her body. His words to Eulalia ('O mistress, you deserved to be the first to receive the palm') allude to the sentence Eulalia says at the beginning of the story: that she was the last to arrive in the city, but will be the first to be martyred. In the PEB, the episode with Felix is inserted without any narrative preparation: He is simply introduced as another Christian in the same trial as Eulalia, whom she preceded in martyrdom. I think it is reasonable to assume that the PEB was written with knowledge of the PEM, even if it was an original composition and not just a paraphrase (like the later Martyrdom that circulated outside Hispania, BHL 2696, which is more obviously based on the PEM and even gives the date of Eulalia of Barcelona's martyrdom as 10 December; this later version seems to have been known to Bede, see E05681).
The dependence of the Martyrdom of Eulalia of Barcelona (BHL 2693) on the Martyrdom of Eulalia of Mérida was claimed by Moretus (1911), but he then dated the Martyrdom of Eulalia of Barcelona to the 9th century (he considered that the hymn could have been another source for the martyrdom, not the other way round). Fábrega Grau (1958), on the other hand, argued against the dependence of the PEB on the PEM and explained their similarities with the hypothesis of a common source, which he identified with a so-called passio de communis (for this idea, see the discussion in the entry on the Confession of Leocadia, E08525). The main aim of Fábrega Grau was to refute Moretus' idea that Eulalia of Barcelona was straightforwardly a medieval copy of Eulalia of Mérida, by arguing that there was a genuine and independent cult of Eulalia in Barcelona during the Visigothic period.
I think it is possible that the Martyrdom and the hymn (and perhaps also the mass to her honour that survives in the 10th-century sacramentary known as the Liber Mozarabicus sacramentorum, see Férotin 1912, 136-140) were composed in the 7th century and that there was therefore a genuine belief in a local martyr Eulalia in 7th-century Barcelona, different from the one from Mérida and venerated on a different day (12 February). Outside Hispania, these two cults may have been confused with each other in the 8th century, as Bede's Martyrology attests. However, it must remain unclear whether there was ever a local martyr Eulalia who was venerated in Barcelona before the 7th century, when she became better known with the help of the sources about Eulalia of Mérida, or whether she was invented from scratch as a virtual double of the martyr of Mérida.
Bibliography
Edition:Fábrega Grau, Á., Pasionario hispánico (Madrid, Barcelona: Atenas A.G., 1953)
Riesco Chueca, Pilar (ed.), Pasionario hispánico (Serie Filosofía y letras (Sevilla) 131). Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla, Secretariado de Publicaciones, 1995. With Spanish translation.
Yarza Urquiola, V. (ed.), Passionarium hispanicum. Saeculum X, Corpus Christianorum. Series latina 171 (Turnhout: Brepols) 2020, p. 637-640
Further reading:
Fábrega Grau, Á., Santa Eulalia de Barcelona : revísión de un problema histórico, (Roma : Iglesia Nacional Española), 1958.
Fábrega Grau, Á., "Eulalie de Barcelone," in Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique, vol. 15 (Paris, 1963), col. 1380-1384.
Férotin, M., Le Liber Mozarabicus sacramentorum et les manuscrits mozarabes (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1912).
Garcia Villeda, Z., "La persecución de los primeros cristia nos en España, IV, El problema de las dos Santas Eulalias," Rázon y fe 58 (1920), 166-186.
Moretus, H., "Les saintes Eulalies," Revue des questions historiques 89 (1911), 85-119.
Marta Szada
22/08/2024
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S02047 | Eulalia, virgin and martyr of Barcelona | Eulalia | Certain |
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