Agatha
Agatha (date uncertain), virgin and martyr, died at Catania (Sicily). Her early cult is witnessed by her inclusion in the Martyrology of Jerome, the Calendar of Carthage (c.530), the Canon of the Roman Mass, and Venantius Fortunatus' Carmina. Two churches were dedicated to her in Rome during the 6th century, and she was depicted in the mosaics of Sant' Apolinare Nuovo, Ravenna.
Her late fictitious Acts describe her as a wealthy girl who had vowed her virginity to Christ. The consul Quintinian invoked imperial edicts against Christianity to attempt her seduction: she was handed over to ‘Aphrodisia’, who kept a brothel; she was tortured by rods, rack, and fire. Lastly her breasts were cut off, but she was miraculously healed by a vision of Peter. She died in prison as the result of her sufferings, just after an earthquake.
She was invoked against fire, particularly the eruptions of Mount Etna; also against diseases of the breast; she was also the patron of bell-founders. In art her emblem is usually a dish with her breasts, sometimes mistaken for loaves blessed on her feast.
Palermo and Catania both claim to be her birthplace. Feast: 5 February.
Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.
- AA.SS. Feb. 1 (1658), 595–656; S. Romeo, S. Agata e il suo culto (1922); V. L. Kennedy, The Saints of the Canon of the Mass (1938), pp. 169–73; English Lives in S.E.L. and in C. Horstman, Old English Legendary (1881), pp. 45–8. See also Bibl. SS., i, 320–34
