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BAPTISMS BY BLOOD, FIRE, AND WATER A TYPOLOGICAL REREADING OF THE PASSIO S. MARGARETAE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2017
Abstract
A typological reading allows us to see that Margaret's early-medieval Latin passio, the Mombritius version upon which most later vernacular versions of her popular legend ultimately drew, is a tightly structured figural meditation on the theme of baptism and the sacraments of initiation. Examination of the prayers, the liturgically allusive gestures, and the symbolic elements of the whole narrative reveals a powerful female figure who “presides” over her own ordeal and with her prayers transforms the instruments of torture into baptisms by blood, fire, and water. This narrative's deep structure may offer further insight into Margaret's appeal as a patroness of childbirth.
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References
1 As translated by John Lowden, “Treasures Known and Unknown at the British Library, Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, Tours,” The British Library, accessed 15 April 2010, www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/TourKnownB.asp.
2 See Millet, Bella and Browne, Jocelyn Wogan, Medieval English Prose for Women: Selections from the Katherine Group and Ancrene Wisse (Oxford, 1990), xxii Google Scholar.
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4 Dresvina, Julia, “The Significance of the Demonic Episode in the Legend of St Margaret of Antioch,” Medium Aevum 81 (2012): 189–209, at 202Google Scholar. Dresvina's insightful reading of the legend came to print after my initial work on the baptismal elements in the passio was completed. I have found her conclusions to corroborate and complement my work on the legend. Her more recent book, A Maid with a Dragon: The Cult of St. Margaret of Antioch in Medieval England (Oxford, 2016)Google Scholar offers a wealth of information about the cult of the saint over eight centuries in England, continuing to emphasize the significance of the highly symbolic demonic episodes for Margaret's story.
5 Borland, Jennifer, “Violence on Vellum: St Margaret's Transgressive Body and Its Audience,” in Representing Medieval Genders and Sexualities in Europe: Construction, Transformation and Subversion, 600–1530, ed. L'Estrange, Elizabeth and More, Alison (London, 2011), 81 Google Scholar. Similarly, Fromer, Julie E., “Spectators of Martyrdom: Corporeality and Sexuality in the Liflade ant te Passiun of Seinte Margarete ,” in Intersections of Sexuality and the Divine in Medieval Culture: The Word Made Flesh, ed. Chewning, Susannah (London, 2005), 89–106 Google Scholar. For an overview of and challenge to other readings in this vein, see Lewis, Katherine J., “‘Lete Me Suffre’: Reading the Torture of St Margaret of Antioch in Late Medieval England,” in Medieval Women: Text and Contexts in Late Medieval Britain; Essays for Felicity Riddy, ed. Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn et al. (Turnhout, 2000), 69–82 Google Scholar.
6 See, for instance, Larson, Wendy R., “Who is the Master of this Narrative? Maternal Patronage of the Cult of St. Margaret,” in Gendering the Master Narrative: Women and Power in the Middle Ages, ed. Erler, Mary C. and Kowaleski, Maryanne (Ithaca, NY, 2003), 94–104 Google Scholar.
7 See, for instance, Price, Jocelyn, “The Virgin and the Dragon: The Demonology of Seinte Margarete,” Leeds Studies in English 16 (1985): 337–57Google Scholar, as well as the extensive treatment of the demonology of the legend in Mack's edition (n. 13 below). More recently, Julia Dresvina (n. 4 above) takes up these issues, and White, Monica, “The Rise of the Dragon in Middle Byzantine Hagiography,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 32 (2008): 149–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, interrogates changes over several centuries in the demonology of the legend of Marina (as Margaret is known in the Greek manuscript tradition).
8 Clayton, Mary and Magennis, Hugh, The Old English Lives of St. Margaret (Cambridge, 1994)Google Scholar. See also Viggiani, Maria Carmen, Isetta, Sandra, and Goullet, Monique, “Passio Marinae BHL 5303c,” in Le Légendier de Turin (Florence, 2014), 732–36Google Scholar for a concise discussion of the manuscript tradition, both Latin and Greek. For the Bollandists’ editions, see Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, 2 vols., Subsidia hagiographica 6 (Brussels, 1898–1901), with supplements, Subsidia hagiographica 12 and 70 (Brussels, 1911 and 1986).
9 Mombritius, Bonino, Sanctuarium seu Vitae Sanctorum, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1910), 190–96Google Scholar.
10 Clayton and Magennis, Old English Lives, 24.
11 For discussion of the passio’s “indebtedness to the liturgy,” see Clayton and Magennis, Old English Lives, 24–40; see also Wolpers, Theodore, Die englische Heiligenlegende des Mittelalters (Tübingen, 1964), 170–77Google Scholar.
12 Other print versions (besides the T and Mp editions of Viggiani et al., cited in note 8 above) include: Gerould, Gordon Hall, “A New Text of the Passio S. Margaritae with Some Account of Its Latin and English Relations,” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 39 (1924): 525–56Google Scholar (the Mather MS); Clayton and Magennis's Casinensis text from Monte Cassino, MS 52 (224–34 of their work cited in note 8 above); Elizabeth A. Francis, Wace, la Vie de S. Margarete, Les Classiques Français du Moyen Age 71 (Paris, 1932), 1–56 (based on Paris BN, MS lat. 17002).
13 Mack, Frances, ed., Seinte Marherete: Þe Meiden ant Martyr, EETS OS 193 (New York, 1934), 127–42Google Scholar. Quotations throughout the essay from the Latin passio are from Mack's edition, with page and line numbers provided in the text. Translations are mine but based on the facing page translation by Clayton and Magennis, Old English Lives, 195–219.
14 See n. 8 above.
15 O has been digitized and is available at http://bibliotheque-numerique.bibliotheque-agglo-stomer.fr/collection/353-recueil/?n=6.
16 Usener, Hermann K., Acta S. Marinae et S. Christophori: Festschrift zur fünften Säcularfeier der Carl-Ruprechts-Universität zu Heidelberg, überreicht von Rector und Senat der rheinischen Friederich-Wilhelms-Universität (Bonn, 1886)Google Scholar. I rely on Guido Tammi's Italian translation of Usener's text provided as a source text in his Due versioni della leggenda di S. Margherita d'Antiochia in versi francesi del medioevo (Piacenza, 1958)Google Scholar.
17 Mack has also collated H with eight other texts besides those I have examined (both manuscripts and printed editions); I will refer to variants of particular note from these texts as well. See Mack, Seinte Marherete, xxv for the list of texts she collated.
18 In H, all but one of these fourteen prayer-like speech acts either begins with a signal phrase such as “orauit, dicens” (134, line 20) or concludes with a ritual coda (“Amen,” or a benedictus formula). In other manuscipts of BHL 5303, however, not all of these “prayers” are as clearly marked. Wolpers, for instance, counts nine “prayers” in the Mombritius passio (Wolpers, Die englische Heiligenlegende, 171). For those prayers I discuss in detail, I have provided line numbers from H and I refer to them numerically according to their order in H.
19 Clayton and Magennis, Old English Lives (n. 8 above), 31 and 40.
20 Wolpers, Die englische Heiligenlegende, 172.
21 See Winstead, Karen, Virgin Martyrs: Legends of Sainthood in Late Medieval England (Ithaca, NY, 1997), 15 Google Scholar. See also Vitz, Evelyn, “From the Oral to the Written in Medieval and Renaissance Saints’ Lives,” in Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Renate, Szell, Timea, and Cazelles, Brigitte (Ithaca, NY, 1991), 97–114 Google Scholar. The removal of her prayers and of the episode in which she speaks the baptismal formula over herself coincides in some versions with the insertion of information earlier in the story that she was baptized as a child. See the late-thirteenth-century Legenda Aurea version and in the Anglo-French Margaret, Version G, printed by Cazelles, Brigitte, The Lady as Saint: A Collection of French Hagiographic Romances of the Thirteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1991), 218–28Google Scholar.
22 For a useful overview of the differences between the developments of baptismal theology and ritual in East Syria and the Greco-Latin West, see Kavanagh, Aidan, The Shape of Baptism: The Rite of Christian Initiation (Collegeville, MN, 1978), 38–78 Google Scholar.
23 Clayton and Magennis, Old English Lives, 6.
24 As quoted in Spinks, Bryan, Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent (Burlington, VT, 2006), 46 Google Scholar. For a sense of the rich variety of baptismal practices and theologies in both the West and the East in the centuries before this passio was composed, see also Whitaker, Edward Charles and Johnson, Maxwell E., Documents of the Baptism Liturgy, rev. ed. (Collegeville, MN, 2003)Google Scholar.
25 Delehaye as referenced in Earl, James, “Typology and Iconographic Style in Early Medieval Hagiography,” Studies in the Literary Imagination 8 (1975): 15–46, at 24Google Scholar. See also Hippolyte Delehaye, “Les passions historiques,” 15–131, as compared to “Les passions epiques,” 171–226, in Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires , 2nd ed., Subsidia hagiographica 13B (Brussels, 1966)Google Scholar.
26 Earl, “Typology,” 35.
27 Hill, Thomas D., “ Imago Dei: Genre, Symbolism, and Anglo-Saxon Hagiography,” in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints’ Lives and Their Contexts, ed. Szarmach, Paul E. (Albany, NY, 1996), 35–50, at 44Google Scholar.
28 Daniélou, Jean, The Bible and the Liturgy (Notre Dame, IN, 1956)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 For the typological interpretation of the waters of the Red Sea, see chap. 9 in Tertullian's Homily on Baptism , ed. and trans. Evans, Ernest (London, 1964)Google Scholar as well as the discussion of the theme in Lundberg, P., La typologie baptismale dans l'ancienne église (Uppsala, 1942), 116–45Google Scholar.
30 Price, “Demonology” (n. 7 above), 352.
31 This is true for H although the reference is not found in P. The allusion to Tecla and Sussana is also preserved in the Latin Casinensis version of the legend, which was another significant witness for the transmission of the story in the West, as discussed by Clayton and Magennis, Old English Lives (n. 8 above), 13–16.
32 Wilson, Henry Austin, ed., The Gelasian Sacramentary (Oxford, 1894), 49 Google Scholar. See also Whitaker, Documents, 218 and 289 and Legg, John Wickham, The Sarum Missal, Edited from Three Early Manuscripts (Oxford, 1916), 126 Google Scholar.
33 For Susanna, see Vulg. Dan. 13; for Thecla, see “The Acts of Paul and Thecla,” chap. 34, The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation , ed. Elliott, J. K. (Oxford, 1993), 370 Google Scholar.
34 Winstead, Virgin Martyrs (n. 21 above), 97.
35 See Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy, 177–90.
36 Quoted and translated in Whitaker, Documents (n. 24 above), 6. As Johnson notes in the updated edition of Whitaker's important work, chap. 1, recent scholarship on the Apostolic Tradition suggests it is “not Hippolytan in authorship, not necessarily Roman in its contents, and not early third century in date” (4). Nevertheless the work does preserve, in a more complicated synthesis than previously imagined, an important witness to early theologies and practices of baptism.
37 Earl, “Typology” (n. 25 above), 17.
38 The Sarum Missal notes that at the door of the church, the priest would ask the midwife 1) whether the infant is male or female, 2) if the infant has been baptized at home, and 3) by what name he is to be called. Discussed and translated in Fisher, J. D. C., Christian Initiation: Baptism in the Medieval West (London, 1965; repr., Chicago, 2004), 178Google Scholar. The name of the person to be baptized is first required in the eighth-century Hadrianum sacramentary. See Spinks, Early and Medieval (n. 24 above), 122.
39 Quoted and translated in Whitaker, Documents, 5.
40 This reading is, in fact, found in all versions of BHL 5303 collated by Mack except H; the reference is of course to Mt. 7:6: “Give not that which is holy to dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest perhaps they trample them under their feet, and turning upon you, they tear you.”
41 M. E. Johnson, “Introductory Essay,” in Whitaker, Documents, xiii–xxii, at xv.
42 “Catechesis 1,” in Saint Cyril of Jerusalem: Works, vol. 1, trans. McCauley, Leo P. SJ, and Stephenson, Anthony A., The Fathers of the Church 61 (Washington, DC, 1968), 93 Google Scholar.
43 On nakedness in baptism, see Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy (n. 28 above), 38.
44 As discussed by Cramer, Peter, Baptism and Change in the Early Middle Ages, c. 200–c. 1150 (New York, 1993), 10 Google Scholar.
45 See Lk. 12:50 and 1 Jn. 5:6.
46 On the development of these scrutinies, see Kavanagh, Shape of Baptism (n. 22 above), 58–61 and Yarnold, Edward SJ, The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation: The Origins of RCIA, 2nd ed. (Collegeville, MN, 1994), 11–12 Google Scholar.
47 Whitaker, Documents (n. 24 above), 213–15.
48 See Kellner, K. A. H., Heortology: A History of the Christian Festivals from their Origin to the Present Day (London, 1908), 103 Google Scholar.
49 Casinensis and another recension (from Rebdorf, Bavaria: BHL 5308) downplay these episodes, while T expands them. See Clayton and Magennis, Old English Lives (n. 8 above), 7–23.
50 In the baptismal liturgy as found in the Gelasian Sacramentary, the rite of exorcism for females begins with the prayer, “Deus caeli, Deus terrae, Deus angelorum, Deus archangelorum, Deus prophetarum, Deus martyrum, Deus omnium bene viventium, Deus cui omnis lingua confitetur caelestium, terrestrium et infernorum, te invoco Domine, ut has famulas tuas perducere et custodire digneris ad gratiam baptisimi tui” (God of heaven, God of the earth, God of angels, God of archangels, God of prophets, God of martyrs, God of all that live rightly, God to whom every tongue confesses of those in heaven, on the earth, and below, I invoke you, Lord, over these your handmaids that you would deign to lead them and to guard them to the grace of your baptism). Wilson, Gelasian (n. 32 above), 46. The language of Prayer Five clearly evokes the same creator God who rules the heavens, the earth, and the infernal regions: “qui formasti paradisum indeficientem” (134, line 4) (who formed everlasting paradise), “et mari terminum posuisti” (134, line 5) (and established a boundary for the sea), and “diabolum ligasti” (134, lines 6–7) (bound the devil), and ends with an almost parodic description of the dragon's “leading” of this handmaid: “Et obsorbere me festinat, querens me perducere in caueam suam” (134, lines 11–12) (And it hastens to swallow me up and desires to lead me into his cave).
51 This prayer differs slightly in P where a very abbreviated version occurs just after Margaret emerges from the dragon but before the appearance of the second demon; the prayer is missing in Mather. In H and O the more complete prayer is spoken after the second demon appears.
52 See Viggiani et al., “Passio Marinae” (n. 8 above), 744 and, on the accompanying DVD, their facing transcriptions (“synopse ac-ac”) of T, fol. 125r, and Mp, fol. 120r.
53 A better reading for “gemisce horribilis homicida” as noted by Mack from Harley 5327: “genus horribile. Cessa homicida” (horrible being, cease, murderer); see Seinte Marherete, 135 n. 4.
54 As found in three other manuscripts collated by Mack, 138 n. 1.
55 See Mack, Seinte Marherete (n. 8 above), xxvii; Price, “The Virgin and the Dragon” (n. 7 above); and Dresvina, “Demonic Episode” (n. 4 above).
56 Dresvina, “Demonic Episode,” 202.
57 Albert's, Jean-Pierre work, “La légende de sainte Marguerite: un mythe maïeutique?” Razo, Cahiers du Centre d'Etudes Médiévales de l'Université de Nice (Nice, 1988), 19–31 Google Scholar, which has just been brought to my attention, does concur with my reading of the prison episode as a descensus ad inferos. Albert's structuralist approach to the much later Golden Legend version of Margaret's story traces the narrative's cultural history as it moved, Albert argues, from its origins as an allegory, to popular acceptance as a “true story,” to its place as a myth that shapes cultic practices surrounding childbirth. Albert's astute observations about the mythic character of the legend focus as well on the importance of its inherent pearl symbolism, a reading that likewise corroborates my discussion of this element below.
58 From “Catechesis 3,” in Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Works (n. 42 above), 115.
59 Didymus, De Trinitate, PG 39, 684B and a Greek prayer, both as reported by Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy (n. 28 above), 42 (quoting A. Baumstark); the definitive discussion of this theme in baptismal typology is found in Lundberg, Typologie baptismale (n. 29 above).
60 Mombritius's printed edition and the other manuscripts I mention above have “abyssi et thesauri abyssi” (var. abyssiorum T); I have emended Mack's text accordingly in the quotation. With regards to the Greek text, Usener's A manuscript has “at the sight of whom the sea and the depths (buthos) of the sea dry up,” but the B manuscript has “the sea and the abysses” (abussos), and Guido Tammi actually translates it as “il mare e gli abissi.” Due versioni (n. 16 above), 36.
61 See, for instance, Lk. 8:31, Rom. 10:7, 1 Pt. 3:19ff., and Rev. 9:11, 11:7, 17:8, 20:1–3. Cf. Bernard, John H., “The Descent into Hades and Christian Baptism: A Study of I Peter 3:19ff,” The Expositor 8 (1916): 241–74, at 242Google Scholar. Christ conquers the demons of the waters in his own baptism as observed in Cyril of Jerusalem, n. 58 above.
62 Rom. 6:3–5 and Col. 2:12.
63 Chrysostom wrote, “The immersion and emersion are the image of the Descent into Hell and the Return thence. That is why Paul calls Baptism a burial” (Hom. I Cor., 40; PG 61, 348; as translated by Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy, 77 n. 16). On the liturgical uses of the Harrowing of Hell at Easter, see Tamburr, Karl, The Harrowing of Hell in Medieval England (Cambridge, 2007), 1–13 Google Scholar.
64 A useful introduction to the textual and critical history of this passage is provided by Elliott, John Hall, 1 Peter, A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York, 2000)Google Scholar.
65 See Mack's collation of variants to line 7 at the foot of page 136 and Clayton and Magennis, The Old English Lives (n. 8 above), 222 n. 80.
66 “The Testament of Solomon,” in The Apocryphal Old Testament, ed. Sparks, H. F. D., trans. Whittaker, M. (Oxford, 1984), 733–52Google Scholar. For the history of Beelzebub (here Beezebul), see 742–43.
67 This allusion figures in a penitential prayer that concludes the Sermo asceticus ascribed to Ephrem (probably falsely) and circulating widely in Syriac, Greek, and Latin texts in the late-patristic period. See Sims-Williams, Patrick, “Thoughts on Ephrem the Syrian in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Lapidge, Michael and Gneuss, Helmut (Cambridge, 1985), 221 Google Scholar. A similar prayer can be found in six medieval sacramentaries; see Moeller Eugenio and Ioanne Maria Clément, eds., Corpus Orationum, vol. 9, CCL 160H, Item 6025.
68 Spinks, Early and Medieval (n. 24 above), 19.
69 As translated in Whitaker, Documents (n. 24 above), 18–19.
70 Spinks, Early and Medieval, 47 and 122.
71 Ferguson, Everett, “Baptism According to Origen,” Evangelical Quarterly 78 (2006): 117–135, at 122Google Scholar.
72 Colish, Marcia L., “Baptism by Desire,” in Faith, Fiction and Force in Medieval Baptismal Debates (Washington, DC, 2014), 18–24 Google Scholar.
73 Ibid., 17.
74 Viggiani et al., “Passio Marinae” (n. 8 above), 747.
75 Mack, Seinte Marherete (n. 13 above), 138, note 4 on lns. 22–23: “Consignauit enim omnia membra mea christus, et cumsignauit in corona glorie sue margaritam anime mee,” H3865; “et consignauit in coronam glorie sue et margaritam anime sue, Add. 10050.”
76 Wilson, Gelasian Sacramentary (n. 32 above), 235.
77 “Fiat” also recalls God's own creation of the world (“Fiat lux,” Gen. 1:3) and Mary's assent to the Incarnation (“Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum,” Lk. 1:38).
78 On Eucharistic epiclesis, see McKenna, John, The Eucharistic Epiclesis: A Detailed History from the Patristic to the Modern Era (Chicago, 2008)Google Scholar. For the role of the epiclesis in blessing of the baptismal waters, see Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries (Grand Rapids, MI, 2009), 146 Google Scholar and Spinks, Early and Medieval, 43 (on practices in fourth-century Jerusalem). Also, McKenna cites the work of Edward Schillebeeckx on this question (156).
79 See Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, at 209–10 and 497–98 for references to this imagery in the writings of Ignatius and Aphrahat respectively.
80 The Turin version certainly alludes to the baptismal formula but does not explicitly add the text. In T we find: “et benedicens aquam expolia me uetere hominem et indue me nouo qui me renouit” (and blessing the water, strip the old man off me and put on me the new one who will renew me). See Viggiani et al., “Passio Marinae,” 748.
81 See Spinks, Early and Medieval (n. 24 above), 106–7 for Coptic liturgies and Finn, Thomas, Early Christian Baptism and the Catechumenate, West and East Syria (Collegeville, MN, 1992), 16 Google Scholar on Syrian liturgies.
82 Phelan, Owen, The Formation of Christian Europe: The Carolingians, Baptism, and the Imperium Christianum (Oxford, 2014), 124 and n. 117Google Scholar.
83 As translated by Tammi: “Spogliami dell'uomo vecchio che si corrompe e rivestimi del nuovo” and then, “Una colona di luce apparve dal cielo,” Due versioni (n. 16 above), 40. Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy (n. 18 above), 49–50, offers references to Ambrose, Cyril, Gregory of Nyssa, and Theodore of Mopsuestia on the shining brightness associated with the baptismal garment.
84 Edsman, Carl-Martin, Le baptême de feu (Leipzig, 1940), 166 Google Scholar.
85 Looking back to Margaret's Prayer Two, it is perhaps also noteworthy that in some manuscripts (although not H) she prays specifically for “dew from heaven” (“rorem de caelo” in P) or “healing dew” (“rorem sanitatis” in O) to soothe her wounds.
86 Ibid., 190.
87 Bischoff, Bernhard and Lapidge, Michael, eds., Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian (Cambridge, 1994), 403 Google Scholar.
88 Viggiani et al., “Passio Marinae” (n. 8 above), 747. Likewise in the Casinensis: Clayton and Magennis, Old English Lives (n. 8 above), 231. Albert, “La légende de sainte Marguerite” (n. 57 above), 4, suggests that the legend's trials of fire and water (“éléments contraires”) are symbolically necessary for producing a pearl.
89 “Il Signore sotto forma di colomba,” as translated from the Greek by Tammi, Due versioni, 41.
90 These words from the canon that prescribe the memorial action are from Lk. 22:19b.
91 On the variants in the textual tradition, see Clayton and Magennis, Old English Lives, 14.
92 In H the verse which precedes the Sanctus: “Non est similis tui in diis, Domine, et non est secundum opera tua.” Cf. Ps. 85:8 (Gallican Psalter).
93 On pearl symbolism in general, see Schofield, William H., “Symbolism, Allegory, and Autobiography in the Pearl ,” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 24 (1909): 585–675 Google Scholar, and Earl, James W., “Saint Margaret and the Pearl Maiden,” Modern Philology 70 (1972): 1–8 Google Scholar. On the use of the pearl as a Eucharistic symbol in the Middle English poem Pearl, see Garrison, Jennifer, “Liturgy and Loss: Pearl and the Ritual Reform of the Aristocratic Subject,” Chaucer Review 44 (2010): 294–322 Google Scholar and Phillips, Heather, “The Eucharistic Allusions of Pearl,” Medieval Studies 47 (1985): 474–86Google Scholar.
94 Day, Peter, The Liturgical Dictionary of Eastern Christianity (Collegeville, MN, 1993), 181Google Scholar.
95 Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon (n. 4 above), 22.
96 Viggiani et al., “Passio Marinae,” 729 nn. 1 and 2.
97 McInerny, Maud Burnett, “Opening the Oyster: Pearls in Pearl ,” Aestel 1 (1993): 19–54, at 22Google Scholar.
98 For “Christ the Sea” and the “Diver as baptizand,” see, for instance, “Hymns on Virginity,” Hymn 10, lines 4–6, and, for “Christ as Pearl,” lines 9–11, in Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns , ed. and trans. McVey, Kathleen, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York, 1989), 308 Google Scholar.
99 From “Hymn Seven” of the “Hymns for the Feast of the Epiphany,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 13, ed. Schaff, Philip and Wace, Henry, trans. Johnston, A. Edward (Buffalo, 1898), 275 Google Scholar.
100 See McVey, Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns, 11.
101 In Symbols of the Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition , rev. ed. (London, 2004)Google Scholar, Robert Murray writes of the “exponential growth of Syriac studies in recent years” (ix) and offers as one piece of evidence the “massive” Bibliography of Ephrem the Syrian compiled by den Biesen, Kees (Giove in Umbria, 2002)Google Scholar.
102 Dresvina, “Demonic Episode” (n. 4 above), 199.
103 For an overview of Ephrem's life and his work in Syriac, see Kathleen McVey's “Introduction” to Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns, 3–48. On the availability of Greek texts, see Lash, Ephrem, “The Greek Writings Attributed to Ephrem the Syrian,” in Abba: The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West, ed. Behr, John, Louth, Andrew, and Conomos, Dimitri (New York, 2007), 81–98 Google Scholar; on the Latin texts, see in the same volume Sebastian Brock, “The Changing Faces of St. Ephrem as Read in the West,” 65–80 and Sims-Williams, “Thoughts on Ephrem the Syrian” (n. 67 above).
104 James W. Earl, “Saint Margaret and the Pearl Maiden” (n. 93 above), 1–8.
105 Chap. 12 (pp. 191–207) of Daniélou's The Bible and the Liturgy (n. 28 above) details the patristic exegeses of the Song of Songs that attempted to “connect different verses of the Canticle with different aspects of the liturgy of initiation” (193).
106 Cited in Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church (n. 78 above), 418.
107 The T and Mp versions are a notable exception; they do not include this prayer because the conclusion there has been “radically abbreviated” according to Clayton and Magennis, Early English Lives (n. 8 above), 12. These versions do, however, include Theotimus's assertion that he wrote down and distributed all of Margaret's prayers “cum multa astucia” (T) or “diligencia” (Mp).
108 See Gerould's collation for these references, “A New Text” (n. 12 above), 545.
109 In private correspondence about the unusual use of the word scrinium here, E. Gordon Whatley observes: “the most usual meaning in antiquity was for a chest for books and papers. The later meaning of ‘reliquary’ (equivalent of feretrum) is first cited in the 12th c., according to Niermeyer's dictionary; the usage here is at least 200 years earlier than the period when the Latin word supposedly acquired a specifically hagiological meaning; it seems to me the hagiographer deliberately chose a word meaning ‘casket, container’ that was mainly associated with the storage of texts.”
110 Or “worthy of her suffering.” See Tammi, Due versioni (n. 16 above), 42; Usener, Acta S. Marinae (n. 16 above), 46, line 17.
111 Viggiani et al., “Passio Marinae” (n. 8 above), 749.
112 Tammi, Due versioni, 42.
113 Veneration of Saint Marina in the Eastern churches has included devotion to her relics; for a recent discussion of a reliquary of St. Marina, see Larson, Wendy R., “‘Do you inquire about these things?’ Text, Relic and the Power of St. Marina,” Medieval Perspectives 27 (2012): 173–81Google Scholar.
114 Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon (n. 4 above), 188.
115 Throughout the passio, the pagan idols are described as “deaf and dumb.”
116 Larson, “Master of this Narrative” (n. 6 above), 97–98.