January 21.
St. Agnes. St Fructuosus, &c. St. Vimin, or Vivian. St. Publius. St. Epiphanius.
St. Agnes.
“She has always been looked upon,” says Butler, “as a special patroness of purity, with the immaculate mother of God.” According to him, she suffered martyrdom, about 304, and performed wonderful miracles before her death, which was by beheading, when she was thirteen years old; whereupon he enjoins females to a single life, as better than a married one, and says, that her anniversary “was formerly a holiday for the women in England.” Ribadeneira relates, that she was to have been burned, and was put into the fire for that purpose, but the flames, refusing to touch her, divided on each side, burnt some of the bystanders, and then quenched, as if there had been none made: a compassionate quality in fire, of which iron was not sensible, for her head was cut off at a single blow. Her legend further relates, that eight days after her death she came to her parents arrayed in white, attended by virgins with garlands of pearls, and a lamb whiter than snow; she is therefore usually represented by artists with a lamb by her side; though not, as Mr. Brand incautiously says, “in every graphic representation.” It is further related, that a priest who officiated in a church dedicated to St. Agnes, was very desirous of being married. He prayed the pope’s license, who gave it him, together with an emerald ring, and commanded him to pay his addresses to the image of St. Agnes in his own church. Then the priest did so, and the image put forth her finger, and he put the ring thereon; whereupon the image drew her finger again, and kept the ring fast, and the priest was contented to remain a bachelor; “and yet, as it is sayd, the rynge is on the fynger of the ymage.”
In a Romish Missal printed at Paris, in 1520, there is a prayer to St. Agnes, remarkably presumptive of her powers; it is thus englished by Bp. Patrick:
Agnes, who art the Lamb’s chaste spouse,
Enlighten thou our minds within;
Not only lop the spreading boughs.
But root out of us every sin.
O, Lady, singularly great,
After this state, with grief opprest
Translate us to that quiet seat
Above, to triumph with the blest.