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Saint Eulalia exhibited 1885 by John William Waterhouse |
Tradition says that she was a devout Christian who was killed by Romans in 304AD for refusing to make sacrifices to the Roman gods and for insulting the emperor Maximian. She declared her Christian faith and challenged the authorities to martyr her. While she was being tortured, "She taunted her torturers all the while, and as she expired a dove flew out of her mouth. This frightened away the soldiers and allowed a miraculous snow to cover her nakedness, its whiteness indicating her sainthood."
Catherine Nixey’s book The Darkening Age presents a different view of Eulalia, based on Roman sources. According to Nixey, the presiding magistrate Flavious Probus wrote that a fervent group of these early Christians were indulging in a suicide cult, hoping for a ticket to the afterlife.
Nixey quotes Romans trying to talk Eulalia out of killing herself: “Don’t you see the beauty of this pleasant weather?” Probus pleaded with Eulalia. “There will be no pleasure to come your way if you kill your own self.”
Which was she, an innocent martyr or a suicidal fanatic? Let me know what you think in the comments.
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