The Lives of the Saints through 100 Masterpieces

Barbara

The Lives of the Saints 40 Barbara December 4 Barbara was the daughter of Dioscorus, prince of Nicomedia, a town located by the Sea of Marmara, where Hannibal died. To shield her from the eyes of suitors and the preaching of Christians, her father locked her up in a high tower. She converted, her father’s measures notwithstanding, and asked the servants to open a third window in her chamber in honor of the Trinity. Infuriated by her conversion, Dioscorus tried to bring his daughter back to pagan reasoning, at first by persuasion, then by ever more gruesome tortures. She was successively flogged, skinned, and burned with a red hot iron. Her modesty was then attacked when she was promenaded unclad, but an angel appeared and covered her with a veil. At this, the enraged father took Saint Barbara to the summit of a mountain where he beheaded her with his own hands. Immediately, thunder rolled through the sky and a lightning bolt reduced him to ashes. The punishment that struck Saint Barbara’s father has paradoxically determined the attributes of this saint: she protects artillerymen , firemen, quarrymen, mineworkers, and all those who deal with explosives. In some countries the name “Saint Barbara” designates the ammunition magazine in navy sailing ships. In 1959, the oil exploiters of France, in their search for petroleum, erected a gigantic statue of the saint at Hassi Messaoud in the Algerian desert. This statue, after much wandering, can be found today in Aixen -Provence. In 1969, the Catholic Church—having been seized by the demon of historicity—suppressed this saint of problematic authenticity from the calendar, so that gunners are now deprived of a protectress. Attributed to Simon Marmion (ca. 1425–1489) Saint Barbara in Discussion with Her Father British Library, London ...