Feast day: November 25

St. Catherine of Alexandria

Virgin & Martyr · d. c. 305

Patron of Philosophers, students, librarians, lawyers

Brilliant young noblewoman of Alexandria who, by tradition, out-argued 50 pagan philosophers sent to refute her — converting them instead — before her martyrdom.

Catherine of Alexandria is one of the most celebrated of the early virgin martyrs, though her story comes down through a much-loved legend rather than firm history. By that tradition she was a young woman of Alexandria, of noble birth and remarkable learning, who in her late teens came before the persecuting emperor to rebuke him for his cruelty and to argue, with great eloquence, against the worship of false gods.

The emperor, unable to answer her, is said to have summoned fifty of his most learned philosophers to refute her — but instead the brilliant girl confounded them all, and won them to Christ, so that they themselves went to martyrdom. Furious, and unable to break her either by threats or by the offer of marriage, the emperor condemned her to be torn apart on a spiked wheel.

At her touch, the legend says, the wheel shattered — the origin of the 'Catherine wheel' that became her emblem and even the name of a firework — and so she was beheaded instead. Angels were said to have carried her body to Mount Sinai, where the ancient monastery of St. Catherine still stands at the foot of the holy mountain.

However much is history and however much is legend, her cult was immense throughout the Middle Ages. She was numbered among the Fourteen Holy Helpers, named by St. Joan of Arc as one of the heavenly voices that counseled her, and taken as patroness of philosophers, theologians, students, and unmarried women — the learned virgin who out-argued the wise men of the world.

The spiked 'Catherine wheel' built to kill her broke at her touch; the firework spinning at carnivals still bears her name. Hers was among the voices Joan of Arc heard.

Image: Caravaggio (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/03445a.htm