Solomon's Song viii. 8 is supposed by some theologians to foretell the tortures of St. Agatha.
Her name is in the Roman Martyrology, the Canon of the Mass, the Leggendario delle Sante Vergini, and all the chief collections of lives or legends of saints. Her Acts are said by Baillet to be of doubtful authenticity, especially those preserved in the Greek Church. Her worship is undoubtedly very old. It was universal in Italy in the 4th century, and in Africa in the 5th. Her commemoration by the Church has this peculiarity, which it shares with that of St. Agnes, that the psalms of her office are taken from the "Common of Saints" of the male sex, to remind the faithful of the super-feminine courage of the holy maiden. He adds that the schismatic English, though they have expunged her name from their new liturgy, have retained it in their calendars, that the people may not forget the virtues of the early martyrs. R.M. Golden Legend. Villegas, from Bede, Usuard, and Metaphrastes. Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art. AA.SS. Thiers, Traité des superstitions.
In Norway, the legend is that she was brushed to death, wherefore girls abstain from brushing their hair on her day. Another legend in that country is that a lady named Agathe, or Aagot, had her nose and ears eaten off by mice. They only spared the rest of her body on her vowing to keep St. Agatha's day holy ever after. This story is told also of St. Gertrude of Nivelle. The day is marked on the clogs (runic calendars) by a mouse. Aagot's Messa was the Norwegian name of the day. Report xx. of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, "Description of a Norwegian Calendar of the Fifteenth Century."
St. Agatha (2), May 8. One of the many martyrs at Byzantium, commemorated with St. Acacius, a native of Cappadocia and a Roman centurion. Their names are not mentioned in his Acts, given by Henschenius from a Greek manuscript at Grotta Ferrata, but the martyrs commemorated with him in the old martyrologies are supposed to be his fellow-prisoners and converts; about 28 of them were women. Henschenius, AA.SS., gives the date 203; but if St. Acacius was put to death, as his Acts say, under Maximianus, it must have been a century later.
St. Agatha (3), April 3, M. in Misia. Mart. Rhinoviense.
St. Agatha (4), Dec. 12. 8th century. Nun at Weinbrunn, in Germany. Disciple of St. Lioba. Bucelinus, Men. Ben. AA.SS. præter, June 12, 28, Sept. 28, Dec. 12. Ferrarius, Cat. Gen., makes her a nun at Wimborne, which is, perhaps, a mistake; but she may have gone from Wimborne with Lioba, and lived with her in Germany. Wion, Lignum Vitæ, says Wimbrun in Germany.
St. Agatha (5) Hildegard, Feb. 5. †1024. Sometimes called by either name alone. Patron of Carinthia. Wife of Paul, count palatine of Carinthia. They lived either at Stein or at Rechberg, a castle on a rock rising abruptly to a considerable height above the river Drave. Paul, having rashly listened to a false accusation against his wife, rushed furiously to her room at the top of the castle, where she was saying her prayers with Dorothy her maid, and threw them both out of the window. Instead of being killed, they arrived unhurt on the opposite side of the river, at the village of Mochlingen. Paul, struck by the miracle and horrified at his own violence, built the church of St. Paul of Mochlingen on the spot. As soon as he had heard Mass there, he set out on a seven years' pilgrimage, as a penance for his injustice and violence. On his return, he sat down to rest under a tree, and there he heard the bells of his church ring for midday prayer. Then he died. Agatha survived him for a few years, and made some charitable religious foundations.
The messengers of the Bollandists heard this story from the curates and peasants of Carinthia, but never found it in books. Some of the narrators also added that the woman who had accused the countess was turned into stone, with the cow she was milking, and that her stool and her pail of milk might be seen there still. The messengers, however, not only never saw the stones
