Calabria. Ist, 2ncl, or 3rd century. Three women, Agnes, Perpetua, and Felicitas are commemorated as fellow-martyrs with the bishops, Stephen and Suera, who were put to death for their religion at Rhegium, in Calabria, now (according to Graesse) Sta. Agata delle Galline. Janning, the Bollandist, gives their story, but does not seem to think it authentic. AA,SS.
St. Agnes (2), Jan. 21, 28, July 5 (Spanish, Inez or Ynez; in some Greek calendars, Hagne), V. M. 302, 303, or 304. One of the four great patronesses of the Western Church. Joint patron with the Virgin Mary and St. Thecla, of innocence and purity; special patron of meekness. In art, her attribute is a lamb, the emblem of meekness, and typical of her Divine Master. She is sometimes represented attended by angels, who cover her with her own hair; sometimes standing in or near flames; in common with all martyrs, she holds a palm; and often, in common with many, a sword; sometimes she wears a crown.
The son of Sempronius, prefect of Rome, observed a girl of 12 or 13 passing daily on her way to and from school, and was struck with her beauty and innocent childlike appearance. Having ascertained her name and parentage, he tried to win her favour and that of her family by gifts and other attentions, all of which were declined. The young man fell ill, and in time confessed to his anxious father that he was dying for love of a little Christian maiden who would have nothing to say to him. The prefect did not doubt that Agnes' parents, though rich, would be glad to secure for her so advantageous a parti as his son. He endeavoured to arrange the matter, but with no better success. He found, moreover, that the young lady was vowed, from childhood, to a single life, in honour and for love of her Lord, Jesus Christ, the God of the Christians. He therefore ordered that she should either renounce her resolution and marry his son, or join the sacred virgins who served the goddess Vesta. Agnes replied that she would never serve or acknowledge any god or goddess but Jesus Christ. Diocletian had already published his famous edict for the suppression of Christianity, which led to the tenth, the last and greatest, general persecution of the Church. Sempronius took advantage of the law to gain his own ends or satisfy his vengeance. Agnes—like many others whom the Church honours as martyrs, many more whose names are known only to God, some who were miraculously protected from insult, and some, as innocent in heart and will, whom God suffered to pass through the lowest depths of infamy—was condemned to degradation. She was deprived of her garments, but was clothed with a miraculous light, so that every one who attempted to look at her was struck blind. Her hair fell all round her like a veil. In the place of infamy to which she was taken she prayed for Divine protection, and was provided with a white robe which seemed to be brought to her from heaven. Her good-for-nothing lover, bent on continuing his suit, approached her with words of insult and with wicked intent, but fell down dead, and was only restored when the young martyr, at the entreaty of his parents, prayed for his return to life. She was then accused of sorcery and condemned to be burnt. A prayer in a service-book of the Roman Catholic Church speaks of "the Blessed Agnes standing in the middle of the flames like a ship in the midst of the sea» praying and stretching out her hands to God." As she remained unhurt amid the flames till they went out, she was beheaded.
Such is the legend of the Western Church; that of the East says that, as by erinstructions she converted a great many wicked women, she was put to torture, and then condemned to the station held by her disciples before their conversion. She was miraculously defended from evil, and finally burnt as a sorceress.
She was the first martyr of any celebrity in the West, as St. George was the first in the East, in this great tenth persecution. Her name is in the Canon of the Mass. She ranks next to the Virgin Mary among women honoured as saints, and is the chief of virgin martyrs in the Latin Church. She is
