Saints Anatolia and Victoria

In the story Vatican News summarizes, they were two young noblewomen of Rome who refused marriage because they had consecrated themselves to God; their two suitors had them shut up on their estates in the Sabina, and there they were killed in the persecution of Decius. ⁵ Thomas Campbell, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, says Anatolia was "living in retirement with her sister when the persecution was raging," and that a young man named Aurelius sought to marry her. ¹ Victoria's suitor is named Eugenius in the 1897 English Martyrology, in Butler's Lives and in katolsk.no. ²⁶⁷

An angel enters the story at this point, though the versions disagree about whom it came to. Campbell writes that Anatolia was "on the point of yielding because of the solicitations of her sister Victoria" and "was strengthened by the vision of an angel." ¹ The Spanish account on Catholic.net reverses it: Victoria urged her friend to marry, Anatolia answered that her guardian angel had told her virginity was dearer to God, and the angel appeared and won Victoria over. ⁸

Campbell adds that the Bollandists doubted Anatolia was ever actually betrothed. ¹

Anatolia was banished to Thora and denounced there as a Christian. ¹ The 1897 Martyrology places Thora "on lake Velino," and says that before her arrest she had cured many sick people "through the whole province of Picenum" and brought them to believe in Christ. ⁶ katolsk.no puts the place in the diocese of Rieti, near the village now called Sant'Anatolia after her. ³

The judge, named Faustinian in the 1897 Martyrology, had her tortured. ⁶ Then, in Campbell's words, "the executioner Audax shut her up in a room with a venomous serpent, but seeing that no harm was done to her he himself professed the faith and died a martyr." ¹ Anatolia "was put to death by the sword." ¹ The Martyrology says she was run through "whilst her hands were stretched out in prayer," and that Audax, imprisoned, was condemned without delay. ⁶

Catholic.net tells a different ending, in which her rejected suitor strangled her himself. ⁸ katolsk.no knows yet another version, in which the creature was a dragon and Anatolia saved Audax from it; it adds that their relics were taken to Subiaco in the tenth century, where a plaque behind the altar of the basilica of Saint Scholastica marks the place. ³

Butler's entry for Victoria is short. She "was a young noble Roman lady, who being a Christian, desired to live to her heavenly spouse alone in a state of virginity." ⁷ Eugenius, refused, accused her to the judge, and "after many fruitless attempts to extort her consent to marry, or to sacrifice to idols, she was stabbed in the breast by an executioner," in 250. ⁷

The 1897 Martyrology adds that before her death she worked many miracles "by which she gained many virgins to God," and that the executioner struck "at the request of her betrothed." ⁶ katolsk.no reports a legend in which Eugenius drove the sword into her heart himself, and another in which she was gored to death by a bull in an amphitheater at Rome. ² Vatican News places both deaths in the Sabina, and Catholic.net between Rome and Rieti. ⁵⁸

katolsk.no traces the cult in some detail. The martyrology attributed to Saint Jerome, from the middle of the fifth century, kept the two together on July 10 and called them sisters, though katolsk.no doubts they were sisters by blood rather than in Christ. ² Their Passio was known to Saint Aldhelm, who died in 709, and to Saint Bede, whose version passed through the martyrologies of Ado and Usuard into the Roman Martyrology. ²

When Cardinal Cesare Baronius revised the Martyrology at the end of the sixteenth century, he put Anatolia and Audax on July 9 and Victoria on December 23. ² That is how the 1897 English edition prints them, and why Campbell gives Anatolia's feast as July 9 and Butler gives Victoria's as December 23. ¹⁶⁷ The present Martyrology has brought them back to July 10. ²⁴

They appear among the virgin martyrs in the mosaics on the north wall of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna. ² Victoria's cult spread early in Italy. Relics said to be hers were moved in 827 to save them from Saracen raiders, and are venerated in the parish church of Santa Vittoria in Matenano, between Macerata and Ascoli Piceno. ²

katolsk.no heads its entry on Victoria "patron saint for rain." ² None of the other sources consulted for this page names a patronage for either woman, and the page lists none in its tags. ¹⁴⁵

The feast day of Saints Anatolia and Victoria is July 10. The current Roman Martyrology, in the text published by the Italian bishops, enters them together on that day as martyrs in the Sabina in Lazio. ⁴ Vatican News keeps them on July 10, and katolsk.no notes that it is the date of the oldest martyrology. ²⁵

Older calendars divided them. Campbell writes of Anatolia that "her feast is kept 9 July," and the 1897 Martyrology enters Anatolia and Audax on July 9. ¹⁶ Victoria's day was December 23, in the same Martyrology and in Butler. ⁶⁷

What can be known about these two women is very little: their names, their deaths for Christ, and a place in the Sabine hills where they were remembered early. ²⁴⁵ The legend built on that is a story about two friends who argued about marriage and an angel who settled it, and its tellers cannot agree on which of them needed persuading. ¹⁸

In every version they hold to their choice against suitors, a judge and an executioner, and the price is their lives. ¹⁶⁷ The oldest martyrology kept their two names together long before anyone divided them. ²

The legend also keeps a third person, the executioner Audax, who was set to guard a prisoner and ended by sharing her death. ¹²⁶