Vincent of Saragossa

Vincent of Saragossa, also called Vincent the Deacon and in Spanish San Vicente Mártir, was a deacon of the church of Saragossa (Caesaraugusta) in Roman Hispania and one of the most celebrated martyrs of the early Western Church. Traditional accounts place his birth at Huesca (Osca) in Hispania Tarraconensis and name his parents Eutychius and Enola, a native of that city. He was educated in theology and Scripture by Valerius, bishop of Saragossa, who ordained him deacon. Because Valerius suffered from a speech impediment, Vincent was charged with preaching and with the public instruction of the faithful, becoming in effect the bishop’s spokesman.

During the persecution of Christians under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, Dacian (Datianus), the governor of Hispania, had Vincent and Bishop Valerius arrested at Saragossa and conveyed to Valencia for judgment. Valerius was banished on account of his age and infirmity. Vincent, who had answered for the faith, was retained and subjected to torture. The principal early witnesses to his passion are the poems of the Spanish Christian writer Prudentius, composed in the early fifth century (especially Peristephanon 5), and sermons preached by Augustine of Hippo on Vincent’s feast. These and the later Latin Passio describe him as stretched on the rack, torn with metal hooks, and roasted on a gridiron, then thrown into a prison whose floor was strewn with broken pottery. He is said to have endured the torments with constancy and even joy, and to have died in prison at Valencia. The year 304, in the course of the Great Persecution, is the date conventionally assigned to his death.

His cult spread with unusual speed. By the fifth century Vincent was commemorated not only in Spain but in Gaul, Italy, and North Africa. Augustine treated him as a martyr whose fame had filled the Church. Dedications, altars, and relic claims multiplied in the early Middle Ages. A later legend, especially influential in Portugal, held that after death his body was exposed to wild beasts, protected by ravens, and cast into the sea with a millstone, only to come to shore. In 1173 King Afonso I of Portugal had relics identified as those of Saint Vincent translated by sea to Lisbon. The event is recalled in the coat of arms of Lisbon, which depicts a ship and two ravens, and the royal monastery of São Vicente de Fora was established to receive the relics. Valencia continued to honor the site of his martyrdom and to claim relics of its own; portions of the cult and of purported relics are also found in France and Italy.

Vincent is celebrated on 22 January in the General Roman Calendar and in Anglican and various Orthodox usages. He is principal patron of Lisbon and a patron of Valencia, Zaragoza, and Portugal, and is invoked by vintners, wine-growers, vinegar-makers, brickmakers, and sailors. Historians accept as well founded the existence of a deacon of Saragossa named Vincent who was martyred at Valencia in the Diocletianic persecution and whose cult is among the oldest in the Latin West. Many circumstantial details of the later passiones, including the exact catalogue of tortures and several miracle stories, as well as the names of his parents and the Huesca birth tradition, belong to hagiographical development rather than to contemporary documentation. His year of birth is unknown.