Erasmus of Formiae
Encyclopedia
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
and martyr
Christian martyrs
A Christian martyr is one who is killed for following Christianity, through stoning, crucifixion, burning at the stake or other forms of torture and capital punishment. The word "martyr" comes from the Greek word μάρτυς, mártys, which means "witness."...
who died ca. 303, also known as Saint Elmo. He is venerated as the patron saint
Patron saint
A patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person...
of sailors
Sailors
Sailors is the plural form of Sailor, or mariner.Sailors may also refer to:*Sailors , a 1964 Swedish film*Ken Sailors , American basketball playerSports teams*Erie Sailors, baseball teams in Pennsylvania, USA...
. St Erasmus or Elmo is also one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers
Fourteen Holy Helpers
The Fourteen Holy Helpers are a group of saints venerated together in Roman Catholicism because their intercession is believed to be particularly effective, especially against various diseases...
, saintly figures of Christian legend who were venerated especially in Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
as intercessors.
Documentation of his life
The Acts of Saint Elmo were partly compiled from legends that confuse him with a Syrian bishop Erasmus of Antioch. Jacobus de VoragineJacobus de Voragine
Blessed Jacobus de Varagine or Voragine was an Italian chronicler and archbishop of Genoa. He was the author, or more accurately the compiler, of Legenda Aurea, the Golden Legend, a collection of the legendary lives of the greater saints of the medieval church that was one of the most popular...
in the Golden Legend
Golden Legend
The Golden Legend is a collection of hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that became a late medieval bestseller. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived, compared to twenty or so of its nearest rivals...
credited him as a bishop at Formia
Formia
Formia is a city and comune in the province of Latina, on the Mediterranean coast of Lazio . It is located halfway between Rome and Naples, and lies on the Roman-era Appian Way.-History:...
over all the Italian Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
, as a hermit on Mount Lebanon
Mount Lebanon
Mount Lebanon , as a geographic designation, is a Lebanese mountain range, averaging above 2,200 meters in height and receiving a substantial amount of precipitation, including snow, which averages around four meters deep. It extends across the whole country along about , parallel to the...
, and a martyr in the persecutions under Eastern Roman Emperor Diocletian
Diocletian
Diocletian |latinized]] upon his accession to Diocletian . c. 22 December 244 – 3 December 311), was a Roman Emperor from 284 to 305....
.
Account of life and martyrdom
According to his legend, when the persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian began,- Erasmus was called before a judge, beaten around the head, spat upon and "besprinkled...with foulness." He was then beaten with leaden mauls until his veins broke and burst. Erasmus suffered all of these punishments with tremendous willingness. Erasmus was then thrown into a pit of snakes and worms, and boiling oil and sulfur were poured on him but "he lay therein as he had lain in cold water, thanking and loving GodGodGod is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
." Then thunder and lightningLightningLightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...
came and electrocuted everyone around save Erasmus. Thus the saint was protected from the lightning. Diocletian had him thrown in another pit, but an angel came and slew all the vipers and worms.
Then came the Western Roman Emperor Maximian
Maximian
Maximian was Roman Emperor from 286 to 305. He was Caesar from 285 to 286, then Augustus from 286 to 305. He shared the latter title with his co-emperor and superior, Diocletian, whose political brain complemented Maximian's military brawn. Maximian established his residence at Trier but spent...
who, according to Voragine, was "much worse than was Diocletian." Erasmus would not cease preaching the Gospel, even though he was "put into a pan seething with rosin, pitch, brimstone lead, and oil, [which were] pour[ed] ... into his mouth, [from] ... which he never shrank." A searing hot cloak and metal coat were both tried on him, to no effect, and an angel eventually carried him away to safety."
"And when this holy man came before the false gods" to which he was to be forced to sacrifice, they "fell down and broke all in pieces, and consumed into ashes or dust." That made the emperor so angry he had Erasmus enclosed in a barrel full of protruding spikes, and the barrel was rolled down a hill. But an angel healed him. Further tortures ensued:
- His teeth were ... plucked out of his head with iron pincers. And after that they bound him to a pillar and carded his skin with iron cards, and then they roasted him upon a gridiron...and did smite sharp nails of iron in his fingers, and after, they put out his eyes of his head with their fingers, and after that they laid this holy bishop upon the ground naked and stretched him with strong withes bound to horses about his blessed neck, arms, and legs, so that all his veins and sinews that he had in his body burst."
The version of the Golden Legend did not relate how Erasmus fled to Mount Lebanon and survived on what raven
Raven
Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...
s brought him to eat, an interesting pre-Christian mytheme
Mytheme
In the study of mythology, a mytheme is the essential kernel of a myth—an irreducible, unchanging element, a minimal unit that is always found shared with other, related mythemes and reassembled in various ways—"bundled" was Claude Lévi-Strauss's image— or linked in more...
. When he was recaptured, he was brought before the emperor and beaten and whipped, then coated with pitch and set alight (as Christians had been in Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
's games), and still he survived. Thrown into prison with the intention of letting him die of starvation, St Erasmus managed to escape.
He was recaptured and tortured some more in the Roman province of Illyricum
Illyria
In classical antiquity, Illyria was a region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula inhabited by the Illyrians....
, after boldly preaching and converting numerous pagans to Christianity. Finally, according to the legend, his stomach was slit open and his intestines wound around a windlass
Windlass
The windlass is an apparatus for moving heavy weights. Typically, a windlass consists of a horizontal cylinder , which is rotated by the turn of a crank or belt...
. This late legend may have developed from interpreting an icon that showed him with a windlass, signifying his patronage of sailors.
Veneration and patronage
Saint Erasmus may have become the patron of sailors because he is said to have continued preaching even after a thunderbolt struck the ground beside him. This prompted sailors, who were in danger from sudden storms and lightning, to claim his prayers. The electrical discharges at the mastheads of ships were read as a sign of his protection and came to be called "Saint Elmo's FireSt. Elmo's fire
St. Elmo's fire is a weather phenomenon in which luminous plasma is created by a coronal discharge from a grounded object in an electric field in the atmosphere St. Elmo's fire is named after St. Erasmus of Formiae St. Elmo's fire (also St. Elmo's light) is a weather phenomenon in which luminous...
".
Pope St Gregory the Great recorded in the 6th century that his relics were preserved in the cathedral of Formia. When the old Formia
Formia
Formia is a city and comune in the province of Latina, on the Mediterranean coast of Lazio . It is located halfway between Rome and Naples, and lies on the Roman-era Appian Way.-History:...
e was razed by the Saracen
Saracen
Saracen was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arabs. In Europe during the Middle Ages the term was expanded to include Arabs, and then all who professed the religion of Islam...
s in 842, the cult of Erasmus was translated to Gaeta
Gaeta
Gaeta is a city and comune in the province of Latina, in Lazio, central Italy. Set on a promontory stretching towards the Gulf of Gaeta, it is 120 km from Rome and 80 km from Naples....
. He is currently the patron of Gaeta, Santeramo in Colle and Formia.
Besides his patronage of mariners
Sailors
Sailors is the plural form of Sailor, or mariner.Sailors may also refer to:*Sailors , a 1964 Swedish film*Ken Sailors , American basketball playerSports teams*Erie Sailors, baseball teams in Pennsylvania, USA...
, Erasmus is invoked against colic
Colic
Colic is a form of pain which starts and stops abruptly. Types include:*Baby colic, a condition, usually in infants, characterized by incessant crying*Renal colic, a pain in the flank, characteristic of kidney stones...
in children, intestinal ailments and diseases, cramps and the pain of women in labor, as well as cattle pests.
See also
- St. Elmo Hall, a name for some chapter houses of Delta Phi fraternity
- St. Elmo's fireSt. Elmo's fireSt. Elmo's fire is a weather phenomenon in which luminous plasma is created by a coronal discharge from a grounded object in an electric field in the atmosphere St. Elmo's fire is named after St. Erasmus of Formiae St. Elmo's fire (also St. Elmo's light) is a weather phenomenon in which luminous...
, a meteorological phenomenon named after the saint - Blessed Peter GonzalezPeter GonzalezBlessed Peter González, O.P., sometimes referred to as Pedro González Telmo, Saint Telmo, or Saint Elmo, was a Spanish Dominican friar and priest, born in 1190 in Astorga, León, Spain....
, patron of Spanish and Portuguese mariners is also invoked as "San Telmo" or "San Elmo."
External links
- The Golden Legend (Saint Erasmus) – e-text adapted from Wynken de Worde's edition of 1527.
- Saint Patrick's Cathedral profile on Saint Erasmus