Wednesday, January 22, 2025

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

It is the 22nd of January 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

A happy St. Vincent’s Day to you and yours.

To which you might respond: who? Or, Baby Gen-X and Elder Millennials might wonder why I would bring up the music of Annie Clark, who goes by the stage name “St. Vincent” (and does a good cover of Jackson Browne’s “These Days”).

But many in the early church would be familiar with one of the most popular saints in the late Roman Empire and Middle Ages- the so-called “protomartyr of Spain” and a man about whom miraculous stories flocked like bees to honey (except the story about bees entering his mouth and n to harming him- that’s St. Ambrose).

So- what do we know about the man? It seems everyone in the early church knew. He was born in Saragossa- a Spanish town inland of Barcelona and south of the Pyrenees and the French border. Born in the 200s to a Christian family, he was educated and eventually took his ordination and became a local preacher in lieu of his bishop, who suffered from a speech impediment.

We have a host of miraculous stories from his ministry, but these seem to have come later after he made his mark on history during the persecution of Diocletian.  

He was arrested with many other professing Christians, but instead of denying the faith, desecrating the Scriptures, or even agreeing to exile (as his bishop may have), Vincent remained undeterred. From this, the stories of his torture spread- there seems an almost perverse delight in recounting just how many things he underwent.

We know of a work about him that was often read that has been lost to history- in St. Augustine’s sermon #275, he mentioned that he was preceded by a reading from this text and went on to explain why we might benefit from stories that included: 

Being stretched on a rack

Being burnt on a gridiron

Laying on pottery shards

His lifeless body was then thrown into the sea and it’s said to have come back to shore

Others tried to desecrate his dead body only to be attacked by ravens…  

Augustine thought that God’s care of Vincent's body was significant- that God cares not only for our souls but our physical bodies as well. We read from Augustine, “he does not abandon their bodies once they are dead, like the outstanding miracle he performed over the body of blessed Vincent”.

Another reason for his popularity is, given his name “Vincent,” he would become the patron saint of winemakers- “vin” being slang for wine, and writers noted how he poured out his own blood on the rack- which flowed like wine. We see in the stories of the martyrs a seemingly intentional connection to the person of Christ- these men and women are participating in the life of Christ, and their examples are proof.

Vincent also had a number of stories from his life about wine- one was that his donkey once began to eat the leaves on a grapevine and accidentally discovered the art of pruning leaves for a greater harvest. His feast day, the 22nd of January, became a day for coming back from winter to begin pruning. There is another story of his converting vineyard workers while hiding in a vineyard during the early days of persecution. The winemakers guild would adopt him, and as they grew in stature and power, so too did the status of the saint. As the patron saint of such an important beverage in the Empire and Middle Ages, his popularity might have little more to it than people like wine, and so he was associated with it and then invoked in praise (and maybe in long-winded praise after some wine was imbibed)

His remains would be moved to Lisbon- an event so important for the city that the city’s coat of arms features a ship carrying the body of Vincent back home to Spain- where he is the protomartyr (the early or first…) and one of the most popular saints there and in the late Empire- a happy St. Vincent Day on the anniversary of his death in 304.

 

The last word for today from the daily lectionary- and some irony for the patron saint of Winemakers- 6 verses from Luke chapter 6:

33 They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.”

34 Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? 35 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.”

36 He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’”

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 22nd of January 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man wondering who is putting wine in skins… that’s their problem in the first place… he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who knows in Spain a wineskin is called a Bota bag… Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.