18 October St Luke (1 st Century)
We know very little about this man, but the name Lucanus/Lucius was given
to the author of the 3 rd Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. He writes in
classical Greek, may have died in Boetia. Tradition has it, that he was
unmarried, a doctor, who travelled with St Paul at least twice, he may have
been one of the men on the road to Emmaus. Gospel and Acts were written
between 70 and 85 AD, which makes it strange that he didn’t mention Paul’s
death (64). He writes for a Non-Jewish audience, his narrative of the birth of
Jesus led to believe he got his story from Mary. Central to his Gospel is
Jerusalem, from where the evangelisation of the world started, so there is a
long account of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, of Pentecost and the Church’s
beginning and mission. He stresses Jesus’ concern for women, for sinners
and outcasts; he isn’t ‘a feminist’, but women may have been the source of
his story. He is the patron saint of doctors, also of painters (allegedly, he
painted the Virgin) and butchers (his emblem is an ox, possibly because he
mentions temple sacrifices). His supposed relics were taken from Thebes to
Constantinople in the 4 th century.
21 October Saint Ursula
She was said to have been a British Christian who met her death at
Cologne, in the company of a group of holy virgins. But her legend is
unhistorical. According to this, she was a Romano British princess, daughter
of King Donaut of Dumnonia (SW England), and set out to join her husband
Conan, a pagan governor of Brittany in Gaul. It is unclear how many
maidens accompanied her, the figure of 11.000 was first mentioned in the 9 th
century, but maybe a writing error. On a pan- European pilgrimage before
her marriage she was killed, with her maidens, in Cologne (AD 303, the date
is unconfirmed) by the Huns, who then besieged the city. The legend is
based on an 4 th /5 th century inscription in the ancient basilica of St Ursula in
Cologne, which was probably founded on the spot of their martyrdom. The
church contains an incredible number of relics, some enclosed in valuable
reliquaries, but they are probably from a forgotten burial ground and not the
bones of the virgins. There was indeed a tradition of virgin martyrs in
Cologne by the 5 th century, so some parts of the legend may be historical.
Brigitte Williams
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