St Vincent of Saragossa: Deacon, Martyr, Feast Day

St Vincent of Saragossa was a young deacon of the Church of Saragossa, in Spain, who died at Valencia in 304 after some of the cruellest tortures recorded in the persecution of Diocletian. St Augustine preached on his feast, the poet Prudentius sang his triumph, and his cult spread through the whole Christian world. The Roman calendar of 1962 keeps his feast on 22 January, together with St Anastasius the Persian. Here is his story, what he is patron saint of, the raven of his legend, and the prayers of his Mass in the Missal of 1962.

Who was St Vincent of Saragossa?

The year of Vincent's birth is not known. The Roman Breviary makes him a native of Huesca (the Roman Osca), in northern Spain; other accounts make him a native of Saragossa itself, the city whose Church he served and whose name he bears. From his earliest years he was given to study, and he learned the Holy Scriptures from St Valerius, bishop of Saragossa, who ordained him deacon while he was still very young.

Valerius had an impediment in his speech, and so, the Breviary says, he entrusted to his deacon the office of preaching the Gospel, which the bishop could not discharge himself. Vincent was the voice of his bishop.

The story of St Vincent's martyrdom

Butler follows above all the account of the Christian poet Prudentius, in the fifth hymn of his Peristephanon, the "Crowns of the Martyrs".

Arrest and trial

In 303 the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian published their edicts against the Christian clergy. The governor of Spain, Dacian, had Valerius and Vincent arrested at Saragossa and brought in chains to Valencia, where he left them a long time in prison, starved and ill-treated, hoping that suffering would break them. When they were at last brought before him, he was astonished to find them firm in mind and strong in body.

Dacian tried threats and promises in turn. Valerius, who spoke with difficulty, said nothing, and Vincent turned to him: "Father, if you order me, I will speak." "Son," said the bishop, "as I committed to you the dispensation of the word of God, so I now charge you to answer in vindication of the faith which we defend." The deacon then told the judge that they were ready to suffer everything for the true God, and that neither threats nor promises would move them. Dacian sent the old bishop into exile, and kept the young deacon for torture.

The rack and the gridiron

Vincent was stretched on the rack, and his flesh was torn with iron hooks. St Augustine says that he suffered torments that no man could have endured without a strength above nature, and kept such peace in them that his persecutors were astonished. Smiling, he called the executioners weak and faint-hearted. When the governor, seeing the blood, offered to stop if the deacon would only hand over the sacred books to be burnt, as the edicts required, Vincent answered that he feared torments less than false compassion.

Then came the worst torture, the one the acts call "the legal question": a kind of gridiron with spiked bars made red-hot by the fire beneath. Vincent mounted it cheerfully. His wounds were rubbed with salt, and burning plates were laid on him; and the more he suffered, Butler says, after St Augustine, the greater seemed the joy of his soul. The judge, beside himself, kept asking what Vincent was saying and doing, and was always told that he seemed to grow stronger.

The prison of light

He was thrown into a dark dungeon strewn with broken potsherds, his legs stretched apart in the stocks, without food. But the prison, the Breviary says, was filled with a great light; the gaoler saw through the chinks Vincent walking and praising God, and was converted on the spot. Dacian, weeping with rage, ordered that the prisoner be allowed rest. The faithful came to dress his wounds and to dip cloths in his blood, and he was laid on a soft bed, where he died almost at once, on 22 January 304 (the eleventh day before the Kalends of February, as the Breviary puts it).

The raven and the sea

Dacian had the body thrown out on waste ground to be eaten by beasts; but a raven, the Breviary says, defended it from the birds and from a wolf, with beak, claws and wings. The governor then had it sunk in the sea, but it was cast back on the shore and buried by the Christians.

Butler warns that the later "acts" of St Vincent were "embroidered rather freely" by a compiler living long after, and that the story of the translations of his relics is confused. What is certain, he says, is his name and order, the place and time of his martyrdom, and his place of burial. The raven and the sea belong to the tradition the Church read in her Office; we give them as such.

What is St Vincent of Saragossa known for?

He is known as one of the three great deacon-martyrs of the early Church with St Stephen and St Lawrence. The three are so alike in early art, Butler notes, a young man in a deacon's dalmatic holding a palm, that it is often impossible to tell them apart; and like Lawrence, Vincent was burnt on a gridiron. His name is invoked among the martyrs in the Litany of the Saints, right after St Lawrence.

His cult spread very early through the whole Church, even to the East. St Augustine preached on his feast, with the acts of the martyr before him, and the Church of Milan named him in the Canon of its Mass. His relics were claimed by Valencia, Saragossa, Castres, Le Mans, Paris, Bari and others, and Lisbon received a translation of them in the twelfth century.

What is St Vincent of Saragossa the patron saint of?

St Vincent is honoured as patron of Valencia, where he died, of Saragossa, and of Portugal. He is above all the patron of wine-growers and vine-dressers, especially in Burgundy. Butler gives the honest reason: the patronage probably comes from his name, which seems to have some connection with wine (vin). He is also invoked by sailors and by brickmakers. His emblems in art are the raven, sometimes perched on a millstone, the gridiron, and the deacon's dalmatic with a palm.

St Anastasius the Persian, who shares his feast

The feast of 22 January is the feast of Sts Vincent and Anastasius. The two martyrs lived three centuries apart and never met, and Butler explains why they are kept together: the relics of St Anastasius were brought to Rome and enshrined in a church of St Vincent, the monastery ad Aquas Salvias, at Tre Fontane, outside the walls.

Anastasius, whose Persian name was Magundat, was a young soldier in the army of King Chosroes II, who took Jerusalem in 614 and carried away the relic of the True Cross. Hearing of the Cross his king had seized, he began to inquire about the religion of Christ, left the army, was baptized at Jerusalem, and became a monk near the holy city in 621. Some years later he went to Caesarea, then under Persian rule, and confessed his faith openly.

Chained, beaten and sent into Persia, he refused even the private denial in words that the king offered him as a compromise, answering that he would never dissemble or seem to deny God. He was put to death in Assyria on 22 January 628, with some seventy other Christians, by order of the king. The Second Council of Nicaea, in 787, cited the miracles wrought through his image in defence of the veneration of holy images.

St Vincent of Saragossa prayer (Missal of 1962)

The Mass of 22 January is from the Common of several Martyrs, Intret in conspectu; the Collect and Postcommunion are proper to the feast.

Collect, 22 January

Adesto, Domine, supplicationibus nostris: ut, qui ex iniquitate nostra reos nos esse cognoscimus, beatorum Martyrum tuorum Vincentii et Anastasii intercessione liberemur. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Give ear, O Lord, to our supplications, that we who know ourselves guilty by reason of our iniquity may be delivered by the intercession of Thy blessed Martyrs Vincent and Anastasius. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Postcommunion

Quaesumus, omnipotens Deus: ut, qui caelestia alimenta percepimus, intercedentibus beatis Martyribus tuis Vincentio et Anastasio, per haec contra omnia adversa muniamur. Per Dominum nostrum.

We beseech Thee, almighty God, that we who have received the food of heaven may, by the intercession of Thy blessed Martyrs Vincent and Anastasius, be strengthened by it against all adversity. Through our Lord.

The Collect is the simplest prayer to St Vincent for any day, and a fitting prayer for the vine-growers who keep his feast.

When is the feast day of St Vincent of Saragossa?

In the Roman calendar of 1962, the feast of Sts Vincent and Anastasius, Martyrs, falls on 22 January, the day of St Vincent's death, as a feast of the third class in red vestments. It comes two days after St Sebastian, another martyr of the same persecution. The calendar of 1969 kept St Vincent on 22 January, as an optional memorial, but no longer names St Anastasius in the general calendar. You will find the feast in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962, and St Vincent takes his place in our guide to the Catholic saints, listed by feast day.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was St Vincent of Saragossa born?

His birth year is not known; he was born at Huesca according to the Roman Breviary (at Saragossa according to other accounts), and died a young man in 304.

How did St Vincent of Saragossa die?

After the rack, the iron hooks and the red-hot gridiron, he was thrown into a prison strewn with potsherds; when the governor finally allowed him rest on a bed, he died at once, at Valencia, on 22 January 304.

Why is St Vincent the patron saint of wine-growers?

Most probably because of his name, which seems to suggest wine (in French, vin); the patronage is especially strong in Burgundy.

Why is St Vincent shown with a raven?

Because, according to the tradition read in the Breviary, a raven guarded his body from birds and beasts after Dacian had it thrown out unburied.

Is St Vincent of Saragossa the same as St Vincent de Paul or St Vincent Ferrer?

No. St Vincent of Saragossa is a deacon martyred in 304; St Vincent Ferrer was a Dominican preacher of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and St Vincent de Paul a French priest of the seventeenth.

Who was St Valerius?

The bishop of Saragossa who taught and ordained Vincent, was arrested with him, and was sent into exile by Dacian.

The Iter Fidei app carries the Roman Missal of 1962, the Breviary with the lessons of St Vincent, and the traditional calendar, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, 22 January (St Vincent of Saragossa, Martyr; St Anastasius the Persian, Martyr). Roman Breviary (edition before 1960), 22 January, lessons of the second nocturn (in the Breviary of 1962 this third-class feast has a single, contracted lesson). Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 22 January, and Common of several Martyrs. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1912), "St. Vincent".