Saint Vincent of Saragossa

Saint Vincent of Saragossa was a deacon who suffered martyrdom in Valencia during the persecution under the emperor Diocletian. He is regarded as the most famous martyr of Spain. The Church commemorates him on January 22.

Only later accounts of his martyrdom tell of his youth, so this information must be taken with caution. According to tradition he came from a distinguished family. Huesca is most often named as his birthplace, but so are Saragossa and Valencia, and the year of his birth is not known. He was educated by Valerius, bishop of Saragossa, who made him his deacon. The account says that the bishop had difficulty speaking and therefore entrusted the preaching of the word of God to Vincent.

When the persecution broke out, the governor Dacian ordered the bishop and the deacon to be imprisoned and then taken in chains to Valencia. He sentenced Valerius to exile, while he subjected Vincent to torture to make him renounce the faith. The Roman Martyrology lists what he endured: prison, hunger, the rack, and red-hot iron plates.

According to the account of his martyrdom, he was then thrown into a dark cell strewn with sharp potsherds. There, as we read, the prison was filled with light, and the guard who saw it came to believe in Christ. Dacian finally ordered the tortured man to be laid on a soft bed, and there Vincent died. This happened around the year 304; the sources do not agree on the exact date.

The story goes on to say that the martyr’s body was left as prey for animals but a raven guarded it, and that when it was thrown into the sea the waves carried it ashore. Christians buried Vincent outside the walls of Valencia, where a church later rose over his tomb. In art he is shown in a deacon’s vestments, with a raven or with a gridiron.

Vincent’s fame spread very quickly throughout the Church. The Spanish poet Prudentius dedicated one of his hymns to him, and Saint Augustine preached several sermons on his day. In them he attests that the account of the martyrdom was read in the churches of Africa and that Vincent’s memory was celebrated throughout the Christian world. He also said that Vincent conquered in him who conquered the world.

In the sixth century Childebert, king of the Franks, brought from Spain to Paris a garment venerated as a relic of Vincent and built a church for it, the later abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. In the twelfth century relics venerated as the saint’s remains were placed in the cathedral of Lisbon. Vincent is the patron of Valencia and Lisbon, and winegrowers look to him as their protector. Tradition places him beside Saints Stephen and Lawrence as one of the three great deacon martyrs. The Church has venerated him since antiquity, long before the processes of canonization came into being.