Blaise, Saint, Martyr

BLAISE, Saint, Martyr. - The accounts of his life and martyrdom are uncertain and obscure.

According to the widely circulated though highly fanciful Passio, he was a physician before being elected to the episcopal see of Sebaste in Armenia, his native city. When the persecution of Licinius (307-23) broke out, he is said to have hidden in a cave, where he tended the animals that came running to him; discovered by some hunters and brought before the governor Agricolaus, he was subjected to horrible torments. Condemned to capital punishment, while being led to execution he is said to have, among other miracles, healed a boy who was about to suffocate from having swallowed a fish bone. Thanks to this prodigy, B. is invoked especially for ailments of the throat, which on the day of his feast (Feb. 3) are customarily blessed by placing two blessed candles against them. He was widely venerated in the West, and was numbered among the helper saints (v.). In Rome 54 churches and oratories were dedicated to St. B. Feast: in the East Feb. 11, in the West the 3rd of the same month.

Agostino Amore

ST. BLAISE IN FOLKLORE

The popular cult of the saint originates from certain elements of his legend. The episode of St. B. saving the boy by drawing a fish bone from his throat is the one that most strongly struck the popular imagination: for this reason St. B. is invoked as a miraculous healer of every form of throat ailment, including diphtheria, as also in the case of a morsel going down the wrong way. On the day of his feast, which falls on February 3, the "little loaves of St. B." are made and eaten out of devotion, in different types for different places. In correspondence with other miraculous healings attributed to St. B. by the legend, his protection is also invoked for various illnesses of men and animals.

And since, among the instruments with which he was tortured, the legend indicates above all the iron combs, and in iconography this is one of his distinctive attributes, as appears, for example, in the image painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio (Mazzarosa gallery, Lucca), the saint has been chosen as patron of wool carders. He is also venerated as patron of peasants, who celebrate him in certain places (for example, in France) with a procession composed of decorated carts and groups in costume. Some ethnographers see in this the replacement of a previous pagan cult of some rural divinity whose feast fell on the same date. The saint is also invoked by girls of the common people to find a husband.

Paolo Toschi