Blaise, Saint, Martyr (BIAGIO, SANTO, MARTIRE) - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. II, p. 891

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

BIAGIO, saint and martyr. — The details of his life and martyrdom are uncertain and obscure.

According to the Passio, widely circulated though highly fabulous, he was a physician before being elected to the episcopal see of Sebaste in Armenia, his native city. When the persecution of Licinius broke out (307–323), he hid in a cave where he healed beasts that came to him; discovered by some hunters and brought before the prefect Agricolaus, he was subjected to horrible torments. Condemned to capital punishment, as he was being led to execution he performed other miracles, including healing a boy who was choking on a fishbone. Thanks to this prodigy, BIAGIO is invoked especially for throat ailments, and on his feast day (February 3) it is customary to bless throats with two blessed candles. He was widely venerated in the West and was numbered among the Holy Helpers (v.).

In Rome there were 54 churches and oratories dedicated to St BIAGIO. Feast: in the East on February 11, in the West on the 3rd of the same month.

(photo Alinari)

BIAGIO, saint — Martyrdom of the Saint. Predella panel attributed to Vecchietta (c. 1412–80) — Pienza, museum.

BIBL.: BHG, 276–77; BHL, 1370–80; Acta SS. Februarii, I, Paris 1858, pp. 334–57; Ch. Huelsen, Le chiese di Roma nel medioevo, Florence 1927 (see index); A. Pazzini, I Santi nella storia della medicina, Rome 1937, pp. 208–14. Agostino Amore S. BLAISE IN FOLKLORE. — The popular cult of the Saint derives from certain elements of his legend. The episode of St Blaise saving a child by extracting a fishbone from his throat is the one that most strongly struck the popular imagination; hence St Blaise is invoked as a miraculous healer of every form of throat ailment, including diphtheria, and also in cases where food goes down the wrong way. On the day of his feast, which falls on 3 February, “St Blaise buns” of various kinds are made and eaten as acts of devotion in different places. In keeping with other miraculous cures attributed to St Blaise in legend, his protection is also invoked against various ailments of men and animals.

Since the instruments of torture mentioned in the legend include iron combs, and this is one of his distinctive attributes in iconography—as seen, for example, in the painting by Domenico Ghirlandaio (Galleria Mazzarosa, Lucca)—the Saint has been chosen as the patron of wool carders. He is also venerated as the protector of farmers, who in some places (for example, in France) celebrate him with a procession featuring decorated carts and costumed groups. Some ethnographers see in this the substitution of a previous pagan cult of some rural deity whose feast coincided with the same date. The Saint is also invoked by working-class girls to find a husband.

BIBL.: H. Ling Roth, Bishop Blaise, martyr and woolcombers' patron, Halifax 1915; A. van Gennep, Le culte populaire de st Clair et de st Blaise en Savoie, in Rev. Ethnogr. Pop., 5 (1924); K. Künste, Ikonographie der christl. Kunst., II, Freiburg in Br. 1926, pp. 137-39. Paolo Toschi