02 — The Passio

The legend itself: the noble, brilliant Christian virgin of Alexandria who confronts the persecuting emperor, and the central episode of the fifty philosophers summoned to refute her whom she instead converts. This section reports the Passio as the late sources attest it, pinning each element to its earliest textual layer per METHODOLOGY §3.5.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Great-Martyr)

This section sets out the core narrative of the Catherine legend. The Narrative gives the developed Passio in sequence — the learned virgin, the confrontation with the emperor (Maximinus in the earliest Greek layer, Maxentius in the West), and the course of the martyrdom — keying each element to its layer and treating the emperor’s identity as a structured dispute. The Debate with the Philosophers treats the legend’s defining episode: the fifty sages confounded, converted, and martyred — the one developed element already present in the earliest datable narrative, and the engine of Catherine’s later patronage of learning.

Section Contents

• The Narrative — the legend: the noble, brilliant Christian virgin; the confrontation with the emperor (Maximinus or Maxentius); the course of the martyrdom, by textual layer
• The Debate with the Philosophers — the fifty philosophers summoned to refute her, whom she converts; their martyrdom; the number fifty as scriptural typology

See Also

• The Source Problem — the dating of the textual layers used here
• The Breaking Wheel — the next stage of the martyrdom
• Patron of Philosophers and Students — the patronage the debate generated
• The Hypatia Question — the learned-virgin motif and the disputed hypothesis
• METHODOLOGY.md — the attestation standard

References

• Symeon Metaphrastes, Passio S. Catharinae (BHG 32), in Migne, Patrologia Graeca 116.
• Menologion of Basil II (Synaxarion), Vat. gr. 1613, c. 976–1000.
• Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend, c. 1260. Trans. W. G. Ryan. Princeton University Press, 1993.
• Çetinbaş, Eylül. Comparative Saints’ Cults of St Catherine of Alexandria. CEU, 2020.