04 — Sources and the Legend
The source-critical heart of the collection. These files weigh the documents on which the whole tradition rests: the legendary Greek Passio (BHG 1165–1167) and its Latin counterpart, their character and date, and the ancient reservation of such acta in the Gelasian Decree tradition — set out with both sides; and then the decisive matter of identity, the one saint who is Marina in the East and Margaret in the West, the Crusader-era transmission that carried her cult westward, and the Golden Legend that fixed her Latin fame.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Great Martyr; virgin-martyr)
Everything the collection has reported — the shepherd-girl, Olybrius, the tortures, the dragon, the demon — descends from the Passio, and the honest assessment of that text is the precondition for everything else. This section provides it. The first file weighs the Passio itself and the famous (and frequently misunderstood) fact that the legends of martyrs like Marina and George were named among the acta “written by heretics or fools” in the Gelasian tradition — a reservation about the texts, the file shows, and not a denial of the saints. The second file establishes the Marina/Margaret identity in full and traces the cult’s passage from the Greek East to the Latin West, where the Golden Legend made Margaret of Antioch one of the most famous saints in Christendom.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Passio and the Gelasian Decree | The legendary Passio (BHG 1165–1167): its character, date, and recensions; and the Gelasian Decree tradition that named such acta among the dubious — like St. George’s Acts — with the question handled on both sides: a reservation about the text, not the saint. |
| Marina and Margaret, East and West | The one saint, two names: the scholarly identification of the Greek Marina with the Latin Margaret; the Marína/Margarita name-shift; the Crusader-era transmission of the cult to the West; and the Golden Legend that carried it across Latin Christendom. |
See Also
- The Historical Core — the thin record this section’s source-analysis underlies
- Swallowed by the Dragon — the Golden Legend’s own “apocryphal” flag on the central episode
- Reading the Marina Tradition — the method built on this source-analysis
- St. George the Great Martyr — the closest parallel: a dragon-saint whose acta were likewise reserved in the Gelasian Decree
- Orthodox and Catholic — the two traditions whose shared and divergent veneration this section maps
References
- Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca (BHG), 3rd ed., ed. François Halkin. Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1957.
- Decretum Gelasianum, ed. Ernst von Dobschütz, TU 38.4. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1912.
- Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend, “St. Margaret.” Trans. Ryan. Princeton, 1993.
- Larson, Wendy R. “The Role of Patronage and Audience in the Cults of Sts Margaret and Marina of Antioch.” In Gender and Holiness. London: Routledge, 2002.