The Life
Catherine was born in Alexandria around the year 287 to one of the most powerful families in Egypt. She was famous for her beauty and even more famous for her brilliance. By the age of eighteen she had read the great Greek philosophers, the medical writers, the poets. She told her parents she would only marry a man wiser, nobler, richer, and more beautiful than herself. A holy elder told her about One who answered all four. He gave her an icon of the Mother of God. After two visions, the Lord himself accepted her as his bride and placed a ring on her hand. When the Emperor Maximian came to Alexandria for a great pagan festival, Catherine confronted him publicly. He brought fifty philosophers to debate her. She converted every one of them. Maximian had her tortured and finally beheaded. She was eighteen years old.
Alexandria in those days was the greatest city of the eastern empire, home to the famous Library, full of philosophers and physicians and poets. Catherine was the governor’s daughter. She had everything: wealth, beauty, position, the best teachers money could find. By eighteen she had read Homer and Virgil, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, the medical writings of Hippocrates and Galen. She knew several languages. The whole city talked about her. And yet she was restless. Nothing she had learned answered the questions of her heart.
Many noble young men of the empire wanted to marry Catherine. She refused them all. She told her parents that she would only marry a man who surpassed her in four things: more nobly born, more rich, more beautiful, and wiser than she was herself. Her parents were upset. Where would such a man be found? Her mother, who was secretly a Christian, took her to a holy elder living in a cave outside the city. The elder listened carefully and then smiled. “I know one who answers all four,” he said.
Catherine took the icon home and prayed in front of it for hours. That night she had a vision. She saw the Mother of God holding the Christ-child. The Theotokos asked her Son to look upon Catherine. But the Christ-child turned his face away, saying she was not yet beautiful enough for him. Catherine awoke in tears and ran back to the elder. He instructed her further in the Christian faith and baptized her. The next night she had a second vision. This time the Christ-child looked upon her with great love and accepted her as his bride. He placed a ring on her finger and told her: “Keep this trust forever.” When she woke up, the ring was still there.
Around the year 305, the Emperor Maximian came to Alexandria for a great pagan festival. The whole city was full of sacrifices to the idols. Christians who refused to sacrifice were being thrown into the fires. Catherine could not stand it. She walked straight into the temple where the emperor was sacrificing, presented herself to him, and openly confessed her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. She told the emperor, with all the philosophical learning she had, that the gods of the empire were nothing, and that the only true God had become man and had been crucified for the salvation of the world. The emperor was struck dumb by her boldness and her beauty.
Determined not to be embarrassed by a young woman, the Emperor Maximian sent across the empire for the fifty most learned philosophers and rhetoricians he could find. They came to Alexandria to debate Saint Catherine. She answered every one of them. She quoted their own pagan poets and philosophers against them. She showed them how the deepest things they had said pointed toward Christ. The Holy Spirit gave her the words. By the end of the debate the fifty philosophers were on their knees, confessing Christ as Lord. The emperor, in a rage, ordered all fifty burned alive. They went to the fire singing, baptized in their own blood.
Catherine was tortured and thrown into prison. The Empress Augusta, Maximian’s own wife, had heard of the maiden’s witness and could not stop thinking about her. She persuaded the captain of the imperial guard, a man named Porphyry, to take her secretly to the prison. They went with two hundred soldiers. When they entered the cell, Catherine’s face shone with grace. She taught them about Christ. The Empress, Porphyry, and all two hundred soldiers confessed Christ that night. When the Emperor found out the next day, he was beside himself with rage. He had his own wife tortured and beheaded. Porphyry and the soldiers were executed the same day. Saint Augusta is honored together with Saint Catherine on her feast.
The emperor decided to make a final example of Catherine. He had a horrible machine built: four great wheels with iron spikes, joined to break a body apart between them. They led Catherine out of the prison to face it. She prayed. As the wheel was set in motion, an angel of the Lord came down and shattered it into a thousand pieces, and many of the pagan onlookers were killed by the flying parts. Maximian, in a final fury, ordered her beheaded. Catherine prayed her last prayer and laid her own head on the block. The synaxarion says that milk, not blood, flowed from her wound. She was eighteen years old. The angels came and carried her body to Mount Sinai, where Moses had seen the burning bush.
Saint Paul calls Christ “the wisdom of God.” Saint Catherine’s whole life is the proof. She had read all the wisdom the world could give her, and she had not found rest. When the Holy Spirit showed her Christ, she recognized him at once: this is the Wisdom my soul was looking for. From that day she was his bride. The fifty philosophers she converted at Alexandria saw the same thing. The Empress, Porphyry, and the two hundred soldiers saw the same thing. The deep wisdom of God is not an idea; he is a person.
Saint Catherine had everything the world counts as glory: noble birth, great wealth, learning, beauty, position. She gave it all up for Christ, but not by losing any of it. She brought all of it to the foot of the Cross. Her learning argued the philosophers into the Kingdom. Her beauty made the Emperor afraid. Her noble birth gave her access to the Empress. Her wealth fed the Christians of her city. Her youth kept her standing when others failed. Christ took every gift she had and made every one of them holy. He does the same for any soul that gives itself to him as Catherine did.