Melania the younger

Icon of Saint Melania

Melania or Melanie the Younger (* 383 in Rome , † December 31, 439 on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem in Palestine ) was a Christian saint .

Life

Melania belonged to the upper class of Rome. Her father Valerius Publicola was a senator from the gens Valeria , a powerful and wealthy family, and owned a palace in the middle of Rome and numerous estates throughout the empire. In 378 he married the noblewoman Albina Ceionia from the influential gens Ceionia , from which Ceionius Rufius Albinus came, who was 335 consul. Melania was probably the only (surviving) child in this marriage. It was named after the elder Melania , her paternal grandmother. She had already left Rome and her only child Publicola in 372 and, like other noble Roman women like Paula and her daughter Eustochium, settled as a Christian ascetic in Jerusalem and founded a monastery there.

In 382 Jerome came to Rome as an advisor and secretary to Pope Damasus , where he had a strong spiritual influence during the short period of his stay and cast a spell over many young people from the circles of the Senate nobility, especially women. He combined the ancient Roman virtues handed down in the Roman upper class with the Christian ideal of an ascetic lifestyle. Melania's mother was deeply impressed by him. Even though Jerome left Rome in 384, Melania grew up with these ideals. She received a good education and spoke fluent Greek in addition to Latin.

Although Melania would have preferred to lead an ascetic life as a virgin , under pressure from the family she had to marry at the age of 13; her husband Pinianus , who also came from the gens Valeria , was 17 years old. The huge property should be kept in the family. The first child, a daughter, dedicated Melania to virginity. She died as a toddler. When Melania barely survived the delivery of her second child, a stillborn son, she decided to abstain. Around 400 her grandmother, the elder Melania, returned to Rome from her monastery on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Her influence is probably due to Pinian's promise to respect Melania's desire for chastity in the future , as well as the decision to leave all earthly prosperity behind and to devote himself entirely to the Christian faith.

In 404, Melania's father died after giving her permission to use the inheritance for pious purposes. Since Melania was not legally competent as a woman and her husband was still a minor and was under the Patria Potestas , her relatives were initially able to legally prevent her from squandering the family property. But Melania turned to Serena , the wife of Stilicho , army master and actual ruler of the Western Roman Empire . This, a pious Christian, asked the Emperor Flavius Honorius , her son-in-law, to intervene in favor of the transfer of the property. In fact, in Stilicho's absence, Honorius issued a decree that lifted the legal guardianship of the underage couple and allowed Melania to dispose of their property. As a result, the relationship between the Christian imperial court and the partly still polytheistic senate deteriorated. The dispute, which Stilicho settled after lengthy negotiations, flared up again later and contributed to the destabilization of the empire.

Melania sold her belongings in Rome, released around 8,000 slaves of their goods, including at least 50,000 slaves - the others preferred a secure existence to freedom - and bought more people out of debt slavery. She gave the rest of her property to the poor, churches and monasteries. With this she wanted to obey the biblical commandment Mt 19,21 LUT . Only a few years before Rome was sacked in 410 the family, accompanied by a large retinue of eunuchs, virgins and slaves, left the city and went via Sicily to North Africa, where they owned estates everywhere. Their former properties in Rome and the surrounding area were destroyed by the Visigoths.

Together with her grandmother, her husband and her mother, Melania traveled through North Africa for several years and visited famous theologians such as Paulinus of Nola , a relative, Rufinus of Aquileia , Augustine and Cyrillus as well as the monasteries and desert fathers - among which there were also numerous women - in Egypt. In Thagaste she founded a church and two monasteries, one for 80 men and one for 130 virgins. In Egypt she supported the desert fathers financially.

In 417 she moved to the Holy Land with her husband. There she also learned Hebrew so that she could read the original version of the Old Testament. After Pinianus' death in 431 she lived as a hermit in a tent on the Mount of Olives, where she founded and taught a women's monastery in honor of her mother and a men's monastery in memory of her husband. These monasteries served to care for the pilgrims , but also to care for the poor in the city itself. They also had a chapel built to commemorate the Ascension of Christ on the Mount of Olives. Like her grandmother, mother and other ascetics, Melania was in written contact with important theologians such as Augustine and John Chrysostom . However, none of their writings have survived.

In 436 she traveled to Constantinople , according to her biographer Gerontius, primarily to convert her uncle Volusianus, the Praefectus urbi of Rome, to Christianity before his death. She also met the emperor Theodosius II and the wives of the imperial family and was the wedding of the emperor's daughter Licinia Eudoxia with the western Roman emperor Valentinian III. present. After Melania returned to Jerusalem, Empress Aelia Eudocia visited her on her pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Melania died in Jerusalem on December 31, 439. When she died, the formerly richest woman in the Roman Empire still owned 50 gold pieces, which she left with the local bishop Juvenal of Jerusalem for social projects.

Adoration

Melania was venerated as an ascetic, spiritual teacher, donor and miracle worker during her lifetime.

Not long after her death (before 455), her student, the priest Gerontius, who also took over the supervision and care of her monasteries, wrote a vita on her. The client was a bishop who was not named, the addressees are probably to be found in the ascetic community. The chronological representation of her life lacks all contact with the heretical currents of her time. Melania's grandmother of the same name is also not mentioned, presumably because she was suspected of heresy because of her involvement in the originalist argument and because of her close connection with Pelagius and Caelestius themselves.

Her attributes are cabbage (avoiding lavish food) and skull .

literature

Catherine Chin / Caroline Schroeder (eds.): Melania. Early Christianity through the Life of One Family . Oakland / CA. University of California Press 2017 (Christianity in Late Antiquity 2) ( review in Plekos 19, 2017, pp. 53-73).

Web links

Melanie in the dictionary of saints
Gerontius: The life of St. Melania
A. Mertens: Melania, the Younger (Junior). In: Who was a Christian in the Holy Land? Archived from the original on March 5, 2016 ; accessed on August 29, 2015 .

Individual evidence

↑ Melania's family tree
↑ Uta Heil: Hieronymus (AT). In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.
↑ Maria Heine: The spirituality of ascetic women. From the desert mothers to urban asceticism in the Eastern Mediterranean and Rome from the 3rd to the 5th century . Münster 2008, p. 152f.
^ Tido Janßen: Stilicho. The Western Roman Empire from the death of Theodosius to the assassination of Stilichos (395–408). Marburg 2004, p. 161.
↑ Griet Petersen-Szemerédey: Between cosmopolitan city and desert. Roman ascetic women in late antiquity . Göttingen 1993, p. 60 .
↑ Griet Petersen-Szemerédey: Between cosmopolitan city and desert: Roman ascetics in late antiquity . Göttingen 1993, p. 46 .
↑ ^a ^b Despoina Ariantz: Roman aristocrats as pilgrims and donors in the Holy Land (4th-5th centuries) , pp. 231–241; P. 234 (pdf, accessed July 4, 2020)
↑ Despoina Ariantz: Roman aristocrats as pilgrims and donors in the Holy Land , p. 236.
↑ Maria Heine: The spirituality of ascetic women. From the desert mothers to urban asceticism in the Eastern Mediterranean and Rome from the 3rd to the 5th century . Münster 2008, pp. 147–150.

personal data
SURNAME	Melania the younger
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Melanie the younger
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	catholic and orthodox saints
DATE OF BIRTH	383
PLACE OF BIRTH	Rome
DATE OF DEATH	December 31, 439
Place of death	Mount of Olives near Jerusalem

[1] Melania's family tree

[2] Uta Heil: Hieronymus (AT). In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.

[3] Maria Heine: The spirituality of ascetic women. From the desert mothers to urban asceticism in the Eastern Mediterranean and Rome from the 3rd to the 5th century . Münster 2008, p. 152f.

[4] Tido Janßen: Stilicho. The Western Roman Empire from the death of Theodosius to the assassination of Stilichos (395–408). Marburg 2004, p. 161.

[5] Griet Petersen-Szemerédey: Between cosmopolitan city and desert. Roman ascetic women in late antiquity . Göttingen 1993, p. 60 .

[6] Griet Petersen-Szemerédey: Between cosmopolitan city and desert: Roman ascetics in late antiquity . Göttingen 1993, p. 46 .

[DA234-7] Despoina Ariantz: Roman aristocrats as pilgrims and donors in the Holy Land (4th-5th centuries) , pp. 231–241; P. 234 (pdf, accessed July 4, 2020)

[8] Despoina Ariantz: Roman aristocrats as pilgrims and donors in the Holy Land , p. 236.

[9] Maria Heine: The spirituality of ascetic women. From the desert mothers to urban asceticism in the Eastern Mediterranean and Rome from the 3rd to the 5th century . Münster 2008, pp. 147–150.