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An obscure Egyptian wins the double crown of virgin-martyr

The armies of Alexander the Great swept south and east from Greece three hundred and thirty years before the infant Jesus ever gently swayed in His Mother’s arms. After Alexander conquered Egypt, he founded a new coastal city and crowned it after himself. Alexandria, Constantinople, Caesarea, Antioch, and numerous other foundations gratified the colossal egos of the mighty men who laid deep foundations and raised high walls to commemorate themselves and their patrons. How different from the Christian era and its venerable custom of naming places in honor of the Lord, Mary, and the Saints—San Francisco, Christchurch, El Salvador, Sao Paolo, Asunción, and on and on. Today’s saint—Catherine of Alexandria—appropriates Alexander’s name for Christianity, something beyond the imagining of that Greek pagan of old.

Saint Catherine of Alexandria was a virgin-martyr from the waning years of the persecuted Church in the early fourth century. Reliable documentation about her life may still lie undiscovered in a dusty codex whose heft is sagging a shelf in a neglected monastic library. Until such authentic corroboration of her life is brought to light, however, the total absence of verifiable facts make...