HELPERS IN REED, THE FOURTEEN:
A group of twice seven saints especially honored in Roman
Catholic Germany since the middle of the fifteenth
century. They belong to various peoples and
periods, and bear the names Achatius, Egidius
(or Giles, q.v.), Barbara, Blasius (Blaise), Catherine
(the Martyr), Christopher, Cyriacus, Dionysius
((Areopagita 7), Erasmus, Eustachius, George, Margaret, Pantaleon, and Vitus. Sporadically the
number is increased to fifteen by the insertion of a
St. Magnus (Bishop Magnus of Oderzo, near Treviso,
in Italian tradition; Abbot Magnus of Fassen-amLech in South German legend). Those not treated
in special articles are the following: (1) Achatius
(more correctly Acacius), is said to have been a
bishop of Melitene in Lesser Armenia, who fearlessly
professed his faith in the Decian persecution and thus
gained mercy from his judge. (2) Blasius, or Blaise,
bishop of Sebaste in Armenia, martyred, according
to tradition, about 316, is said to have possessed
marvelous gifts of healing. (3) Erasmus (Ital.
Elmo), whose death is dated by tradition in 303,
is said, after being unharmed by burning pitch and
brimstone in Lebanon, to have come
to Formise
in Campania, where he converted many heathen
and worked miracles by his prayers. (4). Mar
garet, a Christian virgin, beheaded after incredi
ble tortures at Antioch in Pisidia during the
Diocletian persecution, is said to have prayed in
prison especially for women in childbirth and for
the amelioration of their pangs. (5) Pantaleon is
said to have been Diocletian's physician in Nico
media, and, after marvelous deeds of self-sacrificing
devotion during the first two years of this monarch's
persecution, is supposed to have been tortured and
beheaded. (6) Vitus (Ital. Guido) is said, at the
age of seven or twelve, to have converted' his nurse,
St. Crescentia, and her husband, Modestus, and to
have performed miracles, healing the emperor's son
of demoniac possession. He refused to sacrifice to
idols, and after terrible tortures was drowned in
the Lucanian river Silarus. Each of these saints
is invoked in special forms of danger, as Margaret
in difficult delivery, Vitus in peon by demons
and cramps, &gidius in pestilence, and Barbara in
fever.
The formation of this group of fourteen saints
may date back to 610, when Boniface IV. converted
the Pantheon at Rome into the Christian Church
of the Virgin and the Martyrs, replacing the fourteen
idols in it with an equal number of altars with relics
of martyrs. At all events, the origin of the cult of
this group is far prior to the vision, in 1446, in which
the Upper Franconian shepherd Hermann Leicht
beheld the Christ-child surrounded by the helpers
in need, thus leading to the foundation of the famous
pilgrim shrine of the Vierzehnheiligen-Kirche near
Staffelstein.
(O. Zöckler †..)
Bibliography:
Uhrig, in TQ,
lax
(1888), 72-128; G. Ott,
Die 14. Nothelfer, Steyl, 1882; H. Weber, Die Venhrung
der
14
Aeilipen NoAelfer, Kempten, 1886;
F. Pösl, Lo
pende von den' 1,¢ heiligen Nothelfern, Regeneborg, 1891;
J. Kieffer, Die heilspen 1.¢ Nothelfer, Dulmen, 1900; KL,
ix. 515-522.
