:Saints:

:Oleum martyris is Manna Oil of the Saints, an oil or oily water which is said flows from relics, burial places, or wells near burial places of certain saints. The oils can cure bodily and spiritual ailments. In the days of St. Paulinus of Nola (d. 431) the custom was of pouring oil over the relics or reliquaries of martyrs to distribute as a remedy

"Paulini Nolani Carmen," XVIII, lines 38-40 and "Carmen," XXI, lines 590-600, in "Corpus Script. Eccl. Latinorum" (Vienna, 1866 sq.), XXX, 98, 177

In about 470 Paulinus of Pétrigeux in Gaul writes that the custom was also used with the relics of St. Martin of Tours, who was not a martyr.

"Paulini Petricordiæ Carmen de vita S. Martini," V, 101 sq. in "Corpus Script. Eccl. Lat.," XVI, 111).

St. Augustine mentions that a dead man was resurrected by the oil of St. Stephen.

"De Civitate Dei," XXII

Walburgis oleum, the Oil of St. Walburga, is the most famous oil of the saints. It flows from the stone slab and the surrounding metal plate under her relics in her church in Eichstädt, Bavaria. The fluid is collected in a silver chalice and distributed in small vials by the Sisters of St. Benedict. Standard chemical analysis can only identify water, so the active chemistry is undoubtedly m-state minerals. Mention of the oil of St. Walburga in the ninth century is by her biographer Wolfhard of Herrieden

"Acta SS.," Feb., III, 562-3 and "Mon. Germ. Script.," XV, 535 sq.

In 1905-8, thousands of little flasks with the inscriptions like: EULOGIA TOU AGIOU MENA (Remembrance of St. Menas) were excavated by C.M. Kaufmann at Baumma (Karm Abum) in the desert of Mareotis, in the northern Libyan desert. The Bumma is the burial place of Libyan martyr Menas, which in the fifth and sixth century was a famous pilgrimage. Flasks of Oil of St. Menas are found by archeologists in Africa, Spain, Italy, Dalmatia, France, and Russia. They contain water from a holy well near the shrine of St. Menas.

Oil of St. Nicholas of Myra emanates from his relics at Bari, Italy, where they were brought in 1087 just as it did when they were in Myra.

St. Gregory of Tours ("De Gloria martyrum," xxx, P.L., LXXI, 730) testifies that a flour emanated from the sepulchre of John the Evangelist. He writes (ibid., xxxi) that from the sepulchre of the Apostle St. Andrew at Patræ emanated manna in the form of flour and fragrant oil.
Some of the other saints from whose relics or sepulchres oil flows are:

• St. Antipas, Bishop of Pergamum, martyred under Emperor Domitian ("Acta SS.," April, II, 4);
• St. Babolenus, Abbot of St-Maur-des-Fossés near Paris, d. in the seventh century ("Acta SS.," June, VII, 160);
• St. Candida the Younger of Naples, d. 586 ("Acta SS.," Sept., II, 230);
• St. Demetrius of Thessalonica, martyred in 306 or 290 ("Acta SS.," Oct., IV, 73-8);
• St. Eligius, Bishop of Noyon, d. 660 or soon after (Surius, "De probatis sanctorum historiis," VI, 678);
• St. Euthymius the Great, abbot in Palestine, d. 473 ("Acta SS.," Jan., II, 687);
• St. Fantinus, confessor, at Tauriano in Calabria, d. under Constantine the Great ("Acta SS.," July, V, 556);
• St. Felix of Nola, priest, died about 260 ("Acta SS.," Jan., II, 223);
• St. Franca, Cistercian abbess, d. 1218 ("Acta SS.," April, III, 393-4);
• St. Glyceria, martyred during the reign of Antoninus Pius ("Acta SS.," May, III, 191);
• Bl. Gundecar, Bishop of Eichstädt, d. 1075 ("Acta SS.," August, I, 184);
• St. Humilitas, first abbess of the Vallombrosian Nuns, d. 1310 ("Acta SS.," May, V, 211);
• St. John the Almsgiver, Patriarch of Alexandria, d. 620 or 616 ("Acta SS.,", Jan., III, 130-1);
• St. John on Beverley, Bishop of York, d. 721 ("Acta SS.," May, II, 192);
• St. Luke the Younger, surnamed Thaumaturgos, a hermit in Greece, d. 945-6 ("Acta SS.," Feb., II, 99);
• St. Paphnutius, bishop and martyr in Greece, d. probably in the fourth century ("Acta SS.," April, II, 620);
• St. Paul, Bishop of Verdun, d. 648 ("Acta SS.," Feb., II, 174);
• St. Perpetuus, Bishop of Tongres-Utrecht, d. 630 ("Acta SS.," Nov., II, 295);
• St. Peter González, Dominican, d. 1246 ("Acta SS.," April, II, 393);
• St. Peter Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Argos, d. about 890 ("Acta SS.," May, I, 432);
• St. Rolendis, virgin, at Gerpinnes in Belgium, d. in the seventh or eighth century ("Acta SS.," May, III, 243);
• St. Reverianus, Bishop of Autun, and Companions, martyred about 273 ("Acta SS.," June, I, 40-1);
• St. Sabinus, Bishop of Canosa, d. about 566 ("Acta SS.," Feb., II, 329);
• St. Sigolena, Abbess of Troclar, d. about 700 ("Acta SS.," July, V, 636);
• St. Tillo Paulus, a Benedictine monk at Solignac in Gaul, d. 703 ("Acta SS.," Jan., I, 380);
• St. Venerius, hermit on the Island of Palamaria in the gulf of Genoa, d. in the seventh century ("Acta SS.," Sept., IV, 118);
• St. William, Archbishop of York, d. 1154 ("Acta SS.," June, II, 140)

Manna-oil of the Saints