Barbára

Historical scholarship

Passages quoted verbatim from public-domain reference works. They reflect the scholarship of their time, not current consensus, and may use obsolete spellings.

• 1884From the archives

  BARBARA— “stranger”

  Barbara was said to be a maiden of Heliopolis, whose Christianity was revealed by her insisting that a bath-chamber should be built with three windows instead of two, in honour of the chief mystery of the Creed. Her cruel father beheaded her with his own hands, and was immediately destroyed by thunder and lightning. Here, of course, was symbolized the consecration of architecture and the fine arts to express religious ideas, and St. Barbara became the patroness of architects,…

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  Barbara was said to be a maiden of Heliopolis, whose Christianity was revealed by her insisting that a bath-chamber should be built with three windows instead of two, in honour of the chief mystery of the Creed. Her cruel father beheaded her with his own hands, and was immediately destroyed by thunder and lightning. Here, of course, was symbolized the consecration of architecture and the fine arts to express religious ideas, and St. Barbara became the patroness of architects, and thence of engineers, and the protectress from thunder and its mimic, artillery. The powder room in a French ship is still known as _la sainte Barbe_. Her name has thus been widely spread, though chiefly among the daughters of artificers and soldiers, seldom rising to princely rank. Barbara is the feminine of βάρβαρος (a stranger), the term applied by the Greeks to all who did not speak their own tongue.…

  Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part III, Chapter V (Christian Greek Names), Section XI (Barbara) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)